St. Mary’s, religious refuge for waves of immigrants, marks 130th anniversary

St. Mary’s Catholic Church, a religious refuge for waves of immigrants since the early days of Park City’s mining era, this week is marking its 130th anniversary as one of the city’s most beloved institutions.

St. Mary’s, with locations on upper Park Avenue in Old Town and in the Snyderville Basin, predates the incorporation of Park City and is the oldest Catholic church in the state.

St. Mary’s clergymen over the decades, most recently the former pastor, Robert Bussen, have brought together the various segments of the Catholic community of Park City. The church has been seen as an important bridge between Anglos and Latinos in the past 20 years, a period that saw fast growth in immigrant numbers from Mexico.

“St. Mary’s is a part of the DNA of Park City and Park City’s DNA is a part of St. Mary’s,” said Tom Grondalski, a St. Mary’s parishioner who is coordinating a celebration to commemorate the 130th anniversary.

The church was established in 1881. Its building was destroyed by fire shortly afterward. Another church went up in 1884. That upper Park Avenue building remains in use by St. Mary’s, surviving a fire in the 1950s.

Grondalski said St. Mary’s is where immigrants who arrived during the mining era in the 19th and 20th centuries went to pray. Swedes, the Irish, Italians, Germans, Poles and the Chinese populated St. Mary’s in those days, he said. Latinos, primarily immigrants from Mexico, now make up a significant portion of the worshippers.

“St. Mary’s was the link to the old country,” he said.

Church-goers plan to celebrate the anniversary on Sunday with a procession from the upper Park Avenue location to the building in the Basin. The procession starts at 9 a.m. and is anticipated to arrive at the Basin location at approximately 11 a.m.

Grondalski said he expects more than 100 people will walk as part of the group. The route will take the group down Main Street, to Heber Avenue, to Park Avenue and then to the Basin.

St. Mary’s in the past 20 years became perhaps Park City’s most notable religious institution. Bussen, who left St. Mary’s in 2010, was especially popular even as he courted controversy for his early support of Latino immigrants and for a liberal stand on gay issues that was out of step with the Catholic Church. The church suffered tragedy in 2005 with the shooting death of Aniceto Armendariz, a St. Mary’s deacon, on U.S. 40.

Mayor Dana Williams and the Park City Council on Thursday night honored St. Mary’s with a resolution. Its passage received applause from the crowd in the City Council chambers. The current pastor is Stan Herba, who was in attendance on Thursday night. Herba has held the pulpit at St. Mary’s since last August. He is the 20th pastor to serve at the church. Approximately 1,200 families worship at St. Mary’s.

The City Hall resolution notes that St. Mary’s “attended to the spiritual needs of the local population and also stood as a beacon for the rights of all individuals regardless of origin or religious affiliation.” The elected officials, through the resolution, encouraged people to be “unbiased and more tolerant of each other because there is so much to gain by celebrating our differences.”