Parish Meets Changing Needs

History:
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Introduction
Beginnings
St. Mary, Rockport
Stone Church
Age of the Streetcar
We Become a Parish
New School
Fr. Calvey
Building Traditions
Altar & Rosary
Calvey Club
Main School Bldg
Depression Years
Youth Organizations
War Years
Post-war Years
Parish Cemetery
Building Years
Aspects of Parish Life
Pastorate of Fr. Kelly
Hunger Center
Changing Needs
R.C.I.A.
Pastoral Council
Reaching Out
Parish Staff
Year of Celebration
Parish Leaders
Daughter Parishes

Other sections:
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Scenes
School
Organizations

The early 1980s saw additional building projects at St. Patrick's. The first was a ramp for handicapped access to the church.

The ramp, completed in the summer of 1983, is located at the east end of the church at the entrance facing Puritas Avenue. It is entirely inside the church, using space that had been part of the servers' sacristy.
The basement chapel was renovated in the early 1980s

The basement chapel was also renovated. Fr Burg had the pews removed and the altar placed at the opposite end. Through the use of an accordion door, the lower part was made into two meeting rooms.

Fr. Burg introduced the order of permanent deacons to the parish with the hiring of pastoral minister Rev. Mr. Kenn Schad. On May 31, 1986, Dick Beercheck became the first man from the parish to be ordained to the permanent diaconate. Following a three-year program of instruction and formation, these men serve as part-time pastoral ministers, while continuing to support their families.

Sr. Eileen, S.I.W., served as principal from 1976 to 1987 Educational opportunities were expanded in September 1986 with the addition of two half-day kindergarten classes. (This has since grown to include one full-day class.) At the end of the 1986-87 school year, Sr. Eileen, S.I.W., moved on to another assignment after serving as principal for 11 years. Her successor was a layman, Paul Armbruster. This was the first time since 1946 that the principal was not a member of the Sisters of the Incarnate Word.

Because of the increased cost of private and parochial education, state legislators authorized the use of state money for remedial programs in the early 1970s. Teachers who were paid with this money could not teach inside a church-owned building or on church-owned property, and so vans were used for these classes for several years. The vans were parked at Chambers Funeral Home overnight and on the tree lawn during class time. Working with Bill and Dan Chambers, Fr. Burg arranged for the purchase of the two homes east of the Main School Building. A modular unit was set up on the back part of these properties to house the remedial programs.

When these houses were acquired, there were only three Sisters of the Incarnate Word teaching in the school and living in a convent built for 19 nuns. The house next to the school was remodeled so the nuns could use that instead. They moved in during the summer of 1988, making this house the new convent.

Over the next few years the old convent was put to different uses. Some of the old bedrooms were rented by the Community of Oscar A. Romero (C.O.A.R.), an orphanage established by Fr. Ken Myers in El Salvador, to be its fund-raising center. Other rooms were later rented by Catholic Social Services for use as counseling offices. The large rooms on the first floor became the second kindergarten room and parish meeting rooms. When the school's latch-key program was started, these rooms were used for that. The Hunger Center's food storage was moved into the basement.

One of Fr. Burg's last actions as pastor was to establish the Parish Finance Council in 1987. This group is the successor to the parish councilmen who advised the pastor for over a hundred years. The Parish Pastoral Council Constitution had been promulgated the previous March but it would be a few years until it was enacted.

Current pastor Fr. Thomas J. Hagedorn is the first St. Patrick associate to be named pastor Fr. Thomas Burg resigned as pastor in August 1987. Fr. Thomas J. Hagedorn arrived here the following January 5, coming from St. Raphael's in Bay Village. His appointment marked the first time an associate had become pastor of St. Patrick's. Up until this time, Fr. Gary Hoover, O.S.B., had been assisting with weekend Masses and confessions. He followed a long line of priests who had helped in that way, beginning with the Jesuits of St. Ignatius College at the beginning of the century. In the 1960s and 1970s the Franciscans from Padua High School, including Fr. James Lyke, had helped along with Fr. Al Laubenthal of St. Mary Seminary. In the late 1980s, because of the growing shortage of priests, Fr Gary had to pull out and assist at other parishes.