Part 9: Leadership Changes and Exterior Renovation (2005-Present)

Departure of Father Abe and a Time of Transitions

In 2005 there was a major change in the parish, the departure of Father Abe from St. Francis for a new pastoral assignment in the eastern part of the Diocese of Richmond; he had completed 16 years of service (the second longest term of any pastor), a period that had seen the growth of the parish in many ways both physical and spiritual. His legacy survives through the spaces in the Ministry Center and in Assisi Hall, in the decoration of the church, in the parish’s liturgical traditions. One of his final actions was to establish a procession of the Blessed Sacrament through the streets of Staunton on the feast of Corpus Christi, a tradition continuing to the present day. Father Abe’s successor was Father Gerald Przywara, whose service to the parish was to be cut short by illness three years later. In 2005 Margaret McDougall retired as the St. Francis librarian, and the library was renamed in her honor; she was succeeded by Angie McFarling, who in 2006 also became owner of Sacred Page bookshop and gift store, located in a parish building. In the ongoing effort to keep the parish buildings sound, Father Przywara began the renovation of the stained glass windows in 2006, a project overseen by Dixon Studios of Staunton. Another restoration project involved the murals of the four evangelists which had flanked the St. Francis window in the apse of the church. Since it proved impossible to preserve the existing murals, in 2007 the parish engaged artist Jeff Stockberger to produce new representations of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and these were installed in the previous location as they were completed. It was in August 2007 that the Respect Life Committee at St. Francis announced the addition of a memorial garden in front of the Ministry Center; a group of young people and adults from the parish constructed the garden around a shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the unborn. The fall of 2007 saw two changes in parish staffing: Father William O’Brien, who had been a pastor of St. Francis and had been assisting with Mass for many years, moved from Staunton to Charlottesville. And Becky Arnott joined the St. Francis staff to assist with the religious education program; in April 2010 she was named Religious Education Leader, a position she held until 2013, when Karen Handel was appointed, to be followed by Carol Long.

But there was also bad news in 2007. In August, just before a new academic year was to begin, with falling enrollments and difficulties in bringing the structure of the old high school building up to modern standards, Guardian Angel School closed its doors. Many parishioners had been involved in the project for the twelve years of its existence, and there was considerable disappointment at the news of its closing. A year afterward a complete renovation of the school’s building began; it reopened several years later as Gypsy Hill Place, with 62 apartments for those over 55 years of age.

Like every other diocese in the United States, the Diocese of Richmond began planning in 2008 for a future with some dark clouds looming, the result of the growing shortage of priests. The situation was exacerbated by the positive news that the number of Catholics in Virginia was growing. The pastor and two lay representatives from St. Francis participated in regional meetings to formulate recommendations to the bishop on dealing with the new realities. The St. Francis members of the committee expressed opposition to any plan that would result in the closing of the parish (one persistent rumor had predicted the merging of the Staunton and Waynesboro parishes in a new building to be constructed somewhere between the two cities). The final recommendation of the committee—over the “serious reservations” of the St. Francis representatives—was that, should Staunton or Waynesboro lose its pastor, the other priest would then be shared between the two parishes. In a 2011 visit to St. Francis, Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo (who had succeeded Bishop Sullivan) assured the parishioners that St. Francis would continue; he also explained that “international priests” (brought to the diocese from countries where the priest shortage is not so severe) had improved the situation. The parish’s last three pastors are the result of that diocesan program.

In August of 2008, Father Przywara began a medical leave; although he continued to remain officially the pastor, the Bishop of Richmond appointed an administrator of the parish, Father Burt Sare, who was on sabbatical from the Diocese of Sorsogon in the Philippines. After serving for more than two years, in February 2011 Father Sare was named pastor of St. Francis.

The parish Respect Life Committee undertook a major new ministry which came to fruition in summer 2009, when members opened Mary’s House. Located on the St. Francis grounds, this facility offers trained mentors to women who are pregnant, encouraging them to give their babies life and offering both material and spiritual assistance toward that end. Mary’s House has been quite successful in its mission and continues its important work to the present day. Meanwhile the priest shortage had a sad consequence: at the end of 2009 the Sunday evening Mass aimed particularly at the young people of the parish had to be discontinued because of the lack of a priest to celebrate that liturgy.

Tenure of Father Wamala and a Major Exterior Renovation

A short time after becoming the official pastor of St. Francis, Father Sare was reassigned in the summer of 2011 to a group of small churches in southwestern Virginia. He was replaced by Father Joseph Wamala, who came to the United States from Uganda and had last held the position of parochial vicar in a cluster of parishes in the area around Farmville, Virginia. It was under his pastoral leadership and with a strong tradition of lay involvement in the mission of the Church that the parish of St. Francis of Assisi continued to thrive. After increasing damage to the church building from water and weather made it necessary to fix the underlying issues (with falling bits of stone making action imperative), Fr. Wamala and dedicated laypeople hired engineers to evaluate the damage; the verdict was that only a complete replacement of the exterior greenstone would ameliorate the situation.

Under the leadership of Fr. Wamala, funds were raised (in addition to diocesan financial assistance) to complete this considerable project, which occurred in 2015-2016. The new exterior, with gray granite replacing the crumbling greenstone, is essentially the same in appearance as before the construction. On Sunday, May 8, 2016, the bishop of Richmond blessed the new building.

St. Francis Parish successfully weathered the coronavirus pandemic of 2020-2021, starting a Facebook page on which homebound parishioners could participate “virtually” (a word that became popular during the outbreak) in Sunday and weekday Masses until eventually, on May 29, 2021, most restrictions were lifted. In July 2021, Fr. Wamala was reassigned to Christ the King Parish, Norfolk, Virginia, while the pastor of that parish, Fr. Matthias Lusembo, was transferred to become pastor of St. Francis.

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