Name of Church Queen of Peace
Address 141 N. MacDonald St., Mesa, AZ 85201
Phone number (480) 969-9166
Website www.qop.org
Mass Schedule Saturdays, 5 p.m. Sundays, 7 a.m., 9 a.m. (Spanish), 11 a.m., 1 p.m. (Spanish), 4 p.m., 6 p.m. (Spanish). Daily, 8:30 a.m. Latin Mass first Fridays at 7 p.m.
Confessions Tuesdays, 7 – 8 p.m. Saturdays, 9 – 10 a.m.
Names of priests Father Thomas Bennett, pastor. Father Dan Vanyo, parochial vicar. Father Bennet is a fantastic spiritual leader, although very busy, as he was appointed dean for the east valley a few years ago. Father Vanyo, 46, is very good, too. He is a late vocation, ordained in 2012, and was appointed by Diocese of Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted to also serve as chaplain of Arizona’s first Catholic college, Benedictine University at Mesa. (Listen to their sermons online on the parish website.)
Special activities and groups Pro-life rosary Mondays, 7 a.m. at local abortion clinic; St. Vincent de Paul Society; Eucharistic Adoration, Monday – Friday, 9:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.; Legion of Mary; Life Teen & young adult ministries.
Music English & Spanish choirs
Fellow parishioners It is a predominantly Hispanic parish, and among the poorest of the diocese. The parish leadership’s focus has been to move its parishioners to a living practice of their faith, rather than having it be merely a cultural tradition.
School Yes, a major feature of the parish. They recently completed a new school building.
Additional observations Queen of Peace is a parish of the Diocese of Phoenix, located in historic downtown Mesa.
Church looks good on the outside, but what is up with the inside? The usual “Novus Ordo” mish-mosh of distractions, chairs in front, flowers hiding the altar, choir front and center to the left, “altar girl” alert in front, once again the Novus Ordo makes it all about the people while the TLM is Christ centered!! And here we go again with the Spanish Masses, and one Latin Mass TLM or Novus Ordo Latin, big differance??
Janek, you are generally right regarding the “unsympathetic” renovation done in the 70’s to this “southwest mission-style”-architecture church: I am very familiar with it from living and working in Mesa in the late 1990’s. The parishioners are generally traditional Catholic, meaning in the early AM’s, the adjacent chapel is open and well-attended for adoration.
But several wacky pastors came along and, having more $$ than sense, Bishop O’Brien-ized the main church and sanctuary, what you see today. One of those pastors spent a lot of time publicly attacking the local Mesa P.D. in the newspapers for not protecting youth from crime in the area—-then was hauled off and later permanently suspended from “ministry” for…
..for criminal sexual conduct with minors. Sound familiar? It is.