events@stbenedict.org<\/a>.<\/p>\nCorpus Christi was established June 19, 1985, established by then Phoenix Bishop Thomas J. O\u2019Brien, who appointed Father Louis Anthony Sigman the first pastor.<\/p>\n
The congregation celebrated its first mass\u00a0 at Mountain View Lutheran Church in Ahwatukee on Sept. 14, 1985, and masses were held there until Jan. 21, 1989.<\/p>\n
Mountain View Lutheran, the first church in Ahwatukee, helped several different Christian denominations grow their congregations on its campus until they could get a church of their own.<\/p>\n
During the first few years, Corpus Christi\u00a0 grew from about 300 to nearly 1,000 families. A building fund program was successfully completed making possible the completion of the first parish facilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
These included a multi-purpose church seating 700, parish offices, six rooms for religious education classes, a meeting room for various ministries and parish organizations, and a rectory to house two priests.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 1991, seven more classrooms were added for the expanding religious education programs, the amphitheater-patio area was completed, and the parish offices were enlarged.<\/p>\n
By 1994, the parish decided it was time to build a permanent church. In January 1995, a second building fund drive was completed. Construction on the church at 3550 E. Knox Road began in March 1996 and was completed in December 1996, with O\u2019Brien dedicating it the following year.<\/p>\n
. Corpus Christi now serves more than 2,000 registered families.<\/p>\n
And it shares more than a birth year with St. Benedict. Corpus Christi\u2019s pastor is Father James Aboyi, VC, who until last year had been pastor of St. Benedict.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And the pastor of St. Benedict is Father Manasseh Iorchir, who worked with Aboyi at St.. Benedict until he was reassigned to St. Steven\u2019s in Sun Lakes until he was transferred to St. Benedict.<\/p>\n
Founded in 1985 in Chandler, St. Benedict Catholic Church moved to Ahwatukee in 2004.<\/p>\n
Beginning with just a handful of members it now serves over 1,300 families and also is home to St. John Bosco Catholic School.<\/p>\n
It boasts of \u201copportunities for everyone, including Liturgical Ministries, Children\u2019s Formation, Youth Camp, Adult Formation, Outreach and Volunteer groups such as St. Vincent de Paul and Knights of Columbus, and year-round activities of parish life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have gone through many growing pains,\u201d St. Benedict states on its website.<\/p>\n
Between 1985-87, mass was celebrated\u00a0 in the Upper Room in a strip mall on McKemy Avenue. Staring with 24 families, the congregation quintupled in size by 1987 and needed more space.<\/p>\n
On April 30, 1988, the first mass was celebrated in a new church on\u00a0 Del Rio Street in Chandler but by 1995 676 families had registered and space was again too tight.<\/p>\n
In 2003, the diocese moved the parish\u00a0 to the property adjacent to St. John Bosco School.<\/p>\n
The next year, mass and other services began being held in a building that was supposed to be only a temporary church until a formal church could be built iun three years.<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t until 2018 that plans were laid for a new church building. But those plans eventually changed as the congregation then focused on converting the existing building into a more formal church.<\/p>\n
Aboyi, accompanied by then-Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmstead, led about 200 parishioners in a groundbreaking for the revised project in 2021.<\/p>\n
Initially, the plan was to complete the project by Christmas 2022.<\/p>\n
But supply chain disruptions and\u00a0 rampant inflation brought a new economic reality to the construction industry and that deadline was moved again, until the transformed building was formally dedicated in January 2024. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ahwatukee\u2019s two Catholic churches are celebrating a unique anniversary this year: Both were formed in 1985 to serve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[11301,11300,155,11299,157,156,11303,11302,11298],"class_list":["post-13645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-bishop-thomas-j-obrien","tag-chris-brunelle","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-catholic-church","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news","tag-father-manasseh-iorchir","tag-louis-anthony-sigman","tag-st-benedict-catholic-church"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}