The following article first appeared in the June 2000 Boost-A-Month Club Newsletter.  For more information about becoming a Boost-A-Month member, call 1-800-935-0975 or contact Father Dominic Duggins.

'Moving On' Goal of Missionary Work
Nostalgia and Hope Surround Glenmary
Departure From Southern Ohio

Father Bill Smith and St. Mary Queen of Heaven parishioners raised their first church building in just one day.

'This mission area is on the threshold of really blooming out." A Glenmary priest wrote those words to Father William Howard Bishop after arriving at Our Lady of Lourdes mission in Otway, Ohio, in 1953. That mission church as well as others located in Manchester, Buena Vista, Pond Creek, West Portsmouth and West Union marked the beginning of a 60-year relationship between the people of these southern Ohio communities and the Glenmary Home Missioners.

Glenmary missioners and supporters have seen the area "bloom out" through the years so much so that now it's time to move on. The Masses celebrated the last weekend of June at Holy Trinity Church (West Union) and St. Mary Queen of Heaven Church (Peebles) will be the last for Glenmary missioners in Ohio. These established parishes will be turned back to the Archdiocese of Cincinnati with an archdiocesan priest assuming the pastorate of the two parishes on July 1.

In its 60-year history, Glenmary has turned back close to 100 churches to local dioceses, according to Glenmary president Father Jerry Dorn. "Glenmary missioners always intend to move on once a church is established."

He added that Glenmary has stayed in southern Ohio for such a long period for many reasons. Key among them is the fact that so much of the early history of this missionary order of priests and brothers unfolded there.

Father William Howard Bishop, Glenmary's founder, and other early Glenmarians developed the approach to home mission evangelization in southern Ohio which was later extended throughout Appalachia, the South and the Southwest.

In the annals of Glenmary's history, southern Ohio represents many firsts:

• It's the location of the first chapel erected under the auspices of the Glenmary Home Missioners in 1942.
  
• Father Bishop and the first priest to join him, Father Raphael Sourd, held their first "open-air campaign" in the courthouse square of West Union, establishing a prototype of the tent-meeting and street-preaching style Glenmarians would become known for in the future.
  
• The mission in West Portsmouth, turned back to the Diocese of Columbus in 1949, became the first Glenmary mission to "graduate" as an established parish.

The church at Manchester, St. Mary of the Assumption, was taken over and remodeled by Glenmarians in 1938. The church, built in 1878, was used by Glenmary for four summers as a temporary base for outdoor preaching campaigns.

From that outpost, Glenmarians opened Our Lady of Lourdes mission in Otway in 1946. From there missions in Pond Creek and West Portsmouth were opened. Glenmary served in these Scioto County missions until 1956 when they were returned to the Diocese of Columbus.

Holy Trinity Church in West Union began as a mission of Otway in 1949. Father Bill Smith was assigned to the area in 1950, beginning what would become a prosperous era for the missions of West Union, Peebles, Manchester and Blue Creek.

Father Smith and his Glenmary successors met some resistance and prejudice from the local community of West Union in those early years. A local minister started a petition to keep Father Smith from building Holy Trinity in 1952.

Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Towner, in an interview in the early 1970s, remember the incident. Longtime Catholic residents of West Union, they said it didn't seem possible that "now that same man is still here and has been in our pulpit preaching at a community service. It doesn't seem possible we could have advanced so in these few years."

Breaking down negative stereotypes of Catholicism in the wider community is one goal of Glenmarians when they arrive in a new area which is typically less than one half of one percent Catholic.

The Glenmary Home Missioners who have ministered in southern Ohio have done the work of missionaries: They have evangelized, helped meet the spiritual and physical needs of the members of the church as well as the wider community and established parishes that will continue that work into the future.

Glenmary leaves Adams County on July 1. It's a move laced with a bit of nostalgia but also with much joy and hope. Joy at what has been accomplished in southern Ohio through the years and hope for what is yet to be accomplished in another mission area "on the threshold of really blooming out."