By Gretchen Keiser

Parishioners of Blessed Sacrament Church in the Ben Hill Section of Atlanta celebrated Mass at the church for what may be the last time this past weekend.

The building, and the 33-acre property surrounding it, has been leased to an Acworth church organization with a six-month lease-purchase agreement. The potential buyer is the Monumental Faith and Worship Center, Inc. of Acworth. The sale price is $1.2 million.

The members of the parish will begin celebrating Mass the weekend of Jan. 14 and 15 in an Episcopal church nearby, the Church of the Resurrection, at Dodson Drive and Hogan Road in East Point.

At this point, future plans for the parish are unclear, according to the pastor, LaSalette Father Joseph Aquino. The Episcopal church will be sharing its facilities with Blessed Sacrament until Easter, he said. At that time, the Episcopal church, whose congregation has diminished to about 25 families, will be up for sale. Whether Blessed Sacrament will attempt to purchase that church, or make some other move is not decided, the pastor said.

Although Blessed Sacrament parish, which serves East Point, College Park and Ben Hill, had at one time a larger community with a Catholic school, the area’s demographics appear to have altered once hopeful plans for growth and construction at this site.

On the 33 acres at Stone Road is a large, multi-purpose building, constructed in 1965, that housed the elementary school, and the first church sanctuary. Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet and a lay staff taught at the school from 1965 to 1976. A parish bulletin from March 1967, shows an active laity under the pastor, Father Walter Donovan. Lay people served on a budget and finance committee, parish council, parish youth council and school board.

Since that time, however, I-285 was constructed nearby and the area changed to a predominantly black neighborhood with fewer Catholics and the size of the parish decreased. The order withdrew from the school in the course of time and the school closed after the 1976 school year. The new church building that had been planned was never built.

According to parish and archdiocesan leaders, the plan to sell the site and seek a new, smaller location for the parish has been on the drawing board for a number of years. Chancellor Father Peter Ludden said this lease-purchase agreement is “the furthest we’ve ever come - to the point of actually leasing the property with the intent of selling.”

He said that the next step for the parish, as far as seeking more than a temporary home, is still to be worked out. However, he said emphatically that the parish itself would continue. “At no time was there ever any question of the parish being suppressed,” he said, using the canonical term for the dissolution of a parish. Instead, he said, a permanent location for Blessed Sacrament would be sought. The Episcopal church may be a possible location, he said, but a certain sale of the Blessed Sacrament property would be required before any new parish purchase could take place.

“I’m hopeful this is going to be a blessing for the parish,” he said.

Father Aquino, who has been pastor since December 1986, said that there were “tears” at the Jan. 1 Mass where he announced the imminent departure from the building to his parish of about 190 families.

However, he said the property had been for sale for many years, with many potential offers and then cancellations taking place during that time. “There was an emotional and psychological strain,” the pastor wrote in a parish letter. “I felt it.”

“Even the leaky roof will be missed,” he said, “but we are a faith community. The Church is not a building, but the people of God.”

Kathleen D’Antoni, who had been parish council president until last September, said “a lot of people have been psychologically prepared for this.” A parishioner since 1966, she acknowledged ambivalent feelings. “I realize that the constant thing in life is change,” she said. “Boo, hiss is what I want to say. But I think the primary concern is that we’re still a parish…I hope the move doesn’t kind of scatter people. I don’t thing it will. I really am hopeful we’ll stay together.” Parishioner C.T. Cummings said also that many were reconciled from the building. “The concern is to keep the community together,” he said.

Former parish council president Beverly Shlapak said the debt for the building and land was too large for the parish. “I hope something will come up that will suit our needs” as more appropriate in the same area, she said.

The move was to be completed Jan. 11. The new Mass schedule at the Church of the Redeemer will be a vigil Mass at 6 p.m. on Saturdays, and Masses at 9 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. on Sundays.

Times for adult education and children catechesis will be set after the parish gathers at the new location, Father Aquino said.