Earlier this year, the Diocese of Joliet announced a major restructuring that involves closing some churches and schools, mostly in Joliet, and merging some parishes. The plan is aimed at reducing costs for the diocese, which is facing decreasing attendance, staffing shortages and mounting expenses from aging facilities.

The church closures and combinations will bring the existing 16 parishes in the Joliet Deanery down to seven.

The five churches that are closing at the end of June are St. Bernard, St. Anthony, St. Jude, Sacred Heart – all in Joliet – and St. Anne in Crest Hill.

The Herald-News reached out to members of these churches to get their reflections and to share their memories as the parishes marked their final time holding Holy Week Masses.

St. Anne

This weekend will mark the last Easter Mass celebrated at St. Anne Catholic Church in Crest Hill.

The small church, located at 1800 Dearborn St., has been serving the Crest Hill community since it was established under former pastor Felix Matasso in 1953. Matasso later went on to establish the neighboring parish, St. Ambrose, which the Diocese of Joliet announced that St. Anne will be combining with in July.

Although the two parishes functioned separately for decades, they have had a close relationship for about 20 years, when they began sharing a pastor. They also have a shared religious education program.

“We were not shocked when it was announced,” said Crest Hill Mayor Ray Soliman, who has been a parishioner at St. Anne for 45 years. “We’ve been hearing talk about consolidation and merging. We knew it was coming. Most of us have been to Mass at both churches many times over the years. It’s still the same Mass, just a different building.”

The churches already have consolidated their online presence and offices to refer to the parish as Saints Anne and Ambrose, and the parishes’ deacon, Dick McCowan, said they have been preparing parishioners who are saddened by the change.

“We have held two prayer and sharing gatherings already, and we will be hosting opportunities for sharing memories of the parish this spring,” McCowan said. “Parishioners are experiencing a wide variety of emotions, as parents of many of our parishioners helped build the church both physically and financially.”

“It’s like going to Grandma’s house every Sunday, and now you can’t go anymore. I know it shouldn’t be about the place. But it is.”

—  Lisa Morales, parishioner of St. Bernard Catholic Church

“As the mayor, I’m always disappointed to see a business close in the city of Crest Hill,” Soliman said. “As a parishioner I am also sad, but for the past 18 months, our parish has been preparing for this merger with St. Ambrose. I know that change is difficult, but I will trust in my faith to grow with these changes to build a stronger church for the good of our community.”

Soliman said that he trusts the Diocese of Joliet will “be a good neighbor” and maintain the property until it can be sold or repurposed.

St. Bernard

Dana Herman of Joliet said most of her memories of St. Bernard Catholic Church are woven with St. Bernard Catholic School, which was across the street and no longer is standing.

Herman fondly recalled school Masses, her confirmation in seventh grade, May crownings and all-class choir practices for holy days under the direction of the late Sister Rita Pawlik.

“I loved every one of the nuns,” Herman said, “even when I got into trouble.”

She can’t attend Mass every Sunday now due to her work schedule, but when Herman does go, she said St. Bernard “is where I want to go.”

Herman said everyone was like family in the big and beautiful church, and she’s sad to see it close.

“It was just a different time, I guess,” she said.

Lisa Morales of Joliet has belonged to St. Bernard since she was 8 years old – and she’s now 65. Morales said the first baby baptized at St. Bernard still is a member, and Morales said a new baby in her own family might be the last one.

Morales said she “fell in love” with her faith through the teachings at St. Bernard. One of her five daughters was an alter server. Morales was married at St. Bernard and buried her parents from St. Bernard.

She understands why the church must close, but leaving so much history and “fond memories” will be hard, Morales said.

“It’s like going to Grandma’s house every Sunday, and now you can’t go anymore,” Morales said. “I know it shouldn’t be about the place. But it is.”

St. Bernard at 1301 Sterling Ave. was founded by the Rev. W.J. McNamee in 1911 for the growing Catholic population in Ridgewood. Mass was celebrated at A.O. Marshall Elementary School until that first church building was constructed and the combination church and school was dedicated in 1914.

In 1949, a convent was added, and a new school annex was opened on land across from the church to accommodate its 300 pupils. The present church building cost $200,000 when it was built in 1958.

The late Rev. Lawrence Martin Jenco, the only priest ever ordained from St. Bernard, celebrated his first Mass in 1959. In the 1980s, Jenco was held hostage for 564 days in Beirut, Lebanon, while serving as director of Catholic Relief Services.

Jenco’s sister, the late Sue Fransechini, co-coordinated the 50th anniversary of the present church building in 2008. Fransechini had lived near the church since she was 3 and had attended eight grades at the former school.

“It’s not a modern church, by any means,” Fransechini said in 2008. “We still have statues that look like statues. … When you go in church, you just feel that it is a church.”

Sacred Heart

Dawn B. Knight-Wilson of Tennessee belonged to Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Joliet from 1966 until she moved to Tennessee in 2011. She was married at Sacred Heart in 2004, and funeral services for her parents and brother were held at Sacred Heart.

“I imagined having my funeral there,” Knight-Wilson said.

Sacred Heart members all mourned with those mourning and rejoiced with those rejoicing.

“It was just family: Black, white, Hispanic,” Knight-Wilson said. “It was very culturally diverse. That’s what made it extra special. Everyone was welcome. It was a church for all of God’s people.”

Sacred Heart was known as the “Black Catholic Baptist Church” because of its lively services and music, where people “left feeling the spirit,” she said.

During the sign of peace, members forewent the handshakes for leaving the pews and greeting members with enthusiastic hugs, Knight-Wilson said. People took time to meditate after receiving the eucharist, she said.

