By Joe Winter
Catholic Herald correspondent

Growing Pains: Diocesan parishes
feel effects of Twin Cities growth

HUDSON -- Catholic parishes in St. Croix County and beyond are having the same growing pains as other institutions as thousands of people move from the Twin Cities to greener pastures across the St. Croix River.

How fast the wave of growth has hit varies by location. Hudson is virtually at its apex, and that will soon happen at River Falls, where parishioner numbers continue to rise, causing officials to mull over building plans.

Hammond's surge is just starting, and soon urban sprawl will hit Amery even harder, as shown by the fact that commuters can find a park and ride facility only a few miles down the highway to the Twin Cities.

In fact, when construction of a new St. Joseph Church in Amery began, extra space for expansion of the worship area was part of the plan -- even though the new facility already will be much bigger than the old one.

"The growth that's come the way of St. Patrick Church was expected and has been addressed in plans, including the building of a much larger church in Hudson in the early 1990s," said Fr. Peter Szleszinski, pastor.

"At the moment, we are set," he said, although projections for the next 10 years are that the rate of parishioner growth may actually increase somewhat. In the past 10 years, membership has grown by about 100 each year.

The growth has been made more manageable because Hudson has a mobile population where workers may leave for better opportunities or be transferred across the country or world. Those departures, not unusual where the vast majority of people commute into the Twin Cities to places such as 3-M Co., make sure parish growth "doesn't go wild," Szleszinski said.

Growth at Immaculate Conception Church in New Richmond has been slower and is expected to flatten in the next few years, with older couples building second or third homes and not contributing much to the census of the parish school officials said.

A parish long-range plan that will extend to year 2005 will address many issues about "the growth of the population as it relates to age," a statement said. Oddly one church where you'd expect serious growth in numbers has stayed basically the same, and officials say a reason is longstanding delays in building a new four lane bridge at Stillwater, Minn.

Fr. James Brinkman, pastor at St. Anne Parish in Somerset, said he would like to see more growth as a parish as well as a new bridge. "Some of the old timers from 30 years back don't think they will ever see it built," Brinkman said, noting the legal wrangling that has kept the span from being approved.

The church has a capacity of 700, but the parish population has stayed at about 600 family units for the past four years. "We could double the size of the parish and still not need to build a new church," Brinkman said, adding he's not sure all three Masses even are needed. "We're waiting for the storm but it hasn't come," he said. "Right now we are surviving so that later we may thrive."

Despite that, St. Anne's is considering the addition of a gathering space to the church, a renovation that would join together the church and rectory, and adding a seventh and eighth grade classroom at the parish school. Other long-range projects involve possible installation of an elevator and other facilities to make the church accessible to disabled people.

After conducting a survey, a planning committee led an effort to hire YHR Partners of Minneapolis as consultants for the proposed projects. The plans were discussed at a recent parish meeting.

The Superior diocese in the late 1990s had proposed a new church for an area between Hudson and River Falls, to be built by 2005. However, Fr. Gerald Harris, pastor at St. Bridget Parish in River Falls, said he hasn't heard any "rumblings" about the plan for awhile.

In some ways such as this one, the growth of the church can be linked to the health of the economy, Harris said. Another factor relating to those two is the money that comes in from the collection plate. Church officials don't talk about this advantage as much as the evangelization focus, but they acknowledge that new residents create a previously untapped market for church giving.

The St. Bridget Parish Council, buoyed by the fact that almost all its debt has been paid off, has approved hiring an architect to study the entire parish campus and assess needs involving future growth. No firm plans are in place, but preliminary sketches have been made and initial recommendations should be available early in 2001.

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