Campaign will fund $1 million expansion to St. Paul’s Church

Currently experiencing a problem any church would be happy to have, St. Paul’s Catholic Church, Greencastle, has announced a $1 million capital campaign to expand the current church building.

The campaign, “Expanding aCross Generations,” will fund a transept addition onto each side of the sanctuary. The transept will add a right-angle wing on each side of the main part of the church to form a cross–shape.

St. Paul’s currently seats approximately 180 people, but has 250 registered families and serves 600 Catholic students attending DePauw University.

Courtesy St. Paul’s Catholic Church With funding from a $1 million capital campaign called “Expanding a Cross Generations,” St. Paul’s Catholic Church plans to add an addition that will result in a cross-shaped church with room for 100 more people in the worship area.

The addition will add 50 seats to each side, raising the capacity to 280.

“For about 10 years, we’ve had to have people participate in mass while watching on a TV screen in our narthex just outside the main church,” Father John Hollowell, pastor at St. Paul’s said.

The goal is a more meaningful worship experience for all attending the mass to fully participate in the main church.

St. Paul’s does offer its parishioners two weekend masses — 6 p.m. on Saturday evening and 11 a.m. on Sunday. When DePauw is in session, a 5 p.m. Sunday evening mass is also offered to accommodate students as well as parishioners.

Weekday masses are offered on Mondays at 5:30 pm and Thursdays at 9 am. The church’s front door is open daily from dawn to dusk for anyone who would like to stop in and pray.

“It is always a good thing when you don’t have enough seats for everyone, so we’re hoping to grow our church building to keep up with our growing faith community,” Matt Welker, who is chairing the campaign along with his wife Tonya, said.

The Catholic community has a long history in Putnam County with the first missionary priest in 1848 saying mass in private homes. The need for a church building grew during the 1850s as the railroad building brought Irish, German and other European Catholic immigrants to the Greencastle area.

The first church was located in an old chair factory on Locust Street at the present site of the DePauw University Administration Building.

The beginning of the current church building was in 1866 when the Catholic community purchased a Presbyterian church at the corner of Washington and College streets.

As the Catholic community continued to grow, several additions were added to the church property over the years. The last addition was in 1998 with the east wing, which includes a narthex for social gatherings, meeting rooms, classrooms and offices. As the Putnam County Catholic community continues to grow, the Parish Council under the direction of Father Hallowell has addressed the need to expand the church to keep up with the growing faith community.

With the “Expanding aCross Generations” campaign currently in progress, St. Paul parishioners are looking forward to keeping their existing historic church as well as welcoming a continued growing faith community in Greencastle and Putnam County.

Members of St. Paul are active contributors to the Putnam County community, serving the poor through the St. Vincent DePaul Ministry, Putnam County Food Bank, Beyond Homeless and other ecumenical efforts of area residents.