“We never thought ‘45 minutes and church should be over,’” Knight-Wilson said. “We sang songs however the spirit moved us, three and four verses. No one was looking at their watches.”

Breanna Render, Knight-Wilson’s niece who moved to George in 2005, said in a Facebook message that Sacred Heart developed her love for choirs, which she joined at age 4. She happily recalled singing on the steps of the rectory with her friends after choir practice on Saturdays.

“With David Jones leading us, the children’s choir was a place for all kids to worship and [participate in] fellowship at our levels,” Render said in a Facebook message. “Whether it was revival season and other churches visited us to sing or it was time for the Christmas or [a] spring play, all the kids in the church came together.”

Render said the choir helped her learn and express her faith through song.

“My experience in that church made me who I am because I was allowed to be me from an early age,” Render said in a Facebook message.

Phyllis Adams of Plainfield joined Sacred Heart in about 1988, when she moved to Joliet. Adams had attended a seminar of Black woman in the Bible (“I was not aware of any,” Adams said) and decided to join the then-flourishing church.

All three children were baptized at Sacred Heart, and her two sons were altar boys, Adams said. She and her husband Elvis became involved in coffee socials and other activities, she said.

“It was a very spirit-filled church,” Adams said. “You were around people of all races that came there, and it was just a blending of everyone.”

“Parishioners are experiencing a wide variety of emotions, as parents of many of our parishioners helped build the church both physically and financially.”

—   Dick McCowan, deacon at St. Anne Catholic Church in Crest Hill

Because Sacred Heart now is an older congregation, Adams is looking forward to the merger, which she envisions as multigenerational and multicultural.

“That’s the way the world should be,” Adams said. “And the church should reflect it.”

Sacred Heart Church began in 1885, when Chicago Archbishop Patrick Feehan commissioned its construction on South Ottawa Street in Joliet. The Diocese of Joliet was not established until 1949.

By the 1960s, many of the older, ethnic neighborhoods were gone, lay teachers replaced the nuns at the school, and Sacred Heart Church became one of the first parishes in the area to employ nuns as pastoral associates.

When the Rev. Dick Bennet became pastor of Sacred Heart in 1986, he addressed poverty and racism and educated himself about Black culture. He hired local musician David Jones to form a gospel choir.

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The Rev. Ray Lescher became pastor in 1998. Lescher, who was deeply involved in the civil rights movement, had previously left the priesthood to marry a widow with 10 children. The couple also fostered four children.

After his wife’s death, Lescher asked to be reinstated as a priest and was assigned to Sacred Heart. Lescher retired in 2016.

Church of St. Anthony

Seventeen Italian families purchased a Baptist church in downtown Joliet that was converted to the Church of St. Anthony in 1903, starting a tradition that has been carried on since.

“It’s remained an Italian parish all these years,” church secretary Linda Dyke said. “I would say 97% of the parishioners at St. Anthony’s [have] Italian [heritage]. The parishioners come from all over. They come from Channahon, Shorewood, New Lenox. And we have a few who come from Chicago.”

The tradition ends June 30, when the last Mass will be said at 9 a.m.

The Church of St. Anthony will close as it is consolidated into a new Joliet parish that merges the churches of St. Mary Magdalene, St. Joseph and St. Bernard. Only St. Mary Magdalene and St. Joseph will remain open.

“It’s a building, but it’s also a family,” Dyke said of the church.

The number of parishioners at St. Anthony is down to 120, but the family bonds that characterized the Italian tradition of the parish have remained strong, she said.

“Everyone who comes to Mass, they know each other,” Dyke said. “If someone’s missing at a service, they ask about them.”

The Church of St. Anthony, like many of the older Catholic churches in Joliet, was created during an era when large numbers of European immigrants devoted to the faith moved into the city and filled churches tied to their nationality.

The passing of that era has dwindled the number of parishioners at St. Anthony.

But their continued devotion to the church is reflected in the beauty of the building, including stained glass windows that Dyke said moved a recent visitor to tears as she thought of the church closing.

The closing has been hard on parishioners, many of whom don’t know what church they will go to next. The Church of St. Anthony is not necessarily close to their houses, but it’s close to their hearts.

“It’s like a second home,” Dyke said.

St. Jude’s

St. Jude’s Catholic Church was dedicated in 1954 in a west side section of Joliet that was growing rapidly at the time with new housing and shopping centers.

The land for the church was donated by Rony Hammes.

Hammes was a land developer who built the Marycrest Shopping Center on West Jefferson Street, which was carrying the city’s commercial expansion westward at the time St. Jude’s was built.

Hammes Avenue runs from Marycrest to the entrances of the parking lots at St. Jude’s.

Those parking lots typically are filled for Saturday evening and Sunday morning Masses, a factor that contributed to some shock and disappointment when Bishop Ronald Hicks announced that St. Jude’s Church and its school would be closed in the Diocese of Joliet’s consolidation plan.

The new parish and school will be consolidated at the location of St. Paul’s Catholic Church under a new name yet to be determined.

The Rev. Michael Lane, pastor at St. Jude’s, will be pastor of the new parish. That decision has softened the blow for many at St. Jude’s as they decided what they will do when the church closes, parishioner Dick Schuster said.

“I was going to go to Holy Family in Shorewood,” Schuster said. “Half of the people at St. Jude’s live in Shorewood. When Father Mike said he was going to St. Paul’s, I said, ‘We’ll follow him.’”

Lane posted an Easter message on the St. Jude Facebook page that referred to the changes.

“Together, we have experienced shock, loss, grief, a sense of abandonment – the same things our Lord experienced during his passion and death,” the message said.

Drawing a parallel to “the joy of Easter,” Lane wrote, “This means our faith compels us to believe that the Lord has wonderful things in store for us as members of our new parish.”