'Witness His Glory' campaign to enhance Denison church

By DAWN PROSSER
Director of Communications
 
St. Rose of Lima Parish in Denison has launched a $2 million Witness His Glory capital campaign to enhance the worship space. The enhancements will include new stained glass windows, a new high altar, statuary, lighting improvements, murals and new baptismal font. Some of the project artwork is new while others are repurposed.

Artistic renderings and details of Witness His Glory were presented to St. Rose of Lima Parish at the Sept. 14 and 15 weekend Masses for parishioner review and input. Father Michael Cronin, pastor of St. Rose, announced that $495,000 has already been pledged for the project.

Each parishioner will receive a comprehensive mailer outlining the details of the campaign along with a pledge card to return to participate in the fundraising. The pastor noted the Witness His Glory campaign has a three-year pledge period, with work to be completed summer/fall of 2025.

Rationale
An outdated lighting system was the impetus for the pastor and the finance council to consider enhancing the Denison worship space.

“The discussion started with my own efforts to figure out the lighting system in the church,” he said, noting he was assigned to the parish in 2021. “When Mass was starting, there was no light on the tabernacle. I think that was originally desired because the altar is the focus during Mass. It bothered me that the Eucharist was completely in the dark.”

After talking to contractors and doing his own research, it was determined, “our lighting system is outdated and nobody in the country really knows how to service it.”
When the present church was built in 2006, St. Rose parishioners financed three capital campaigns to build it. Since that time, the parish paid off the building debts and built a new school.

St. Rose of Lima sanctuary now, above. Top, artist's rendering of completed renovations/enhancements

“Because it took so much energy and resources to build (the church), there were some things that were intended to be done when they had more funds – primarily the stained glass windows on the east and west sides of the church,” Father Cronin explained. “When we put stained glass into the church, it’s going to further reduce natural lighting.”

Also, the baptismal font was damaged and could not be repaired but replaced. To do so would result in replacing flooring in the baptismal area and beyond.

“I went to the finance council to ask if we wanted to deal with these in a piecemeal way or pull these things together into a larger vision,” the priest said.

Theme
That larger vision was coined Witness His Glory. Conrad Schmitt Studios of New Berlin, Wisconsin was hired for the project design and parishioner Tim Stuart was named campaign chair.

“We chose Witness His Glory because there’s a lot of beautiful things that happen at Mass and in the spiritual life that we can’t always see but it doesn’t mean it’s not there. With the artistic renderings and visual enhancements that we want to bring to the church, we are hoping it helps parishioners visualize the spiritual realities that are present,” Father Cronin said.

Parish churches represented
As the St. Rose of Lima Parish includes parishioners from Buck Grove, Charter Oak, Dow City, Manilla, Manning, Ute and Vail, the enhancements of the project will give a nod to each community and their church.

“We will incorporate a statue of a patron saint of every church we serve,” the priest pointed out. “The Mary and Joseph are from the original St. Rose Church … so that is a return to our tradition. That should bring back some nostalgia for Denison parishioners while also acknowledging St. Mary’s in Ute and Dow City and St. Joseph in Buck Grove.”

The St. Rose statue from the original church will be brought into the church along with her first class relic. New statues of the Sacred Heart, St. Boniface and St. Ann will be added, working with the King Richards company.

“It is their goal to paint the new statues in a style that will match our current statues so it feels cohesive with no visual difference between new and the old,” Father Cronin said of the statues.
BaptisteryAn exact casting of Michelangelo’s Pieta was underwritten by an anonymous donor and will be placed in the narthex as part of Witness His Glory.

An unexpected piece of Vail St. Ann history will be included in the new high altar. The pastor said once it was determined that a high altar would be included in the sanctuary project, he received a call from an Omaha parish.

“They said they had the Last Supper rendering from Vail’s high altar from their original church built in 1882 … and said they didn’t need it anymore and asked if we wanted it back,” he said, noting the rendering was returned to Denison.

Windows

As the parish originally intended to install stained glass windows, the Witness His Glory project calls for 12 new windows, depicting saints included in Eucharistic Prayer 1:

• St. Peter
• St. Paul
• St. Andrew
• St. John the Baptist
• St. Stephen
• St. Matthias
• Sts. Felicity and Perpetua
• St. Agatha
• St. Lucy
• St. Agnes
• St. Cecilia
• St. Anastasia

For more information on the St. Rose of Lima campaign, go to:

 denisoncatholic.com/witnesshisglory.