Church Closings

May 22, 2009

Church will bridge gap with walk

St. Nicholas Parish will welcome Latino worshippers June 28 with bilingual Mass.

By Mary Therese Biebel mbiebel@timesleader.com
Features Writer

Sometimes a journey of faith takes a person across an ocean, or a continent. For one group of Wilkes-Barre worshippers, the trip will literally cross a bridge.

Up to 300 Latino families who have attended the soon-to-close Holy Rosary Church in the Heights section of Wilkes-Barre will walk in procession from that building to their new church home at St. Nicholas Parish on June 28 in time for an 11 a.m. bilingual Mass.

Attorney Carl Frank from St. Nicholas’ transition team invites parishioners to join him in welcoming the newcomers as they cross the South Street Bridge and escort them into the nearby church.

“We’re very happy about it,” he said of the addition to the church’s population. “My family have been parishioners at St. Nicholas for six generations, and they landed here as immigrants.

“Catholic means universal,” Frank continued. “It’s the universal church and the doors are wide open. Everyone is welcome at the table of the Lord.”

The 11 a.m. Mass that day will be concelebrated in English and Spanish by St. Nicholas pastor Monsignor Joseph G. Rauscher and the Rev. Fidel Ticona CSC from King’s College.

Following the Mass, from about noon to 3 p.m., the church will hold a fiesta with mariachi music, a covered-dish buffet and games for the children, committee member Alice Baran said.

Eventually, there will be a Mass in Spanish at St. Nicholas each weekend, along with several Masses in English, but, Rauscher said, “We don’t want to have everything separate. We’d like to integrate as much as possible.”

Already, members of the Hispanic community have attended planning meetings for the St. Nicholas bazaar because they want to help.

“Maybe we’ll have bratwurst and tacos,” the pastor said, with a nod toward the German heritage of the church’s founders.

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