Members of the former St. Bernadette Parish in Evergreen Park bade farewell to the church with a Mass and procession June 30 to their new parish, St. Gianna. The event included time for St. Bernadette parishioners to share their memories and venerate the church before it was formally relegated. “We gave people a chance to say goodbye to their church in whatever way they wanted,” said Father Benedykt Pazdan, pastor of St. Gianna Parish. “I believe rituals are very important to us. I believe rituals help us accept some of the things we can’t even vocalize. … It was a Golgotha experience. It was from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, if you will, in one day.” After the church was relegated to non-sacred use, the large central crucifix was carried out of the church while the tabernacle containing the Eucharist was removed on a gurney, covered by a white sheet. The crucifix was erected on a trailer and the tabernacle placed in an ambulance for the two-mile procession to St. Gianna Parish, in the building that was the former Queen of Martyrs Church, also in Evergreen Park. Once there, people in the procession were greeted with signs welcoming them and white roses. Once they took their places in the church, the crucifix and tabernacle were carried in and installed before Benediction and a reception in the school hall. “I thought, ‘This is a once in-a-lifetime experience,’” said Eileen McNichols, who served on the St. Bernadette Parish Council and chaired the unification committee. “It was handled so beautifully. Establishing a ritual like that, the handling of the prayerful relegation that occurred. I know it was very difficult for people to see the crucifix coming down off the wall, but it was done in such a beautiful way.” Bringing the crucifix and tabernacle was important to former St. Bernadette parishioners, McNichols said. “That is a statement to people,” she said. “We have brought the best of St. Bernadette with us, not only with the crucifix, but with the personality of the parish. It’s going to be a wonderful experience at St. Gianna seeing the legacy of the two parishes come together and make something more than the sum of the parts.” St. Bernadette and Queen of Martyrs united in 2022 as part of the restructuring phase of the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Renew My Church initiative. Pazdan, then pastor of St. Bernadette, was named pastor of the new parish, and it was announced that St. Bernadette Church would close in two years. At the time, many St. Bernadette parishioners were disappointed or even angry, McNichols said. “Initially, people were very upset that the church was closing,” she said. “Why would we have to close our church when they believed our church was the more beautiful Catholic church? Why couldn’t we have Mass at our church and have the school at Queen of Martyrs?” Arlene Baumann, who was principal of St. Bernadette School from 2000 until it closed in 2014, said she had confidence in the resilience of St. Bernadette parishioners. A month after taking the position at the school, she and her husband were so taken with the community that they joined the parish, and they have remained there ever since. “Of course everyone felt very sad about closing,” Baumann said. “The thing I did have confidence about was that the St. Bernadette community was such a caring community that if we had to mesh with another community, we could do it.” Since then, the unification team has been working to bring the communities together with joint liturgies and activities. The church at the Queen of Martyrs site was remodeled, with room left for the crucifix and tabernacle from St. Bernadette, and last summer a statue of St. Gianna, the new parish’s patron, was unveiled. “Father was very transparent with all the things that would need to be done to make that happen,” McNichols said. “He was very compassionate in responding to concerns that people brought to him. … It was the transparency, and the fact that we had two years’ time from when the announcement was made until when the church was actually closing. People remained upset, but they became more open to the idea that this was actually going to happen.” “It’s a hard process,” said John Woolley, also a member of the unification team. “I think the way our parish did it was very, very successful, but it didn’t always feel like it when we were going through it. It’s important to pick good people to be on the unification team. A lot of time people want to be heard, and I would spend a lot of time after Mass just listening to people.” When the team worked on the details of the June 30 event, they made sure to include former St. Bernadette parishioners who were saddened by the loss of their church in the planning and having time for them to share their reflections and memories. They invited local fire and police departments to participate as well, helping coordinate the transfer of the crucifix and tabernacle and safeguard the people driving in the procession. “Everyone was so honored to be able to help,” Pazdan said, noting that more than 1,300 people participated. “It was everything I hoped for as a pastor for the day,” he said.
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