Beryl Junction, Utah, is a brisk two and a half hours from Las Vegas and four hours from Salt Lake City. The town is little more than an intersection of road, where fewer than 150 people live, according to the 2020 census.
So what accounts for the scores of Catholics attending San Pablo Mission each Sunday morning—a congregation that is uniformly joyful and proud of their faith—in a state that is only 5 percent Catholic?
In these parts they are fond of saying,
In Utah, there are no accidental Catholics.”
Father Dave Bittmenn (below right, speaking with our president, Father Jack Wall) is the pastor of San Pablo Mission.
He is also the pastor of St. Christopher in Kanab and St. George in a city of the same name. He drives 250 miles round trip to celebrate the Eucharist with his far-flung congregations.
This mileage is typical of pastors who minister to Catholics on the peripheries, those outposts that we speed past on the highway. For many years, Catholic Extension Society has supported the ministry of Utah’s road-warrior priests, of which Father Bittmenn is a proud member.
Simple places are sacred
The faith community of San Pablo currently worships in a simple building. It has had many iterations—first a small general store, then a private home and then a bar. This is in keeping with the creative repurposing of space we often encounter in the poorest communities.
We have seen mission churches reconfigured from sheds, garages, tire stores and even a chicken coop. Like the manger in Bethlehem, the simplest places are often the most sacred.
The worship space is simple. The sacristy used to be a bedroom. The dining room houses an enthusiastic choir. Ordinary white curtains hang behind the tabernacle, and simple, framed pictures hung around the main room depict the Stations of the Cross. The altar sits where a TV might have been. And the kitchen chugs away in serious production of rice, beans and tamales, a post-Eucharist feast for all.
San Pablo’s parishioners are the true beauty of this church. They cram into the building. There are plenty of young couples with children at their sides. Many have skin darkened by the sun and hands toughened by manual labor in industrial agriculture jobs. They all travel many miles to be together on Sundays.
Father Bittmenn and San Pablo’s parishioners have a good problem. With 40 faithful families, they are outgrowing their present home. The congregation has secured a piece of land where a new church building will rise. They have been working toward this goal for many years. With some help from Catholic Extension Society, they will reach their funding goal this year and hope to begin building a new church soon.
Great expectations
There is another reason for building a new church. Father Bittmenn said that his people live in a “make-do” world. They are habitually transient, going from one place to another and always on the move. He believes that a new church building will be profoundly theirs, a spiritual anchor for generations to come.
He also believes that when they build the church, others will come. It will be their “Field of Dreams.” When Father Bittmenn talks about the new church building, which will be built on a scruffy bit of land just north from the present worship site, his eyes shine with hope and expectation. As Isaiah 35 says, it is as if this shepherd is witnessing “the wilderness blossoming and the desert shouting for joy.”
Father Bittmenn envisions the people of San Pablo to come: the infants who will be baptized, the young people who will receive their first holy Communion, the teens who will be confirmed, the starry-eyed couples who will be joined in marriage and those who will be lifted up in funeral Masses. Father Bittmenn sees them all, waiting for a home.
St. Thomas Aquinas imagined that God has eight attributes. One of them, he taught, was the Infinity of God. His idea is that God is without limits because God is the inexhaustible source of all being. In other words, God is bigger than we can ever imagine.
But maybe the opposite is also true. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, “God is so great that He can become small.” Like David with his sling confronting Goliath. Like the infant Jesus in a manger. Like San Pablo Mission in Beryl Junction, Utah. Because at the intersection of Routes 56 and 18, the hearts of San Pablo’s people intersect with God’s divine intention, and something great is sure to emerge. That is no small thing.
Catholic Extension Society works in solidarity with people to build up vibrant and transformative Catholic faith communities among the poor in the poorest regions of America. Please support our mission!
