Church #2 - St Thomas More Catholic Church, 8035 S Quebec Street, Centennial, CO 80112

New Year's Day, January 1, 2014

10:30AM MST Mass

From it's fairly nondescript exterior, we never would have guessed the posh-ness of the church's interior, at least as far as Catholic Churches go.  This was the suburban deluxe special.

We found the place to be unusually impersonal ... quite possibly due to the fact that this was New Year's Day and folks were probably still recovering from ringing in the new year.

The statue of St Thomas More had a pretty unusual plague in that, most prominently displayed, was the name of the Romanian sculptor (which I promptly consigned to that vast dustbin in the back of my head.)

From St Thomas More's website (http://stthomasmore.org/our-parish/about-us/our-history) -

Since 1971 St. Thomas More Parish, named after a layman-saint popularized in the movie "A Man for All Seasons," has become a showcase of a modern twentieth century Catholic community.

This dynamic center of today began as Mission South East. It would not have been possible without the vision of its first pastor, the Reverend Frederick D. McCallin. In November 1970, Father McCallin and a group of people, aware of the demographics of the area, met on a weekly basis to discuss the needs of the people in the new area. A parish census taken in May 1971 revealed 590 Catholic families with the need and ability to support a new parish. The proposal was taken to Archbishop Casey who approved the establishment of a new parish in June 1971. For many years St. Thomas More Parish was known as St. Thomas More Center because its founding pastor believed that it was to be the center of people's lives, their neighborhood and a center for them to meet God and one another.

Construction on the new rectory started immediately. By February 1972, through the tireless efforts of Ted Gerhardy and John Petrinsky, the parish acquired 40 acres of land as a building site for the parish center. On February 24, 1974, Father McCall in broke ground for the St. Thomas More Parish, and on December 8, 1974, celebrated the first Mass in the newly completed 300-seat chapel. By this time the parish community had grown to 1000 families.

Two weeks later the parish opened its restaurant, the Padre. The idea of a restaurant in the church building was so unique that the news of its existence reverberated throughout the country. Father McCallin, however, saw it as a natural way to evangelize people. "You had to bring them together before you could evangelize them."he said. He often cited examples of how people gathered around Jesus at feasts and how he fed the multitudes. He also pointed out that Christ's public life began at a wedding feast in Cana and ended with the Last Supper with his apostles.

For more information, please visit St Thomas More's website.