January, 2006
Catholic Spirit - January, 2006
Cedar Park parish pushes growth
By Alfredo E. Cardenas
Correspondent
As early as the 1920s Mexican-American families from the “north country” would go down to Our Lady of Guadalupe in east Austin to attend Mass and receive the sacraments. This prompted the Holy Cross fathers to start a number of parishes in the Williamson County area, starting with St. Helen in Georgetown in 1931, St. William in Round Rock in 1940 and St. Margaret Mary in Leander in 1942.
In 1937 several Mexican-American families came to St. Helen in Georgetown to ask that a priest be sent to the Leander area to celebrate Mass. The names of these folks were not recorded, but the early history of St. Margaret Mary indicates some of the founding families included the Escalantes, Agueros, Salinases, Montemayors, Garzas and Guanas.
Holy Cross Father Frederick Schmidt, who was assigned to minister to the areas west of Georgetown, put off the request, as he had not yet mastered Spanish. Two years later Father Schmidt started his missionary work in the farms and ranches in the surrounding area of Leander, Cedar Park, Liberty Hill and Jollyville. Word would spread through the countryside as to where the priest would be praying a “rosario” or celebrating “misa.” Before long, Father Schmidt settled on a home behind the New Hope Baptist Church as a somewhat permanent location for the gathering of Catholics in the area. While the home was large, it soon became inadequate as the numbers attending Mass grew.
Congregants began to raise money and hope for a permanent sanctuary. Raising the needed funds from a poor community proved difficult. In 1940 a $3,000 donation was received from a Boston priest named Father Meredith. The priest only asked that the church be named after his mother Margaret, who was devoted to the Sacred Heart.
And so it was that on Nov. 29, 1942 Bishop Christopher Byrne of Galveston dedicated Santa Margarita Maria Mission in Leander. A small white stone chapel was built on what is now U.S. Hwy. 183. This chapel is now home for St. Andrew Kim Parish.
While today St. Margaret Mary has a full array of ministries, in the 1940s the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a men’s organization, and the Guadalupanas were the primary groups that provided for the parish. The church at Leander continued as a mission of St. Helen until 1959, when it came under the care of St. William in Round Rock. Father Schmidt, who had become pastor at St. William, continued to care for St. Margaret Mary. As membership in the parish increased, so did the need for more space. In 1963 Father Schmidt obtained a $4,500 grant from the Catholic Extension Society to build an addition to the church.
The growing Catholic population in Central Texas also caused Father Schmidt to spread himself too thin. The congregation at Leander was at risk of disbanding for lack of adequate attention. Father Schmidt got some help in 1967, when Father Francis Chruma, a Cistercian priest, arrived.
After Father Schmidt’s departure for Belton, Father Rosendo Rafael assumed the pastorship at St. William. During Father Rafael’s tenure a parish council was organized; sisters from St. Louis started a religious education program; an Altar Society was organized; and some physical improvements were made to the church. Father Elmer Holtman was named pastor at St. William in 1976 and was the first to assign regular office hours for the Leander mission.
Two years later St. Thomas More Parish was started in nearby Austin and St. Margaret Mary became a mission of the new parish. After Father Holtman left to teach at St. Thomas Seminary in Houston, Msgr. Ralph Brennan took charge of St. Margaret Mary with the help of Father Kirby Garner. The area was now experiencing considerable growth and talk about St. Margaret Mary becoming a full-blown parish with its own priest began to gain momentum.
In February 1982, 40 years after its founding as a mission, St. Margaret Mary was made a parish and Father Donald Sawyer became the first pastor. By this time St. Margaret Mary had grown to 250 families.
A succession of pastors followed with brief stays. Father Fred Chalupa took over as pastor and not long after that, in June 1983 Father Jim Rice was named pastor. Regrettably, Father Rice suffered a heart attack and died less than two weeks later. His successor, Father William Benish, provided much needed stability to the growing parish. Land was purchased on FM 2243 for a new church and a rectory was built on the site in 1985. Before a new church was built, however, diocesan staff prevailed on the congregation to reconsider another location on New Hope Road in Cedar Park.
The FM 2243 site was thought to be too far from the center of the congregation. Moreover, St. Thomas More was growing too fast and St. Margaret Mary was needed to be an alternative parish for this growing population. At a public forum, parishioners voted to accept the bishop’s offer of land in Cedar Park. In 1993 a multi-purpose building was completed and the first Mass was celebrated on Jan. 8, 1994. Less than 10 years later this facility was again outgrown.
After Father Benish became ill in 2000, his associate pastor, a young priest named Father Le-Minh Joseph Pham, became pastor. It was left to Father Le-Minh to begin planning and overseeing the next phase of growth. In 2003, a new sanctuary with seating for 1,000 was dedicated. It can be expanded to 1,300 and Father Le-Minh hopes it “will stand for another 100 years.”
But the parish keeps on growing. When Father Le-Minh arrived in 1998 the parish had 600 families. When the new church was built five years later the number had doubled to 1,200. Today, St. Margaret Mary has 1,700 registered families and with the many Hispanic families who are not registered that number is more like 2,000.
What started out as a movement to serve a handful of Mexican-American families is today a thriving faith community that truly mirrors the face of Central Texas. It is anchored in the history of the area, emboldened by the dynamic growth of the 20th century and confronting the immigration trends facing Texas in the 21st century.
“We are proud of our accomplishments,” Father Le-Minh said, “of course we owe it all to God and our faith that brought us all together.”