Suffering With Joy

A Permanent Home for St. Peter Parish in Tulsa?

June 8, 2011

Just how deep the commitment is to the traditional Catholic sacred liturgy can be measured by the sacrifices the Latin Mass Communities endure, often for many years.  In 1995 Bishop Slattery of Tulsa, one of my favorite US bishops, invited the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter to serve Catholics in Tulsa who desired the Traditional Latin Mass.  He has done a great deal more, but that’s another story.

Since its inception, St. Peter parish has been depositing funds into the diocesan account to acquire their own church and currently has amassed $500,000.  This is pretty good for a group that started out in a tiny chapel with only 12 people in 1995. Over the years the parish has grown and now requires two priests to meet its needs.

Our Lady of Sorrows Convent, Broken Arrow, future home of St. Peter Parish

Enter St. John’s Health System in Tulsa, which owns the convent of Our Lady of Sorrows in Broken Arrow.  This spring the board agreed to GIVE the facility to St. Peter parish.  The only thing lacking is another $500,000 for the parish to take over the 120,000 square foot facility and maintain it.

Bishop Slattery would prefer the parish have $10,000,000, but he is willing to allow them to accept the deed at $1,000,000.

This will be one of the largest buildings and grounds operated by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter in the USA.  Plans are for a Catholic school in addition to everything else that goes with a parish.

I knew when I got involved in the Ecclesia Dei movement in 1999 that we were pioneering and making history.  The battle has been uphill all the way and not over by a long shot, but when I see first hand the great advances of Tulsa, Dallas, Oklahoma City, and Cherokee Village, Arkansas – all Fraternity parishes – I can only rejoice for the Catholics who will have such wonderful support in living their Catholic identity.

My husband and I used to drive 3 hours one way every month to attend the Traditional Latin Mass in Tulsa.  We also attended some Holy Week services and Christmas Midnight Mass there because it was the closest location available for the Traditional Latin Mass.  The success of St. Peter’s is therefore, particularly sweet to us.

St. Peter Parish website is: http://fssp-tulsa.org/. If you would like to donate, visit their site.

Tulsa is a pleasant city on the Oklahoma plains – not a bad place to live and work if you don’t mind being in tornado alley.  But what the heck, something’s going to get us someday.

Want to subscribe to posts by email? Visit the third box in the sidebar.

V.  Praised be Jesus Christ!

R.  Now and forever.  Amen.

(Click on the link above to read why I am ending my posts with this.)

Tags: Catholic Church, catholic identity, Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, Tulsa