After decades of planning and a grassroots fundraising campaign, the Msgr. Sammon Center at St. Cecilia parish in Tustin was blessed and dedicated on June 22.
The Most Reverend Kevin Vann walked through and blessed the 10,138 square-foot, two-story parish center with holy water.
BISHOP KEVIN VANN BLESSES THE NEW MSGR. SAMMON CENTER AT ST. CECILIA PARISH ON JUNE 22. PHOTOS BY KIERNAN COLIFLORES/DIOCESE OF ORANGE
Prior to the blessing, Bishop Vann was the main celebrant of Mass in the church adjacent the center, which will serve a variety of purposes for the 67-year-old parish.
Other celebrants included current and former St. Cecilia staff and clergy from throughout the Diocese.
Nearly every pew inside the church was filled.
“We give thanks to everybody who was part of this project,” Bishop Vann said. “Thanks to you, we have this wonderful new parish center, which is so much needed. You will really enjoy it. It’s another step in the journey.”
Situated immediately adjacent to St. Cecilia church, the Msgr. Sammon Center is named after the late Msgr. John Sammon, the parish’s second pastor, who served at St. Cecilia from 1960 to 1976, the year the Diocese of Orange was established.
Msgr. Sammon was then appointed Vicar for Pastoral Community Affairs for the Diocese, a position that came with multiple responsibilities, said Fr. Christopher Heath, director of Diocesan Archives.
“He was the bishop’s representative to the fire departments, the police departments, the scouting programs, secular organizations and religious organizations,” Fr. Christopher said. “He was the chaplain for everything. But he was doing that while he was at St. Cecilia, so he was very well known in Orange County long before 1976, and his reach was already pretty wide. He had to be everywhere because people were constantly asking for his help.”
During his 16-years at St. Cecilia, the longest tenure of any of the parish’s eight pastors, Msgr. Sammon launched several parish programs and oversaw the construction of St. Cecilia School in 1961and the construction of the parish’s new church, which opened in 1964.
Deacon Bill Weeks, the Business Services Manager at St. Cecilia, was put in charge of the capital campaign for the project about seven years ago by Very Reverend Bao Thai, pastor of St. Cecilia at the time, before being appointed to his current position as rector of Christ Cathedral.
FR. BAO THAI, RECTOR OF CHRIST CATHEDRAL AND FORMER PASTOR OF ST. CECILIA CATHOLIC CHURCH IN TUSTIN, GREETS GUESTS DURING THE DEDICATION OF THE NEW MSGR. SAMMON CENTER.
Fundraising for the construction of the parish center began in 1993 and involved selling two homes owned by the parish to help meet the rising building costs.
But much of fundraising has been a true grassroots effort, Deacon Weeks said.
“From bake sales to selling pho to Fiesta Sundays,” the deacon said. “The list goes on of how many different events got us to today. We were happy to raise over $4 million for it from over 1,200 donors.”
The parish center is comprised of six meeting rooms on the top floor and a 4,900-square-foot assembly room downstairs, which can be partitioned into four separate rooms.
“We can celebrate Mass inside, overflow Masses on Christmas, on Easter, or special occasions,” Deacon Weeks said. “We are a melting pot of so many different wonderful ethnicities and it’s a beautiful testament to every single one of them, because every one of them contributed to this building.”