St. Rose of Lima Parish Religious Education Center is dedicated

IC photo by Christine Young

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Bishop John C. Wester blesses those in attendance at the dedication of the new rotunda and CCD building at Saint Rose of Lima Oct. 4.

LAYTON ­— “Welcome all of you and welcome Bishop John Wester, Mayor J. Stephen Curtis, Council Member Michael J. Bouwhuis, Architect Ralph Stanislaw, Msgr. Victor Bonnell, pastor of Saint Rose of Lima, religious sisters, and all the clergy,” said Rick Hartle of the building committee.

The Most Rev. John C. Wester, Bishop of the Diocese of Salt Lake City, blessed the newly constructed Saint Rose of Lima Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD) building with nine classrooms and a rotunda social center and various activities Oct. 4.

Msgr. Victor G. Bonnell welcomed everyone to the dedication and thanked the building committee and the Saint Rose Growing Fund Raising committee of Kevin and Cathy Cummings, Rick Hartle, and Don Osterhout, and the dedication committee, William and Karen Smith. He gave special acknowledgement to the architects Ralph Stanislaw, principal and David Fitzsimmons, project manager, and Culp Construction.

“I am very honored to represent Layton City and also to extend what I would personally say is a great asset to the city, and that is Saint Rose of Lima Church,” said Mayor Stephen Curtis. “It is truly an honor to be here and to participate in the dedicatory services.”

“After much work and prayer by so many members of the Saint Rose of Lima Parish community, we gather now bless and to dedicate this new catechetical center where our young people will learn of their Catholic faith,” said Bishop Wester.

“In this catechetical center, adults will deepen their commitment to live as Christ has taught us,” prayed Bishop Wester. “We pray that the Word of God may always echo from its walls.”

Bishop Wester said he would like to congratulate the contractors, the builders, and the parishioners for all their hard work and efforts.

“I am also pleased to see so many of you here today as well as Msgr. J. Terrence Fitzgerald, vicar general of the diocese, Chancellor Deacon Silvio Mayo, as a sign of the wonderful relationship we have in our diocese with all communities of faith working together closely for the glory of God,” said Bishop Wester.

“About five years ago I had the opportunity to visit a variety of southeast Asian countries, and one of the countries was China,” said Bishop Wester. “We went right up to the top near Russia. It was a very cold part of the country and we were there at a very cold time of the year. We were visiting one of the local parishes. Things were very difficult there. We visited a religious education classroom – there was only one classroom and it was heated with a coal potbelly stove. And they were so proud of having the stove in place.

“And I thought to myself the lengths people go to to pass on the faith,” said Bishop Wester. “This wonderful edifice that we blessed today is demonstrative of the value you place on passing on the faith generation to generation. It is a sign that yours is a parish community in which all are involved in passing on the faith – a community that prays for our young people and for the adults to continue to learn the faith as well.

“It is a sign of the dedication you have as teachers as they commit their time and share their lives and the faith with the young people,” said Bishop Wester. “It is a sign that this community realizes that we really are a community of the Word. And the sign that we gather to break open God’s Word and receive the sacrament, we then go forth to proclaim what we have heard. This beautiful rotunda and these classrooms will do just that to give glory and praise to God.”

“We built nine classrooms and a new rotunda that will also serve as a social hall,” said Stanislaw. “We expanded the main social hall upstairs. We moved the kitchen so it can be a connecting kitchen between the new social hall and the existing social hall.

“We added the new nine classrooms so they were all interconnected with new pathways so you do not have to go outside when the weather is inclement,” said Stanislaw. “We had to reconfigure the existing social hall of the building to make that happen, so we had to put a hallway through. Then we designed a ramp so it is all wheelchair accessible all the way around and down into the new classrooms. The classrooms are separated by grade levels.

“The new building also has storage space, office space for administrators, new rest rooms, and windows to allow supervision in the corridors,” said Stanislaw. “We used a lot of day lighting in the rotunda, low and high windows to bring in day lighting and essential sky lights.

“In the classroom education area, we used windows on the exterior of the building and clear story sky lights in each classroom that are all north facing so they can get the diffused northern light in to the classrooms to cut down on the use of electricity.”