CURÉ Dd'ARS PARISH (1952)

Curé d'Ars is a multi-ethnic parish with a strong black Catholic focus. Charlotte Newell, a member of the parish's gospel choir, noted in 1982 that once "we had to suppress our blackness. How much rhythm can you have in Latin? Now, after Vatican II, it's a beautiful thing to rejoice, to be black, and to be Catholic."

Originally Curé d'Ars--like the surrounding north Park Hill neighborhood--was primarily white. After World War II, thousands of new homes were built in this part of northeast Denver. Many Catholic families moved in, flooding Blessed Sacrament, the parish that had served Park Hill since 1912.

To relieve overcrowding at Blessed Sacrament, Archbishop Vehr created Cure d'Ars parish in 1952. William Mulcahy, an assistant at Blessed Sacrament, became the first pastor. Mulcahy's World War II experiences prepared him well for the struggle to establish a parish in a rapidly changing neighborhood. He had been one of the first chaplains to land on the beaches of Normandy, lived in trenches for the next five weeks, and developed trenchmouth that left him toothless.

Father Mulcahy was the kind of obscure but heroic pastor commemorated by the parish's namesake, a nineteenth-century French pastor (cur‚), John Baptist Vianney, who spent forty years as the pastor of a poor parish in the little town of Ars and was canonized as the patron saint of parish priests.

Father Mulcahy borrowed the Tower Theater at 2245 Kearney Street for the first Mass of his newborn parish in November 1952. Soon the theater/church hosted two Sunday Masses, as well as religion classes taught by the Sisters of Loretto from Blessed Sacrament School. By 1953, over 800 families had enrolled in the new parish bounded by East 28th and 46th avenues between Colorado Boulevard and Syracuse Street. Ground was broken, August 9, 1953, for a church/school building on a one-block site that had previously been part of Thomas Keefe's brickyard. It stood between East 32nd Avenue (as Martin Luther King Boulevard was called until the 1970s) and Thrill Place, Dahlia Street, and Elm Street. Father Mulcahy died that year of exhaustion and overwork at the age of forty-six. Nicholas Haley, a Canon City native, became the second pastor, serving until 1961, when Frank G. Morfeld, VF, took charge.

John Connell, a Denver architect and member of Blessed Sacrament Church, designed the initial Curé d'Ars at 3200 Dahlia. Although a modern, low-slung building of brick and concrete, it contained ornamental hints of late Gothic architecture. William Joseph, designer of the Beaumont Fountain at 18th and Broadway and the statue of Christopher Columbus in the Civic Center, worked with Connell to make Cur‚ d'Ars a harmonious blend of traditional and modern church elements.

Archbishop Vehr dedicated the $350,000 parish plant on June 14, 1954. That fall, the three-grade school opened with 200 students taught by three Sisters of the Most Precious Blood, for whom a convent was built on Eudora Street. By 1958, over 1,500 families belonged to the parish, which enlarged the school to handle grades one to eight. Two developments of the 1960s, however, undermined what appeared to be a large and successful parish. In 1963, Continental Airlines moved its headquarters from Denver to Los Angeles. Many Curé d'Ars parishioners worked for Continental at nearby Stapleton Airport and either lost their jobs or moved. At the same time, black families began moving across Colorado Boulevard into Park Hill. Afro-Americans, who were primarily Protestant, replaced whites who moved southward. The exodus of one-time Curé d'Ars members included two future Denver mayors: Thomas Guida Currigan moved from 2915 Ivy to 444 South Oneida Way while William H. McNichols, Jr., relocated from 3395 Grape to 754 Krameria.

Curé d'Ars School enrollments tumbled. A block to the north the King Soopers grocery closed, triggering a decline in the Dahlia Shopping Center. Suddenly, Curé d'Ars found itself with a facility far too large for its needs, as well as costs and debts too heavy for the 200 families still with the parish by the early 1970s. On May 1, 1974, the parish plant was sold to Union Missionary Baptist Church, whose home at 3148 Humboldt Street had been razed by the Denver Urban Renewal Authority.

John A. Canjar, who replaced Father Morfeld as pastor of Curé d'Ars in 1969, declared that "the parish is not physical buildings but where the parishioners congregate for services and meetings." Father Canjar moved his flock into the Park Hill Congregational Church at East 26th Avenue and Leyden Street, which also leased its facilities to Temple Micah for Jewish Sabbath observances.

Although Father Canjar and his flock appreciated this unusual ecumenical arrangement, many missed not having a church to call their own. In 1978, the parish used $180,000 from the sale of its original home to begin construction on church-owned property across the street from its original building. Architect Paul Maybury incorporated the stations of the cross and the altar from the original church into the new, smaller, $250,000 structure. The post-Vatican II design featured a square church with wedge shaped banks of pews. A knotty pine wood ceiling and small stained glass window slits gave the church an intimate feeling.

Archbishop Casey blessed the modern stone, brick, and cinderblock structure on December 2, 1978. Under the leadership of pastors Robert Kinkel (1975-1981) and Martin Lally (1981-1986), Curé d'Ars began growing again. From a nadir of 179 families, membership climbed above the 300 family level during the 1980s.

Flush times continued after the Capuchin Franciscans of the Mid-American Province accepted leadership of Curé d'Ars in 1986 and sent the current pastor, Lloyd Schmeidler, OFM Cap. On a visit to the church in February 1988, we found Father Schmeidler and Clarence G. McDavid, a black deacon, at the doorway welcoming both regulars and newcomers. A standing-room-only crowd of families, perhaps a quarter of them white, squeezed into the 250-seat church as a full choir, resplendent in green robes, opened the Mass with a hand-clapping, drum-thumping, piano-popping hymn.

Father Lloyd joined enthusiastically in the spirituals and then welcomed all "our brothers and sisters." His homily emphasized Black Awareness and Black History month, to be celebrated with a special excursion to Denver's Black American West Museum. At the Prayer of the Faithful, the congregation publicly shared their joys and sorrows, eliciting pious exclamations. Holding hands and singing the "Our Father" took close to five minutes, while the extended visiting during the sign of peace lasted almost ten. Mass ended with a rousing spiritual, applause, and hallelujahs. One elderly black gentleman, hearing a "soul" Mass for the first time, hugged a choir member and exulted: "This is the first time in thirty years I haven't looked at my watch during Mass!"