St. Michael’s hosts last Sunday mass in old building

Parishioners at St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church in downtown Auburn will attend their last Sunday masses today in the home they have known since the 1960s. Next week, they will make their way to a new and bigger church about a mile-and-a-half away.

The Catholic community was established in Lee County in 1910 when priests were sought from the Congregation of the Mission, better know as the Vincentian Fathers, a Roman Catholic community of priests and brothers founded by Saint Vincent DePaul.

Since then, the local Catholic community has grown significantly, and with that growth, comes a new beginning, or, more specifically, new buildings.

In the last 10 years alone, the church has grown from 450 households to 800, said the Rev. Bill Skoneki, the priest at St. Michael’s. That’s excluding students.

Although the church is moving, the time spent in the current building will not be forgotten, Skoneki said.

“I think there are a lot of people who have been here a long time who certainly have a lot of memories associated with this building,” he said.

Nevertheless, times, and demographics, have changed, Skoneki said.

He’s seen the Catholic community transition from one that was mostly university oriented, to one that represents the community as a whole.

“I think the biggest change probably — although the students and university-associated people are certainly a big presence — now there are an equal number of people who are not students,” Skoneki said.

Choices on a parish census conducted in 1966, the year the current church was built, included Auburn University student, wife of Auburn University student, employee of Auburn University, wife of an employee of Auburn University and “other,” he said.

“Now the ‘other’ is 50 percent (of the congregation),” he said. “More people are nonstudent, more of the people who are here as families are not from the university. That’s the big difference. We have people from all six inhabitable continents. We have people from dozens of countries.“

And with that population growth came the need for a new church.

Currently, 1,300 people show up for the weekend masses.

“Our current church seats about 300 people. We have an average of 450 for the 10 a.m. mass,” Skoneki said.

In other words, mass is standing-room only.

Leigh Cannon is 91 and has attended St. Michael’s since 1948, when the church was housed in a different building and called by a different name, Sacred Heart.

“Sacred Heart held about 90 people; we’ve gone from 90 to over 500. We really have grown,” Cannon said. “They (the churches) get bigger and better, we really can’t complain.“

Cannon said St. Michael’s is a special place, and moving won’t change that.

“The philosophy of the church has not changed. The church that makes everybody want to be here …” she said. “It’s a really warm feeling in this church.”
Cannon and other parishioners helped build the current St. Michael’s by raising money and creating a building fund. She said she will not be sad to move.
“This church will carry on over there, we’re not changing anything except the location,” she said.

Don and Katherine Vives are the longest-attending married couple at St. Michael’s.

“We’re definitely outgrowing the old church,” Don, 83, said.

Katherine added, “It marvelous to see it grow. When we first came here there just weren’t that many of us.”

The move to the new building, which was built to expand with the growing church population, is set for 10 a.m. Dec. 6. The Most Rev. Thomas J. Rodi, archbishop of Mobile, will lead the dedication.

ST. MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL CATHOLIC CHURCH

* In 1910, Bishop Edward. P Allen requested priests from the Congregation of the Mission to serve in Alabama. At that time there was no Catholic church serving in a 10-county district, which included Lee County and other counties in east and central Alabama.

* Legend has it that the building of the first church, erected in 1912, came about because the male students at Alabama Polytechnic Institute (later to become Auburn University) were required to go to church. Because there was no Catholic church, many signed up for the denomination.

* Allen dedicated Sacred Heart Church on Nov. 10, 1912.

* The current St. Michael’s was built on East Magnolia Avenue in 1966.

* The new St. Michael’s, located at 1100 North College St., opens Dec. 6.