This issue
He dwells among us ................ 2 Diocesan calendar ................. 15 Deanery news ........................ 16 La Cosecha ......... center pullout
The East Tennessee
Catholic schools.......................20 Columns...................................34 Virtus training...........................36 Penance services.....................39
December 6, 2015 Volume 25 Number 2 Bishop Richard F. Stika
News from The Diocese of Knoxville • Visit us at dioknox.org or etcatholic.org
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Be a Man! Fr. Larry Richards schools diocesan men
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Community Matters St. Mary Oak Ridge leads city-wide public forum
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Going homeless All Saints youth visit life on the street
‘We stand on the shoulders of many’ St. Thérèse of Lisieux Parish celebrates a century of Catholicism in Cleveland, looks forward to the future
St. Thérèse continued on page 13
JIM WOGAN
L
ong before the Diocese of Knoxville existed, back when the seeds of Catholicism were starting to sprout roots in the spiritual soil of East Tennessee, Father Paul Hostettler was helping nurture the crop. And keeping the rats away. Father Hostettler was appointed pastor at the Church of the Resurrection in Cleveland in 1958, and he quickly discovered that he wasn’t the only full-time resident at the parish. “The Church of the Resurrection (built in 1914) was downtown, behind the post office, on a very small piece of property. It was just a little wooden church with a two-story wooden rectory that was … full of rats,” he recalled while laughing. “I wouldn’t sleep upstairs because I could hear rats running through the wall. I slept on the couch down in the living room.” The Church of the Resurrection is gone. So are the rats. Father Hostettler, 92, and living in Nashville, is now retired. Thanks to him, and many other devoted clergy and hardworking laypeople over the decades, the Catholic Church in Bradley County is still growing. Parishioners at St. Thérèse of Lisieux, which was built to replace the Church of the Resurrection, recently celebrated 100 years of Catholicism in their community.
By Jim Wogan
Blessings from above Father Mike Nolan, pastor of St. Thérèse of Lisieux Parish in Cleveland, blesses Amy and Brian McGanahan and their young charges during Communion. “We’re the best Catholic church in Bradley County. It’s not bragging. It’s just fact, because we’re the only one,” Father Nolan said. “So what we make of it is up to us. What we are is God’s gift to us. What we become is our gift to God.”
The Diocese of Knoxville Living our Roman Catholic faith in East Tennessee