Denison parish holds groundbreaking

By Julie Keane, Globe staff reporter
May 6, 2004

DENISON - The rain did not stop St. Rose of Lima parishioners from attending the May 2 Rite of Groundbreaking, which was the official start to building their new church.

The groundbreaking ceremony was held 1st Ave South and 10th Street, the location where the new church will be built. The ceremony started with an opening prayer and followed with a Scripture reading from the First Letter of Paul to the Ephesians. Both Father Edward Murray, pastor of St. Rose of Lima and Msgr. Roger Augustine, diocesan administrator, gave a reflection to honor the occasion.

"On behalf of the Diocese of Sioux City, we want to congratulate you people of St. Rose of Lima Parish for this endeavor of building a new church where God will call you to worship," said Msgr. Augustine. "Yesterday (May 1) morning I spoke with Bishop DiNardo, he gave his regards and his happiness to each and everyone of you on this new event."

A prayer was then offered at the site where the new church will be built. Msgr. Augustine blessed the site with holy water and incense was lit and aired over the land and crowd.

Msgr. Augustine, Father Murray and parishioners from St. Rose of Lima turned the earth signifying the start of the buildings process. A reception followed in the parish hall for those that attended the ceremony.

"We are all excited and refreshed that we have finally gotten to this point," Paul Assman, chair of the church committee, said. "It has been a long and very interesting process getting to this point. There has been a lot of hard work by the parishioners, which is all volunteer, to bring the project together. A lot of us have been involved in this project in some way, shape or form for the last 10 years."

Assman said in 1994 Denison parishioners started to explore possibilities of building a new church. Due to the site, size and structure of the current church, the parish opted to build a new church instead of renovating the original.

"We are building a new church because our current church is very poorly located," Assman said. "I think this is going to give people a lot more facility to entry, to gather and to socialize. Liturgically speaking and from a parish standpoint, this gives us the opportunity to do things that we can't currently do with our present church."

Marilyn Grote, St. Rose of Lima parishioner, said the new church will allow more freedom to gather together with Hispanic parishioners, which is sometimes hard in their current church.

"I guess I hope that it (the new church building) brings more of us together," Grote said. "At this point I feel that we are segregated, and we don't do a lot of things together. I hope that this makes us get together more."

Barb Songer, St. Rose of Lima parishioner, said she is glad to start the long-awaited building process.

"I feel like this is a relief because we have been working on this for 10 years and its finally going to be a reality," said Songer, parishioner. "I think its important we attend to show support for our church community and that we are all behind this project."