Church dedication postponed

ORIGINALLY planned for this weekend, the Bannockburn St Mary MacKillop Church dedication has been postponed to 2022.

St Joseph’s Catholic Parish of Meredith priest Fr Charles Balnaves said the event – the first-ever church dedication to be held within the parish – will take place either just before or after easter when the archbishop is available, and it is COVID-safe.

“Other churches in the parish have been blessed, but there’s no record that there was ever a special ceremony like the one we’re planning that says we commit to this church always being used for this purpose,” he said.

St Mary MacKillop Church has been operating on High Street for approximately 18 months, named after Australia’s first and only saint, who served country people.

The new church was build on the site of the former St John the Evangelist Church which was demolished after a deliberately lit fire in 2015.

“I came to the parish in 2016, eight months after the church had been burnt down. People were still in shock, struggling along with how to gather as a community and celebrate mass on the weekends, but we continued on,” Fr Balnaves said.

“A new church was needed but it had to be a church that grew out of what the parish wanted, needed, and reflected how they saw themselves.”

The Parish gave architect Sandy Law key characteristics to respond to; “light, bright, welcoming, quiet, prayerful, spacious and traditional.”

While reflecting the “desires and needs” of the community, it also needed to be functional and seat 220 people.

Law Architects came back to the parish with “a design that spoke to us.” Costing $2.25 million, it was over budget, but the parish and community committed to the figure, seeing the facility as “essential.”

Receiving $600,000 in insurance money, fundraising then covered $450,000, bequests provided $700,000, and the rest is being paid for out of sale of land at Winchelsea.

“The whole coming together to build the church, the way the community’s been around during the building, supporting with money, offering efforts and ideas, it’s been a real collective effort,” Fr Balnaves said.

“It’s not the same as other buildings I’ve had something to do with the construction of. There’s a sense of the Catholic faith tied up in this effort.”

The new church was first used at the end of November, 2019 before the pandemic hit.