Congregation of the Holy Spirit, which has served Old St. Mary's since 1893, celebrates final Mass at downtown parish on June 29
DETROIT — For most of St. Mary Parish’s 191-year history in Detroit’s Greektown neighborhood, it has been served by the Holy Ghost Fathers.
The Congregation of the Holy Spirit, also known as the Holy Ghost Fathers or Spiritans, came to St. Mary in 1893, succeeding the Redemptorists, who in turn succeeded the Franciscans in administering Detroit’s first ethnic German parish.
This Sunday, June 29, will mark the end to the Spiritans’ 132 years of ministry at St. Mary Parish — colloquially known as “Old St. Mary’s” — marking the end of an era of great faith and devotion at the Greektown parish.
“From 1893 up until now, the Holy Ghost Fathers have been in ministry for 132 years in the area, being priests who have brought the sacraments and charity to the people of Detroit when in need,” Fr. Godfrey Mgonja, C.S.Sp., the priest in solidum at St. Mary Parish, told Detroit Catholic. “Wherever the Spiritans go, we work to evangelize through our missionary spirit, following the calling of the Holy Spirit to go where we are needed.”
Facing a shortage of priests in the order, the Holy Spirit has called the Spiritans to serve elsewhere, ending more than a century of service to St. Mary Parish's faithful.
The final Mass at noon Sunday will be an opportunity to reflect and give God thanks for the blessings bestowed upon St. Mary’s through the Spiritans’ ministry.
“The Archdiocese of Detroit is deeply indebted to each Spiritan priest, deacon and brother who has served in this archdiocese, providing the ministry of the church through the great gift of the Spiritan charism to evangelize those who have not heard the beauty of the Gospel and especially the poor,” Detroit Archbishop Edward J. Weisenburger wrote in a letter to St. Mary Parish and the Spiritan community. “On behalf of my predecessors and the many of Christ’s faithful, thank you! Although your members are departing, you will always be a part of the fabric Christ has woven in the Archdiocese of Detroit.”
The order traces its roots to 1703, when the Congregation of the Holy Ghost was founded by Claude Francis Poullart des Places.
St. Mary Parish was established in 1834 to serve the growing German-speaking Catholic population in Detroit, originally celebrating Mass at the ethnic Irish Most Holy Trinity Parish in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood.
In 1840, Bishop Peter Paul Lefevere gave Fr. Martin Kundig, St. Mary’s first pastor, permission to raise funds to build their own church. One year later, Antoine and Monica Beaubien donated their property on St. Antoine and Croghan (now Monroe Street) for one dollar, and the cornerstone of the original St. Mary Church was laid on June 19, 1841, the Feast of Corpus Christi, or Prangertag in the parishioners' native German. The first church was completed on June 29, 1843.
By 1893, when the Spiritans arrived, the St. Mary’s community was already settled in the High Victorian Romanesque-style edifice it had erected in 1885, for which the parish is known today.
An influx of Mexican, African-American, Italian, Greek and Hungarian newcomers meant the parish was no longer predominantly German. Still, Fr. Mgonga said the Spiritan mission to preach the Gospel to every corner of the community remained.
“Our spirituality is based on being available, first of all to God, and second, to the people,” Fr. Mgonja said. “Availability in ministry to do what we are called to do and go where we are called to go, to the marginalized, the downtrodden or those in the peripheries, the poor.”
As religious priests who take a vow of poverty and have a missionary nature to go wherever God is calling them, the Spiritans brought a simplistic lifestyle of staying true to God’s will in administering the parish, said Tom Carson, a longtime parishioner.
Since the Spiritans’ founding in France in 1703, their subsequent exile from the country following the French Revolution, and their expulsion from Germany in 1872 during Otto von Bismarck’s Kulturkampf, the Holy Ghost Fathers have established missions in Africa, North America, Latin America, Asia, Australia, Oceania, Europe and the Caribbean. This gives priests of the order a genuinely global perspective, which they pass along to their parishioners, Carson said.
“For a parishioner, having priests and pastors who had that sort of global worldview brings you into a broader sense of the faith,” Carson said. “We usually are working with our narrow focus as citizens of Detroit, the problems we have here, and then you learn about people coming from a place you’ve never been, you learn about their faith, how they have things they lack, but such tremendous generosity and faith. It’s really something special.”
The long legacy of the Spiritans is present throughout St. Mary Church, from the installation of the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, the Grotto of the Garden of Gethsemane and the Grotto Baptistry, under the leadership of Fr. Joseph Wuest, C.S.Sp., as well as a shrine dedicated to the Holy Spirit.
“It used to be known as the ‘Church of the Grottos,’ because of Fr. Wuest,” said Michelle Pierron, whose family has belonged to St. Mary Parish dating back to the 1840s. “We also had Fr. John Nader, who was a very able administrator and wonderful priest in the 1960s and '70s who started the tradition of a daily noon Mass, which was rare at the time. A lot of city parishes were having trouble; there were some worries about the future of the inner-city churches, so he started a noon Mass for all the workers downtown and started a revitalization campaign to fix up the church.”
Over the decades, the Spiritans dutifully cared for the magnificent, basilica-like church, parishioners say. From signs in German signifying a bell parishioners used to ring to request confessions, to statues of Hungarian saints adorning the church's altars, the church is a time capsule of the faith in Greektown through the generations.
“I think the Holy Ghost Fathers really took care of the church,” Pierron said. “Fr. Nader did a huge renovation and restoration when the church building turned 100 years old, from 1982 to 1984, and that served the parish well. Maybe it’s not the most important thing, the building, but it’s nice to have a beautiful building for people to come in and worship. It’s stood the test of time.”
While the Spiritans are leaving St. Mary’s, their legacy in the parish and the city will endure through the lives of parishioners, past parishioners and their descendants, as well as alumnae from St. Mary's Commercial School for Girls (1928-68) who received spiritual formation from the Holy Ghost Fathers.
"Our time here at Old St. Mary’s has been very fruitful — not only here at St. Mary’s, but all throughout Detroit, throughout Michigan, where people have come in contact with the Spiritans,” Fr. Mgonja said. “We have been very fruitful in providing the sacraments, Mass, baptisms, reaching out to the poor, distributing food, reaching out to the sick, visiting the prisons, and meeting the youth. And through those connections, we still remain here in Detroit.”
Given St. Mary’s location in the midst of the city’s entertainment hub, the parish boundaries are still mission ground, Carson noted, and to that regard, the missionary spirit of the Spiritans will live on here.
“We’re in the center of downtown, close to the football stadiums, baseball stadium, not so far from hockey and basketball, so we have all these people coming downtown,” Carson said. “We can be missionaries, and that’s something the Spiritans brought here and will continue to be important.”
As the Spiritans celebrate their final Mass in Detroit, it's a reminder that although times change, the need to preach the Gospel to all is perennial.
“The Holy Ghost Fathers have been here for more than 100 years, responding to the changing needs of the people of the community,” Pierron said. “And that, I think, to no small degree helped the parish thrive. It’s a wonderful parish. We appreciate the time the Holy Ghost Fathers spent here and look forward to a new chapter, a new beginning for St. Mary’s.”
