RISEN CHRIST (1967)

Archbishop Casey gave to the first parish he created in Denver, Risen Christ, the same name he had given the cathedral he built as bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska. He paid Hutchinson Homes, the developer of the surrounding residential neighborhood, $43,805 for the 5.15-acre site. Adjoining parishes were asked to contribute $10,000 each to help establish the new congregation.

Archbishop Casey created the parish on August 22, 1967, and authorized construction of a $386,000 showcase church for all of rapidly growing southeast Denver south of Jewell Avenue and east of interstate highway 25. James Sudler, a leading Denver architect, was commissioned to do the "ski jump" church.

This dramatic structure, glistening in its white rusticated stucco skin wrapped about a steel frame skeleton, is a curved-sided triangle. The third side rises on the northwest to a peak seventy-six feet above the altar, with vertical panels of stained glass, whose abstract designs splash the interior with color. A landscaped circular walkway surrounds the triangular church, geometrically combining the Christian symbol of unity with the symbol of the Triune God.

The cylindrical, forty-foot-high baptistry was placed at the main (south) entrance of the church, symbolizing baptism as the doorway to the faith. It is connected to the church by a ruby red translucent plastic arch. The church is illuminated not only by the chancel stained glass behind the oval sanctuary but by skylights and slit openings in the three-foot-thick cavity walls.

The 1,250-seat church was completed in 1970 and blessed by Archbishop Casey. To complement the church, a parish center was constructed in the fall of 1974 to house the parish office, conference space, and rooms for activities ranging from instructions in the Creighton Model Ovulation Method of Natural Family Planning to the Mt. Tabor Support Group for divorced and separated Catholics.

Joseph M. O'Malley, the founding pastor, was a Massachusetts native, a former tight end for the Holy Cross College football team, and a newspaper reporter who also served as chaplain for the Denver Fire Department. Father O'Malley was followed by Monsignor William H. Jones, who became the second pastor at Risen Christ on July 15, 1980.

Monsignor Jones, a Denver native whose uncle, Hubert Newell, was the bishop of Cheyenne and who had brothers and uncles in the Colorado clergy, has been a leading administrator and historian of the Archdiocese of Denver. For his Ph.D. dissertation in history at the Catholic University of America, he compiled The History of Catholic Education in the State of Colorado. After a stint as chancellor and superintendent of Catholic schools, Monsignor Jones took over at Risen Christ, then and now one of the largest Catholic congregations, with over 2,000 registered families.

On a 1986 visit, we found the church jammed with red-coated ushers squeezing people in for the 11 A.M. Mass. The organist and choir loft vocalists were not hidden in back but were up front in the raised sanctuary. This strikingly different church contains not only a cry room but also a playroom with hobbyhorses and toys, as well as a book and religious goods store, the Book Nook.

In the summer of 1987, members of the congregation donated a 6.5-ton, twelve-foot-high statue of the Risen Christ for the church's prayer garden. Mario Benassi of Florence, Italy, sculpted the statue from Carrara marble, using as a model a twenty-four-inch bronze by Denver artist Dee Toscano.