Tickets for the catered meal will be available through June 22. Adult dinner tickets are $10 each and present and past parishioners as well as friends of the parish are invited to join in the celebration. Contact the parish office at (217) 965-4545 to purchase tickets.
As Sacred Heart celebrates its centennial year, parishioners are looking back to how the parish began. Though Virden is not a large community, Sacred Heart was not the first parish to be established there. St. Catherine Church was built in 1866 by Irish and German immigrants who lived in the area. However, in 1907 the Catholic population in Virden was substantially expanded as Slovak immigrants moved to the area to work in the coal mines. That year 111 people were baptized in St. Catherine.
Overcrowding of the church and cultural differences led visiting priest Father Louis Biskupsky to suggest forming a Slovak parish in Virden. Father Biskupsky went to Virden each year to allow the Slovak Catholics to make their Easter duty.
Despite the growth of the community, the parish was a few years in the making. In the summer of 1912, Bishop James Ryan, the third bishop of the Diocese of Alton, gave permission to establish a new parish to meet the spiritual needs of the Slovaks. Father Ignatius A. Stepuncik, pastor of Holy Trinity Parish in Mt. Olive, assisted as they formed Sacred Heart Parish.
Father Edward Spalding, vicar general of the Alton diocese, laid the cornerstone of the present church on July 4, 1914 and the building was completed in mid-November of that year. The first Mass was celebrated by Father Stepuncik on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 26.
Sacred Heart was the second Slovak parish church in the diocese; the first was Holy Trinity. For over a year, the parishioners at Sacred Heart had a church, but no pastor. Then, in March 1916, Father George Bendik was appointed to lead the parish and Bishop Ryan consecrated the church on June 18, 1916.
The first baptism in the new church took place on April 6, 1916; the first funeral on July 7, 1917 and the first marriage on Aug. 27, 1917.
Father Bendik served the parish for a short time and then in July of 1917, a newly-ordained Slovak priest, Father John A. Vraniak, was named pastor of Sacred Heart. Father Vraniak, an enthusiastic young cleric, organized a baseball team called the Virden Slovaks, a band, an orchestra and a host of other activities. He bought a Presbyterian church and turned it into a parish hall and acquired a parish rectory.
However, in one of the tragic turns of the history of Sacred Heart Parish, Father Vraniak left on a business trip to St. Louis in March of 1923 and mysteriously disappeared. He was reportedly last seen on his way back from St. Louis in Venice, but never returned home to the rectory. According to area papers foul play was suspected, causing many parishioners to search for their beloved priest. His Buick was found in St. Louis, but his disappearance has remained a mystery for over 90 years.
Over the first 15 years, Sacred Heart had 10 priests, five of whom were resident pastors. However, as time went on, a number of priests had long tenures there. Another young priest, Father John P. Dolack was appointed pastor of the small parish on June 25, 1927 and remained pastor for 30 years.
Father Nicholas Klink was appointed pastor in 1957 by Bishop William A. O’Connor. During Father Klink’s over 25-year pastorship Father George L. Morelock, a son of the parish, was ordained in 1965. Also, Bishop Joseph A. McNicholas merged St. Catherine Parish with Sacred Heart Parish in 1978 and St. Catherine Church was razed.
In 1983, Bishop Daniel L. Ryan appointed Father August Sperl, administrator and then, a year later, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish. In 1989, Father Sperl saw the completion of St. Catherine Hall, built alongside Sacred Heart Church and named in honor of the patroness and parishioners of the former St. Catherine Parish.
In 2004, Sacred Heart entered into a sister-parish relationship with San Juan Apostol of Guatemala. Father Sperl was pastor — and then later again parochial administrator — of the parish until he retired in 2009. He returned to the parish the next year to celebrate his 90th birthday with the Sacred Heart parishioners.
In 2009, Bishop George J. Lucas ordained Father Morelock’s nephew, Frank Maynerich Jr., another son of the parish, to the permanent diaconate. Sadly, Deacon Maynerich and his son Paul passed away in an automobile accident in August 2013.
Currently two more men from the parish, Greg Maynerich (Father Morelock’s nephew and the late Deacon Maynerich’s brother) and Rick Schnetzler Sr., are deacon aspirants, on course to be ordained to the permanent diaconate in 2016.
Sacred Heart has welcomed a number of pastors over the past five years. Father Daren J. Zehnle was named pastor in 2009. In 2011 Father Christopher A. House was appointed pastor and remained until the summer of 2013, when Msgr. Thomas P. Holinga was named pastor. Beginning July 1, 2014, Father James Palakudy, SAC, currently pastor of St. Peter Parish, Petersburg and Holy Family, Athens will be assigned to Sacred Heart, along with Holy Cross Parish in Auburn and St. Patrick Parish in Girard.
Today, Sacred Heart is home to about 380 parishioners. “The parishioners of Sacred Heart feel blessed to be part of their parish during its centennial year,” said parish secretary Marcella Rosier. “They feel blessed to have been able to share the sacraments, their faith and their love with so many people over the past century and to have had so many good and faithful priests.”
Historical facts obtained from Catholic Times files, diocesan archives, information provided by Sacred Heart Parish and also from the Diamond Jubilee Book of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, published in 1928.