BY GRETCHEN KEISER

Staff Writer

MANCHESTER--The perseverance of a small community of Catholics in Meriwether County has resulted in the construction of the first Catholic Church in the west Georgia county.

The brick and steel building located two miles south of Warm Springs at Busey's Crossroads was blessed by Archbishop John F. Donoghue on Sunday, Nov. 3. Members of St. Elizabeth Seton Mission, approximately 35 families, were helped by contributions from other parishes in the archdiocese in financing the multipurpose building, which includes the worship area, several classrooms for religious education and a kitchen. Father John Kieran, who has been pastor of the mission and neighboring St. Peter's in LaGrange, promoted the building project and the Kieran family gave the church a stained glass cross which dominates the worship space.

Dedication day sparkled with sun under a bright blue sky accented by autumn foliage. Archbishop Donoghue was presented a plan for the building and Father Kieran unlocked the door for Mass. More than a full house waited inside. Also concelebrating the Mass were Father Joseph Ware, former pastor now retired and living in Savannah, Father Thomas Gilroy, who served St. Elizabeth Seton Mission in the past, Father Richard Kieran, brother of the pastor, and Father Dan Toof, who served in the area while a seminarian.

Under Father Ware's pastorate, beginning in June 1975, Meriwether County Catholics selected the name of St. Elizabeth Seton for the mission the year the saint was canonized. They also began the work of trying to establish a church, purchasing the land where it is located in 1982. Numerous setbacks occurred, parishioners said, preventing the project from going forward. At one point only a prayer service was available in Meriwether County on weekends because of the lack of a priest to serve the mission. The nearest Catholic church, St. Peter's, is 35 miles away. Finally in 1994 the mission applied for assistance from the archdiocese, a fund drive was started and groundwork began.

The church was designed by architect Ron Stotser of Columbus and built by Gordy Construction Co. of Columbus. Phil White, a 20-year member of the mission community and industrial engineer, chaired the building committee.

In his homily, Archbishop Donoghue praised "the steady desire of the people, of you the parishioners, to stay together and form a parish family, rather than to go somewhere else, where all the hard work of planning and building has already been done."

He also thanked God for the work of Father Kieran and the men and women who worked to build the church, and for the "generosity of all who have helped raise the money to build this Church--from the 40 or so faithful families who form the parish nucleus, to other friends, near and far, whose gift may have been small or of one-time only, but who nevertheless, share in the benefits, the unlimited benefits, which will flow from the Masses and the sacraments offered here."

"My brothers and sisters, a great part of your work is now done," the archbishop concluded. "This church's doors are now open, and await the coming of the faithful, you, who are true sons and daughters of the Lord, and who will see here in this holy place ...the baptism and confirmation of our children and of converts...the holy marriages which will build our families and bring new life into the Church."

Following the Mass Father Ware noted that a picture of St. Elizabeth Seton given to the mission 20 years ago by her order, and pews from an old building linked the present and the past.

Nancy White, director of religious education in the mission and mother of six children, spoke of the sense of accomplishment and of the challenges ahead for the small Catholic community.

The process has been "a matter of sticking with it," she said, crediting a number of people like parishioner Joyce Smith, who would not give up on the project.

Now she is eager to begin a religious education program for the children and youth of the mission. Having struggled with the challenge of raising her own children as Catholic in rural Georgia, the Virginia native is committed to developing a program, even if it is to serve a few children. "The Manchester area is trying to draw people," she said. "I feel we will grow."