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History of St. Francis of Assisi
St. Francis of Assisi Parish has been a part of the Utah County community since before the turn of the 20th century. When the church was first built, it was named Immaculate Conception Church. Then, in 1945, Bishop Duane G. Hunt consecrated the Parish under the patronage of St. Francis of Assisi, a saint who devoted his life to serving others.
Fathers Escalante and Dominguez, members of the Franciscan Order, were the first Catholics to be in Utah. They were part of an expedition that traveled through Utah while looking for an overland route from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Monterey, California. Although they did not stay in Utah for long, this event set the stage for future years when Catholicism would come to stay in the West.
Through the first half of the 1800’s a number of members of the Catholic Church came through Utah, some as immigrants on their way to Oregon or California, others to work as fur trappers and traders. One of the trappers, Etienne Provost, became Provo City’s namesake. Some of the early Catholic immigrants stayed and made permanent residence in Utah, but is was not until 1859 that there was record of a chaplain assigned specifically to Utah. He was Reverend Bonaventure Keller. Reverend Keller served as chaplain at Camp Floyd, a military camp stationed west of what is today Lehi. He served for only a few months. The camp was closed down later that year because the troops were needed to help fight the Civil War.
One year after the Civil War ended, in May 1866, Father Edward Kelly purchased the first property in Utah to be used for a Catholic Church. This property was bought in Salt Lake City. Five years later in 1871, the first Catholic Church was dedicated in Utah under the patronage of St. Mary Magdalene at the site Father Edward had bought. It has since been renamed the Cathedral of the Madeleine. Reverend Lawrence Scanlan was one of the early bishops of the Church in Utah County. He made the first chapel and rectory in Provo in 1892 out of a remodeled home. This church served the community until the turn of the century. In 1900, for a brief period of time, the parish closed due to a decrease in the number of members in the valley. However, by 1914 the parish reopened and Reverend Stanislaus Bono became its first resident pastor. For the first part of the 20th century, Catholic Fathers of the Salt Lake City Diocese oversaw St. Francis Parish. In the 1930’s, the Franciscan Province of Santa Barbara in California began to supervise the administration of the parish.
Of course, Salt Lake City and Provo are not the only areas in Utah in which the Catholic Church has been established. There are a number of Catholic Church sites in Utah County.
In the past decades, the Catholic Church has also opened Catholic schools in Utah. The earliest school was started by Father Scanlan in 1879, and a men’s college was built ten years later in Salt Lake City. In Utah County during the 1950’s, St. Francis Elementary and High School were built in Provo. These schools were staffed and directed by Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. St. Francis’ schools closed in 1971.
During the decade before the closing of the schools in Provo, the Catholic Church experienced a variety of changes. Among them was the modernization of Catholic worship, inspired by a series of Church councils called Vatican II. One notable effect this has had on Utah County is the mass is no longer held in Latin, but is held in English as well as in Spanish.
Throughout the years, the members of the congregation of St. Francis of Assisi Parish have performed service for the community in a number of ways. The members have visited the homeless and brought food to them in the shelters. In recent years, the Catholic population in Utah County has been increasing. Not only is there a need for many services to be held throughout the week to accommodate the growing congregation, services are held in both Spanish and English. In 2000 St. Francis of Assisi Parish moved from Provo to Orem, Utah, the neighboring town to the north to accomodate the growing parish. The first phase of construction included offices for pastoral administration, a gymnasium/social hall, a kitchen and classrooms for religious education in the basement. Parishioners have attended Mass in the gymnasium for 11 years until the funds could be raised to begin construction on a worship space. On Dec 27, 2011, construction was begun. Dedication of the new church will be in February 2012. Escalante & Dominguez
The Story of Catholicism in Utah begins with Spain’s claims in what is not the American Southwest. Eighteenth-century exploration of the borders of Spanish territory brought members of the Dominguez and Escalante party in search for new missions and a route to California. The journey of exploration began in Santa Fe on 29 July 1776. Dominguez and Escalante searched for a passage to the Presidio in Monterrey, California. The expedition went through Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, returning to Santa Fe in January 1777. Under the guidance of two Laguna Indian guides, the Dominguez and Escalante Expedition first explored what are presently Utah Lake and its surrounding areas. The party entered Utah Valley through Spanish Fork Canyon. September 23, 1776, the Fathers named the area, “the Lake and Valley of Our Lady of Mercy of the Timpanogos people.”
The expedition is well documented in the journal of Father Silvestre Velez de Escalante and the treck was marked on a special map prepared by Don Bernado Miera u Pacho. For two days, the Fathers were engaged in spreading the message of Christ among the native Indians, who Escalante and Dominguez described as king and gentle. Father Dominguez and Escalante left with a promise to return. They hoped to add a Utah mission to the network of Spanish missions. Their hopes weakened, first because of Escalante’s ill health, and then because of Spain’s declining power in the New World. When Mexico gained its independence from Spain, the lands explored by Dominguez and Escalante became Mexican territories. Mexico never established a permanent settlement in Utah, and so the only Catholic presence in Utah Valley were finally fulfilled in 1878 when Father Lawrence Scanlan began Catholic missionary efforts on the shores of Utah Lake.