By Marie Mulvenna

Less than one mile from the “rock,” nationally known as Georgia’s famed Stone Mountain, will soon arise a brand new church parish center for a very young parish. Corpus Christi parish is officially only 19 months old, and the infant community is thriving indeed with a growth from 200 families initially registered to over 600 families on the books today. Soon, these families will welcome the building of their very own church, a project that recently received the final approval of the archdiocesan building commission.

The very unique aspect of the Corpus Christi construction is that the church will be a permanent part of a multi-purpose parish center. Most parishes building such multi-purpose structures in the archdiocese erect them to include only temporary worship facilities, with long range plans for permanent and separate worship facilities later on. Father Joseph Beltran, pastor of Corpus Christi, commented that his church plans are indeed permanent and Corpus Christi has no additional plans whatsoever to build a separate future facility devoted entirely to worship.

Father Beltran announced this week that construction bids were awarded for the new church which will be built on an 11-acre site at the junction of Mountain View Drive and Sheppard Road in Stone Mountain. Father Beltran said construction would begin this week. The Dave Bradbry Construction Company received the green light for construction as low bidders for the new facility.

Plans for the new structure were handled by the architectural firm of Jova, Daniels and Busy.

The cost for the new structure is $410,135. Father Beltran said the parish did not have a special building fund but relied on the weekly collection to help them pay for the building. “You might say our Sunday collection is our building fund,” he added.

The parish was born in May 1971 when Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan created the new parish family from parts of St. Thomas More parish, Decatur, and Holy Cross parish, Chamblee. Creation of the fledgling parish actually followed a picnic held at Stone Mountain in October of 1970 when a large group of Catholics in the area gathered for a Mass and picnic in the park. The obvious growth of the Catholic community in the area (15 years before a mere six families were recorded for that particular section) led the people to explore the possibility of starting their own parish community, a concept they presented to the archdiocese in March of 1971.

In July 1971, the first Mass for the new parish was celebrated at the Stone Mountain Elementary School with Archbishop Donnellan as principal concelebrant. Seven hundred and fifty parishioners and guests attended the two first Masses at the parish and joined with the archbishop for a reception in his honor.

Since that date, Corpus Christi parish has been, quite literally, a “floating” community of Christians. Masses are celebrated regularly in the school. A temporary rectory was established in a local apartment complex, and parish meetings are held in community rooms of various commercial establishments in the area.

The parish school of religion started out with an anticipated enrollment of 300 children but opened its doors at the local elementary school with 700 in attendance. There are today over 1,000 children in the program which is still held at Stone Mountain Elementary School, overflowing into almost 30 classrooms. In September 1972 Sister Damian and Sister Linda joined the parish staff as pastoral assistants.

Masses were initially celebrated in the elementary school cafetorium twice on Sunday. Since the facility seats 350, it was soon found necessary to expand the worship schedule to three Sunday liturgies and one on Saturday evening.

According to an enthusiastic Father Beltran, the new church will be “a very simple but devotional design which will seat 600 persons.” The parish center will also consist of 14 classroom areas, a meeting area, plus kitchen facilities.

Father said the parish hoped to celebrate their Christmas liturgy in the new facilities.

For hundreds of eager Catholic families in the shadow of Stone Mountain, news of their forthcoming and much needed new church is happy news indeed. Right near the “rock” will soon rise a modern day expression of Christ’s message to St. Peter: “And upon this rock I will build my Church.”