Visalia will soon be home to one of the largest seating capacity Catholic churches in the U.S.
On Tuesday, ground was broken for St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church.
It’s an exciting day for the Fresno diocese. Many say it’s been a long time coming and say they are proud to soon have what they call the largest church on the West Coast.
Faith leaders say it is different from a cathedral, but hope people will come from all over to visit just the same.
A mustard seed of faith planted more than a decade ago, has now come to fruition.
Many in the Catholic community gathered to break ground in Visalia.
“To see this happening is a real, real joy for me, personally, but I’m almost positive for everyone in the community,” says Rev. Msgr. Raymond C. Dreiling, vicar general of the Roman Catholic diocese of Fresno.
Parishioners say they are excited about the future.
“Everyone’s always asking when? when? when? now we’re like finally it’s getting moving and it’s actually going to happen,” says Rebecca Lynch, a parishioner.
This is what the church will look like when it’s done, the building style inspired by California’s mission. It’ll seat more than 3,000 people.
“It’s exciting that it’s right here in a very focal point of our diocese because you know we need something this big to satiate the needs, the sacramental needs of the people,” says Fr. Cesar Solorio, parish administrator, Good Shepherd Catholic Parish Visalia.
Church leaders say this one of the largest church building projects in U.S. modern history and will provide more than 450 jobs over the next 18 months.
The project is expected to be completed in April 2021.
The above comes from a story on Oct. 15 from YourCentralValley.com.
As far as I can see, there is no reason stated for such a large capacity Church.
Let’s pray they can fill it!
It looks like they are combining three parishes. The town has about 130K population. Size seems reasonable. The average size of a Catholic parish in the US is pretty big. A new church that holds less than 500 at each Mass is pretty unusual these days.
So this isn’t a story of growth, it’s a story of decline and consolidation being spun as growth.
Mike, the percent of Americans who belong to the Catholic Church goes down each year. The majority of Hispanics are no longer Catholic. The percent of people who believe in God is very low. The result is a major shift in national values and morals. Parishes across the country will be consolidating because of demographic shifts and fewer people wanting to go to church.
Agreed, this is not good news. Fewer priests … fewer parishes … less available sacraments.
When the Church was strong, every neighborhood had its own Catholic church in walking distance, most with a school staffed by dedicated religious.
How far we have fallen…
The Catholic Church will need such large churches in the future because a community of 1,000 square miles will have only one parish and one priest for all the Catholics in the territory.