The following article first appeared in the July 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.

New Mission Church Established in Mississippi
Lay Pastoral Coordinators Expand Ministry to Neighboring County

Gene and Mary Helen Grabbe lead the entrance procession to begin a prayer service for healing at St. John Neumann. Glenmary Father Frank Ruff is pictured to the right.

When Glenmary lay pastoral coordinators Gene and Mary Helen Grabbe started knocking on doors in Choctaw County, Mississippi, in search of Catholics, they found five or six people who were interested and several “true blue” Catholics who were driving 30 miles one way to a neighboring county to attend weekly Mass. All were interested in bringing together a new Catholic community in their county.

“In many cases we found older people who still attended Mass but whose children were active in other churches,” Gene Grabbe says. “There was a real sense of sadness that they weren’t able to pass on to their children or grandchildren their gift of faith.” Many of the children didn’t want to travel the distance to attend a Catholic church.

Today, there isn’t a need to travel outside Choctaw County to find a Catholic worshiping community. A group, which began meeting one Sunday a month in a rented room in the local library, now gathers every other Sunday at a storefront located in Ackerman, the county seat.

It’s important to understand, Gene said, the concept of county to a rural area. “Having a church presence in the county seat allows residents to worship with their neighbors in an area that is central so it’s easy to get to and familiar to the residents so it is a comfortable place to be.”

The Choctaw County Catholic Community is made up of about 15-20 persons—half black and half white, Gene says. This makes it the only integrated congregation in the county.

“Blacks and whites don’t mix well in the civic community,” Gene explains, “but they do in our church community. We stand out in that way.”

He tells of a low-income integrated senior citizens group that has been searching for a place to hold their daily lunches. The group, although sponsored by the ministerial association, was not welcome to gather at the other churches in town (all of which are racially divided). So now they meet daily at the Catholic church.

“The Catholic community is a part of breaking down those prejudices,” Mary Helen adds.

The Grabbes arrived in northeastern Mississippi in 1992 and are working to build up Catholic communities in both Webster and Choctaw counties.

Their primary focus upon arriving was on St. John Neumann in Webster County’s Eupora. Established by Glenmary in 1978, it had been under diocesan care for years. When the Grabbes arrived in 1992 and Glenmary once again took responsibility for the county, there were just five active families and one youth. Today, it has 60 active families and 35 youth, many of whom the Grabbes reached through home visiting and door-to-door “cold calls.”

When Choctaw County became their focus several years later, they used the same plan in addition to running an ad in the local paper inviting those interested to share worship at the local library. Prior to Glenmary’s arrival, this county had never had a Catholic presence.

In their door-to-door visits, Gene and Mary Helen met people like the African-American woman who had faithfully attended Mass outside the county while her children and grandchildren drifted away from the Catholic faith. The Grabbes befriended the woman and reached out to her after the sudden death of her husband. Since then, several members of her family have come back to the Church and some, who were never baptized, were received into the Church.

“The Catholic community being here is key to all of this,” Mary Helen says.

The Grabbes lead the budding Choctaw group in “Sunday Worship in the Absence of a Priest” once a month and a “good, core group of 15-20 has formed.”

With some help from the Jackson Diocese, the group has rented a storefront. On occasion, usually once a month, a diocesan priest is able to celebrate Eucharist with the congregation.

Members of the community have taken ownership of this new Church and now invite others to join them in door-to-door visits as the Grabbes did.

A Catholic presence in Choctaw County has become more important in the past year with the opening of a lignite coal mine which is bringing in many jobs and people from outside the area.

“We feel it’s important to be here as the Church,” Mary Helen says, “so people have a place to land. If we (the Church) weren’t  here, where would they go?”

In addition to the good things happening in the Catholic Community of Choctaw County, the Eupora community is also prospering. The community’s present worship space is a 2,400-square-foot historic house that seats 60 persons comfortably. But in the past year, the congregation has swelled making it necessary to enlarge the space by about 20 feet.

“We’re growing by leaps and bounds,” Gene says. But, he concedes, “That’s a pretty good problem to have.”