Parish combines four former northside parishes
St. Peter Claver is the name given to a new parish that brings together the former Our Lady of the Holy Cross, St. Augustine, St. Elizabeth Mother of John the Baptist and St. Matthew the Apostle parishes in north St. Louis.
Archbishop Mitchell T. Rozanski issued a decree announcing the name, which goes into effect on Sept. 9, St. Peter Claver’s feast day.
Pastor Scott Scheiderer communicated the news to parishioners, who over the past several months had recommended more than two dozen names and ultimately voted in favor of St. Peter Claver.
“Wow, have we got a Sunday for you. Hopefully you received the phone tree message. Brothers and sisters, we have a new name: St. Peter Claver,” Father Scheiderer told the congregation, who responded with applause at Mass Aug. 25 at St. Elizabeth Mother of John the Baptist. “We are very excited for our patron.”
A 17th-century Spanish Jesuit priest, St. Peter Claver devoted his priestly ministry to enslaved persons in Colombia. Known as the “servant of the Africans forever,” he cared for the sick and dying among them. It is said that he catechized and baptized more than 300,000 enslaved people.
Following the All Things New announcement on Pentecost Sunday in May 2023, representatives from all four churches formed a transition team of laypeople, which has led the effort to examine parish ministries and explore new ways to collaborate as one new parish family.
For many, this was not the first time they’ve encountered a parish closure or merger. With that comes a grieving process that must be acknowledged, Father Scheiderer said. At Mass on Aug. 25, six members of the parish were commissioned as trained Stephen Ministers, who provide one-on-one support for others as they experience difficulties in their faith journey.
“We say thank you, Lord, for their resilience, because they have been through a lot,” he said. “Many have been through this multiple times, so we’re reverencing everything that they are experiencing and going through and praying for that openness to the Holy Spirit that we can follow His lead.”
Over the next several weekends, parishioners have been invited to visit the four church sites to evaluate each location’s strengths and weaknesses and discern which will become the primary worship site. For now, weekend and weekday Masses continue to rotate among the four sites.
Isom Williams, a longtime St. Matthew the Apostle parishioner who was among the newest commissioned Stephen Ministers, said that prayer will help the new parish community to continue moving forward.
“It doesn’t matter which building you choose,” he said. “It’s not going to be the right one because of all the sentiment, the longevity and the connections people have had in their individual parishes through the years. That makes a big difference. It’s a big adjustment.”
Stephen Belt from St. Matthew the Apostle and co-founder of Claver House, which has provided community outreach in the Ville neighborhood for decades, serves on the new parish’s transition team. He said that the African-American Catholic community in St. Louis has always been a pilgrim Church.
“It speaks to me as a call to discipleship,” he said. “I think the community is gelling. And there’s no argument that there’s an increase in numbers. You hear it in the choir — they’re actually doing three- and four-part harmonies. And you can hear it because there’s enough of them to do that. But we’ve got work to do. The batter isn’t fully mixed yet.”
Vicki Rainey, who comes from St. Elizabeth Mother of John the Baptist and helps coordinate youth ministry, said she looks forward to continued service to others in the community and within the parish, which all four churches have been engaged in many ways.
“We help our community, our neighbors in need, and even the neighbors that are within our walls,” she said. “Me personally, I believe in meeting people where they are, and that’s the young and the old. From there, God will do the rest.”
Corliss Cox, a longtime member of St. Augustine who serves on the transition team, has been involved in ministry in the archdiocese since the mid-1980s, including since 1997 with the St. Charles Lwanga Center, which serves the African-American Catholic community.
Cox has witnessed parish mergers in the past and brings that experience to the team. “What I have personally experienced as a member of our transition team is an initial feeling of grief, which is to be expected,” she said. Cox added that she’s also seen moments of bonding and inclusiveness as parishioners work together.
“Events that might have been a part of one particular parish have become joint ventures,” she said. “Unity is developing. Worship styles are blended. Ministries have been collaborating. We are able to sit around one table and have productive discussions. In most circumstances, we are sensitive to the feelings of other parishioners and are able to say what we mean and mean what we say. We are well on the road to becoming ‘family.’”
St. Peter Claver
Feast day: Sept. 9
By 1651, he had catechized and baptized more than 300,000 enslaved people. He died on Sept. 8, 1654, in Cartagena, and was beatified on July 20, 1850, by Blessed Pius IX. At his canonization on Jan. 15, 1888, Pope Leo XIII proclaimed him patron of all Roman Catholic missions to African peoples.
It has been reported that St. Peter Claver also participated in the slave trade. In an interview with the Black Catholic Messenger, Father Chris Kellerman, SJ, author of “All Oppression Shall Cease: A History of Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Catholic Church,” said that St. Peter Claver owned at least nine enslaved people and was the master of them on behalf of his Jesuit community.
A miracle for the saint’s canonization occurred in the 1860s at the Shrine of St. Joseph in St. Louis, where Ignatius Strecker was cured of a lingering, severe injury after kissing a relic of then-Blessed Peter Claver.
