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PARISH PROFILE
 St. Peter’s, Richmond: Built in 1834, it is oldestCatholic church in city
By Steve Neill
of The Catholic Virginian
With few residential houses in downtown Richmond, people who choose to attend one of the downtown churches are likely from suburbia or other parts of the city.
Such is the case with St. Peter’s Catholic Church, which stands at 8th and Grace Streets. Originally built in 1834 as the cathedral of the Diocese of Richmond which had been established in 1820, St. Peter’s is the oldest Catholic church in Richmond. Plans are under way for the parish’s 175th anniversary celebration in May 2009.
Chris Thomas, who is chairperson of St. Peter’s parish finance council, lives in Chesterfield County and works in downtown Richmond. She moved to Richmond from her native Philadelphia and only found out about St. Peter’s by chance.
It was the Feast of the Assumption on Aug. 15, 1994 and she was looking for a Catholic church downtown where she could attend Mass.
“I’ve been coming back ever since,” Ms. Thomas told The Catholic Virginian. “There’s something about St. Peter’s which draws you.
“This Catholic presence is very much needed downtown because of the Capitol (one block east of St. Peter’s) and the financial district.”
 Workers in the financial district and downtown offices come to Mass each weekday at 12:05 p.m. Father Robert Brownell, pastor of St. Peter’s since 1990, is available for the sacrament of penance before and after Mass.
Indeed, Father Brownell seems to be the motivating factor for many people who have chosen St. Peter’s as their parish. This is the case of Michelle and Bob Kennon, who attended the 8:30 a.m. Sunday Mass on March 9 with their son, Woody. They are members of St. Bridget parish, but frequently come to the downtown parish on Sunday.
“I came first by myself two years ago,” Mrs. Kennon said. “My daughter was making her first reconciliation (at another parish) and I went with her. I happened to get Father Bob for confession and I liked what he had to say.”
She returned a second time to St. Peters, this time with her husband and children.
“Woody made a connection right away,” Mrs. Kennon said. “He liked the size of the church and the personal attention Father Bob gives to the people.”
There is a sense of family at St. Peter’s with the small number of people who come each week for Sunday Mass at 8:30 and 10:45 a.m.
“You get to know everybody here and the people are very friendly,” said Dave Penhallow, a lector and an extraordinary minister of the eucharist.
 With only a small number of children among the parishioners, religious education for them is home-based with the parents working with their children at home. Doyle Hull, who became a Catholic a few years ago through St. Peter’s RCIA program, is in charge of the home-based program.
“The parents have told us they like it because they’re not just dropping their kids off at church and picking them up an hour later,” Mr. Hull said.
The children are able to integrate what they learn with the home setting “and the fabric of their secular lives,” Mr. Hull said.
Father Brownell meets with the children once a month to make sure they grasp insight needed to be ready for first Communion and first reconciliation.
Adults who wish to enter the Catholic Church do so through the RCIA, but there is not always a regular group in place.
“Being as small as we are, we can do it as the opportunity presents itself,” Father Brownell said.
Adult education takes place between the two Sunday Masses. St. Peter’s just concluded a video series on Lent with Father Michael Himes of Boston College. There have been other video series on the Gospels and Advent.
 Sam Hamilton, a member of St. Peter’s for three years, started coming to the church for weekday Mass in 1999 because he worked downtown.
“I could have been having the worst day,” he said. “I’d come to St. Peter’s and I always felt that Father Bob’s homily was directed at me.”
Mr. Hamilton says he finds St. Peter’s to be “a very forgiving parish.”
“I guess I’m referring to the homeless people who are welcomed here,” he explained. “The parish is very inclusive of all types of people.”
He mentioned the example of a homeless man who regularly comes to the parish during the week and uses what he called a large comb to straighten the fringe on the carpet in the sanctuary. No one looks askance at this activity.
“There is a certain sense of acceptance and that’s a hallmark of St. Peter’s,” Mr. Hamilton said.
 Mr. Hamilton is a member of the committee planning St. Peter’s 175th anniversary in May 2009.
“We’d like to have a book which would show the history of the parish,” Mr. Hamilton said, adding that committee members want to visit former pastors who are still living to gather vignettes of what the parish was like in the past.
St. Peter’s participates in an interfaith program with four other Christian congregations in downtown Richmond to prepare and serve a hot meal each weekday to those who are homeless and hungry. Other participants are St. Paul’s Episcopal, Second Presbyterian, Centenary United Methodist and Third Street AME Bethel Churches.
St. Peter’s, which serves the noon meal on Tuesdays, relies on volunteers to help with the effort. On March 11 volunteers who worked in the kitchen and cleaned up after the meal were from St. Gabriel parish in Chesterfield County and students from Northstar Academy. A total of 145 hot meals were served.
“Not only do we do lunch, but there is someone from the City of Richmond Department of Social Services for any type of emergency assistance,” Father Brownell said.
“If it’s something we can take care of, we attempt to make it happen,” he added. “This includes rent assistance, payment of utilities, medicine and money for travel if someone has to go out of town for a funeral, for instance.”
 In addition to presiding at Mass each weekday at noon, Father Brownell is frequently busy in hospital ministry, answering the needs of patients as well as their family members.
“At MCV (Medical College of Virginia), Sister Vicki Busch is the Catholic presence at the hospital,” the priest explained. “She will call me when someone wants the anointing of the sick or for confession.”
Father Brownell pointed out that he had attended weekday Mass at St. Peter’s when he was a student at Richmond Professional Institute, now Virginia Commonwealth University. Prior to that he often had come to Mass in his last two years at the former St. Patrick’s High School in Church Hill.
“I see St. Peter’s as a downtown spiritual island or an oasis,” the pastor said. “One of the blessings of this place is to be able to focus on the needs not only of registered parishioners, but the needs of people who come for Mass during the week.”
There is some concern among parishioners and friends of St. Peter’s that the parish will cease to offer Sunday Mass as the diocese’s shortage of priests becomes more critical. Some involved in pastoral planning for Richmond parishes have suggested that the downtown parish might offer Mass only on weekdays.
Father Brownell is one who does not want this to happen.
 “We are concerned about the long-term planning and how that will affect our future worship,” he said. “It’s a natural concern for a small parish surrounded by larger parishes.”
Dan Piett says St. Peter’s provided a sanctuary for him at daily noon Mass when he was supervisor of a work crew doing work on the downtown streets.
“It was my escape at that time from the rantings and ravings of the business owners as I was tearing up the downtown streets for which I had a permit,” he told The Catholic Virginian.
“This place is a light in the middle of the tunnel,” he said. “This place gives a lot of people hope. It’s a sanctuary.”
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Copyright © 2008 The Catholic Virginian Press. Articles from Catholic News Services, including Fr. Dietzen’s column, may not be reproduced due to copyright considerations.
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