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PARISH PROFILE
 St. John, Marion: Where everyone knows one another
By Jean Denton
Special to The Catholic Virginian
“Beyond Your Expectations” is the marketing pitch of rural Smyth County in southwest Virginia.
It also aptly describes the county’s only Catholic church. St. John the Evangelist in Marion is a 100-household parish with a surprising range of ministries and a hospitality that continually opens the way to new approaches to spiritual growth.
Located in the heart of the Richmond Diocese’s Region 10, the parish’s generous outreach ministry to the poor is well-established and fitting in this part of Appalachia that knows great need.
But there also is a well-attended, weekly Little Rock Scripture Study group and a newfound interest in welcoming a growing Spanish-speaking population in the region.
 St. John’s has offered Sunday Spanish language Mass ever since Father Paul Maier became pastor five years ago. It is one of only two parishes in Region 10 (the other is St. Anne’s in Bristol) that has a weekly Mass in Spanish.
Usually Deacon Juan Ibarra of St. Anne’s comes to Marion to assist and preach at that Mass. Father Maier noted that a few families participate, but those attending are predominantly Hispanic men who work in various factories throughout the region and send money home to families in Mexico and Central America.
While there are growing pains with uniting English and Spanish-speaking communities, parishioners are making a serious effort at it under the guidance of church leaders and Father Maier.
 At parish meetings in December, St. John’s members discussed the possibility of bilingual liturgies, and the weekly Scripture study group has “tacked on” a Spanish class to its Wednesday night sessions.
“I’m not sure if we’ll actually be able to be conversant in Spanish or if it will just show that we are making the effort,” laughed Randy Watts who helped initiate the language class.
The class is taught by parishioner Dalia Obregon, a Spanish teacher in the local schools.
Ms. Obregon is pleased to offer the lessons to members of her home parish and is also offering to teach English to members of the Spanish-speaking community.
It has been the enthusiasm of Mr. Watts and his wife Mary Ellen, along with others who have moved into the parish in the last decade, that has sparked new community-building efforts much to the pleasure of longtime parishioners.
 “They saw a need and they stepped in,” said Tom Vogelwede who has been a St. John’s lay leader since coming to Marion in 1980.
Randy Watts noted that it was Vogelwede’s warm welcome that conveyed a “sense of community” he and his wife were seeking when they moved from Florida 10 years ago.
The retired couple, who had come from a huge, 2,000-family parish, were glad to find a home in the small, intimate faith community.
“It is a real gift to be in a parish where you know everyone,” Randy Watts said.
Once they arrived, they took the gift and ran with it, introducing Scripture study and other community oriented activities into the prayerful attitude and ministries that already existed. The Scripture study group with about 15 regular participants has been a strong “community builder,” Watts said.
 Ann and Walter Baldwin retired to Marion two years ago from South Carolina and also felt entirely comfortable in jumping into parish life.
“People were hugging you and saying ‘we’re so glad you’ve come,” she said, remembering their first experience of St. John’s.
Ann Baldwin had long sung in church choirs but never had been an accompanist.
“But here my gifts were needed,” she said, laughing as she recalled a “painful first year for the parish” as she learned new Catholic music. She serves as pianist for the 11:30 Sunday Mass.
There were only a handful of Catholic families in Smyth County until the 1940s when many more came with the furniture and textile industries.
St. John the Evangelist Church was built in 1952 with money donated by New York’s Cardinal Francis Spellman after a visit to the Wheeling (West Virginia) Diocese, which at the time served far western Virginia.
Seeing that there was no Catholic church in 24 of the diocese’s counties, Cardinal Spellman offered funding for a church in the county “deemed to be the most needy and deserving,” according to St. John’s written church history.
St. John’s was a mission church of St. Mary’s in Wytheville until 1974 when it became a full-fledged parish of the newly realigned Diocese of Richmond. It immediately took responsibility for the mission church in Abingdon.
 Father Dan Bain was the first pastor and Father Bob Krenik, who led the parish prior to Father Maier, was the longest-serving pastor of St. John’s.
Ms. Baldwin described the St. John’s faith community as “a mature parish.” Father Maier agreed that older members and retirees predominate.
“The sacraments are important to them,” he said, “and they are extremely generous.”
He said the parish provides a great deal of financial short-term, direct assistance to families in need in the wider community. That ministry, led by parishioner Mary Dore, has been active for years and is well known and highly regarded in the Smyth County social services community, the pastor said.
“It’s a good bunch of people,” added Watts, currently chairman of the pastoral council. “There is a tremendous community effort in the area of social ministry.
“The parish is not turned inward,” he added explaining that Catholics and non-Catholics in the local community regularly support and attend each others’ events. “Denominational barriers just aren’t there in Marion,” he explained. “It’s that small town attitude.”
 Vogelwede has enjoyed the familiarity of the small faith community and has also dealt with the accompanying challenges over the years.
He is a Region 10 stalwart in the area of Christian Formation as he’s strived to find additional spiritual growth opportunities for the parish’s few children and youth. While Father Maier describes St. John’s children’s formation program as “a one-room schoolhouse kind of thing” (currently there are four children and one high school youth enrolled), Vogelwede organized a youth mission trip to Catholic Heart Workcamp a few years ago which has become an annual event.
As chair of the Parish Life Committee, Vogelwede also has helped engender closer friendship among members by periodically highlighting different families or parishioners on the parish bulletin board and by such projects as a booklet of members’ reflections published on St. John’s 50th anniversary.
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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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