To pay for $7 million church

The following are excerpts from a story in the February 15 Ventura County Star.

“The light is wonderful,” said the Rev. Roberto Saldivar, the church’s pastor, on a recent tour of the construction site. “It just highlights the beauty of everything. … The chapel is my favorite thing. It has the highest ceiling in the building, and it’s so open, so it just brings you into a different prayer atmosphere.” 

Our Lady of Guadalupe, a Catholic cornerstone in Oxnard’s La Colonia neighborhood, is on track to be finished by a self-imposed Feb. 25 deadline. Archbishop Jose Gomez, the new head of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, is scheduled to lead the first Mass there on March 28.

By the time construction ends, the church expects to have raised the last of the $7 million construction budget and cleared the last of its debt on the project, Saldivar said.

The most recent major donation was $100,000 from the Gene Haas Foundation, the charity arm of Haas Automation Inc. in Oxnard that makes computer-controlled machine tools. That brings the Haas Foundation’s total contribution to $1.1 million, Saldivar said….

“A lot of the workers here (at Haas Automation) go to church there, so it was just kind of a community thing,” [owner Gene Haas] said. “Someone asked for help, and we did what we could.”

Most of the money for the project came from parishioners of the church, which is in one of the poorest sections of the city.

“This community has generated over $5 million,” Saldivar said. “We’re talking about agricultural workers and these very humble people…..”

Saldivar said the church now holds about 600 people. To accommodate them, Our Lady of Guadalupe holds 11 Masses every weekend and two on most weekdays.

“It’s standing-room-only most of the time,” he said….

To read more, Click here.

 

READER COMMENTS

Posted Monday, February 20, 2012 7:28 AM By Diana
What a wonderful parish of devoted people and contributors…God bless you all in your beautiful new church.

Posted Monday, February 20, 2012 7:42 AM By Life Lady
Clicked to read the rest of the article, and of course there were negative comments about the latino population. Shameful that people still see things that way. When my great grandmother lived here she and her little family could cross the street to visit her family in Tijuana, but when the government “re-patriated” her three times, she moved back to Mexico, to Tijuana near her relatives and stayed. I know how hard those people have worked to get their new church, I have seen my uncles and aunts in Tijuana do the same. It would be more than worth it to me to contact this pastor and offer my little bit to contribute to their efforts. It is more than worth it to me that they have a new and larger church to worship God.

Posted Monday, February 20, 2012 10:59 AM By MacDonald
So much for foolish old Nietzsche, who said: “God is dead.” The churches in Europe might be empty, but not in America, thank God.

Posted Monday, February 20, 2012 12:50 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
Where will the Blessed Sacrament Tabernacle be located? God bless, yours in Their Hearts, Kenneth M. Fisher

Posted Monday, February 20, 2012 2:48 PM By Abeca Christian
God bless them!

Posted Monday, February 20, 2012 4:34 PM By MacDonald
@ Kenneth — who knows? Perhaps in a separate side chapel, as it is in Saint Peter’s Basilica (thus enabling people to pray in the Real Presence without chatter). Or perhaps in the center of the sanctuary (thus enabling the tabernacle to be more visible and accessible to all).

Posted Monday, February 20, 2012 4:36 PM By nino mark
Just goes to show you- “If you build it, they will come!”

Posted Monday, February 20, 2012 5:56 PM By JLS
One of my vehicles is an old import small truck with rust and dents. It looks like a poor Mexican field worker’s truck. Sometimes I drive it around, and the experience is humbling. I have to put up with extreme arrogance by many other drivers. Sometimes they display looks of horror when they see that the driver is not a field worker … kind of neat to mess with them that way.

Posted Monday, February 20, 2012 6:42 PM By JLS
What I am saying, by annecdotal example, is that if you do not stand up for your rights, you will be trampled.

Posted Tuesday, February 21, 2012 6:43 AM By Angelo
The Church looks like its going to be beautiful. I’ve known of other new Church’s being built in more traditional styles. Is this a new trend? I hope so. JLS, you’ve got a great sense of humor. I liked what you said about one’s standing up for ones rights or get trampled. I can’t believe that even the building of a new Church brings out anti-hispanic attitudes.

Posted Tuesday, February 21, 2012 3:41 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
JLS, I know plenty of non-Hispanics who drive beat up import trucks with rust and dents! God bless, yours in Their Hearts, Kenneth M. Fisher

Posted Tuesday, February 21, 2012 7:22 PM By JLS
Kenneth, when I drive my other vehicle, which is raised up, big tires, red and black, and covered with mud or dust most of the time, the interaction from other drivers is totally different.

Posted Tuesday, February 21, 2012 7:47 PM By Maryanne Leonard
You would think that this article would bring out complimentary comments about Hispanics, wouldn’t you? But in the Ventura County Star, there are often anti-immigrant comments made by a few frequent posters who seem to have nothing better to do with their time than to run down Oxnard, immigrants, Catholics. Most people in Ventura County just ignore these ignoramuses, go to work, live good and productive lives, and raise nice children. That includes the hard-working people who are bringing this new Catholic church into being and the fine people of means in Oxnard’s community-minded businesses who were happy to help out too. Good people with their hearts in the right place make all the difference in the world, and I am enormously proud of the many outstanding Catholic churches, schools and the college in Ventura County and feel privileged to live in such a nice region of the state with such a rich Catholic heritage.