Sacred Heart celebrates Centenary

This year marks 100 for Griffith’s Catholic Church, Sacred Heart. As with many events around the country, COVID restrictions didn’t allow for the occasion to be celebrated as originally planned, but they did manage to launch a book on Sunday, July 11.

The Sacred Heart of Griffith - Celebrating Our Centenary chronicles the beginnings of the Catholic Church in this area and tells of the faith-filled parishioners who helped shape the parish over its first 100 years.

The small gathering was attended by current priests, a few parishioners who contributed to the book, the ‘book team’ and some of the centenary committee members.

Fr Grace welcomed everyone and opened the book launch with the book’s introduction.

“This book, The Sacred Heart of Griffith, will inspire many,” he read. “I am indebted to the team who have worked on our centenary history for nine years: Joe and Cath Catanzariti, Lucy Edwards and Louise Lowman. Fr Ted Tyler’s work in the 1970s laid the platform on which the work could be built. Their efforts have been complemented by Anna Rossetto’s research.

Photographer (and parishioner) Ginette Guidolin provided a number of stunning images, including those used for the cover.

Wagga designer Maris Herr, responsible for the layout of the book and all of the efforts were brought together by our editor/publisher, Zita Denholm.” Fr Grace went on to acknowledge the many contributions, those who were interviewed and those who submitted historical articles and photos.

He finished by saying the book was by no means a complete account of all that had happened in their vibrant faith community, although they had tried to capture the main highlights of the past 100 years.

Editor/publisher Zita Denholm agreed with Fr Grace that while there might be shortcomings in the book, only a diarist could write down a day-by-day account of everything that happened, and even then the diarist would select those events they deemed interesting or important.

“A diary of 100 years would run at least 100 volumes,” Mrs Denholm said. “A history must be more selective and an historian must try to capture the strands which have shaped the situation as it is today.”

Fr Grace and the rest of the team that worked on the collation of material for the book invited others who had photos or stories they would like to contribute for future publications or for the parish archives to drop them into the parish office. While not everything can be included in a book, it can certainly be part of the history on file.

The book, raffle tickets - The 100 Club ($4000 first prize) and other centenary memorabilia are available for purchase from the Sacred Heart Parish office presbytery building at 11 Warrambool Street from Tuesday to Friday, 9 am to 2 pm.

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