Florida Catholic | Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish

‘Bursting at the seams’

Fast-growing Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in burgeoning Doral breaks ground for its first permanent building.

PRISCILLA GREEAR | FLORIDA CATHOLIC CORRESPONDENT

Published: 01.11.08

Young parishioners at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish take part in the ground breaking ceremony

COURTESY PHOTO | ABRAHAM EMBI
Young parishioners take part in the ground breaking ceremony for Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish's first permanent building.

DORAL | Six years after being founded, the first Catholic parish in the burgeoning young city of Doral broke ground for its first building — a two-story multiuse facility that will seat 1,000 for Mass, house an office wing and have 10 meeting rooms for parish classes and other activities.

“The real journey begins now,” Auxiliary Bishop Felipe Estévez told a crowd composed mostly of pioneers who remembered when Our Lady of Guadalupe started out in 1999 as a mission of Blessed Trinity Parish in Miami Springs.

After officially becoming a parish Sept. 1, 2001, attendance at weekly Masses began to double: from 300 initially to 600 by January 2002. Even without a church building, Our Lady of Guadalupe already has 3,000 registered families from 44 countries, 90 percent of them Hispanic.

The community has been celebrating two English and three Spanish Masses each weekend in the cafeteria of Eugenia B. Thomas Elementary School at 5850 N.W. 114 Ave. in Doral, and renting administrative office space in the city.

“We’re only scratching the surface,” said founding pastor Msgr. Tomás Marín. “I’m told that Doral is 80 percent Catholic. A community that is 80 percent Catholic needs a church that is huge.”

The 14-acre site for the new church is on the corner of 25th Street and 117th Avenue, on the southwestern edge of Our Lady of Mercy Cemetery. The parish now celebrates daily Masses in the cemetery chapel, and the cemetery deeded the 14 acres to the parish.

“It’s just going to be so good for us” to have the church next door, said Paul Johnson, who oversees the operations of both of the archdiocesan cemeteries.

The parish had always planned to locate next to the cemetery, but had been waiting for needed permits and money, said Msgr. Marin, who estimated the total cost of the project at $12 million: $5 million for the multipurpose building and $7 million for the land.

Eventually, he said, a school, permanent church and housing facility for the elderly will be built on the parish grounds. This will create “a continuum” for parishioners, “from the beginning of life to the end of life, literally, with the cemetery next door,” Msgr. Marín said.

Once the multipurpose building is built, he added, “we’ll be able to begin ministries there and programs and everything else.” Construction is expected to begin this month and the parish hopes to celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe next Dec. 12 in their new home.

Right now, the parish can offer only Mass, a choir and religious education classes for more than 400 children in first through 12th grade.

“We actually have to turn children away because of the limited amount of classes that we have (at the elementary school),” said Diana Embi, who with her husband, Abraham, started the religious education program four years ago.

She described Doral as an area full of families with young children and said Mass each weekend feels like a pilgrimage. More than 400 people who do not fit into the public school cafeteria — which seats 600 — listen to the Mass while seated in a courtyard outside.

“People come with their own folding chairs,” she said. “This is unbelievable the faith these people have.”

Incorporated in 2003 in Miami-Dade County just a mile west of the airport, Doral has 26,685 residents, nearly 63 percent of them Hispanic.

The city continues to grow, Msgr. Marín said. In one new development alone, plans call for building 10,000 homes.

“They compare this to being bigger than Coral Gables and more affluent,” said Msgr. Marín. “We’re going to need several missions, probably” to reach everybody.

“This multipurpose building will give us a home,” said Tom Baker, a member of the parish since 2002. “We’re bursting at the seams.”

Ana Rodriguez-Soto contributed to this report.

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