What is going on at St. Peter’s, South Beloit? Why must the Director of Communications for the Diocese give answers for the parish priest? Who is in charge at St. Peter’s?
SOUTH BELOIT — Volunteers with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul are looking for a new building from which to operate their weekly food pantry now that they can no longer use St. Peter Catholic Church’s bingo hall.
The society had operated a food panty out of the bingo hall every Wednesday night since 2001 until parish officials changed the locks one night in April and the Rev. Nicolas Federspiel, the parish priest, told them they could no longer use the hall.
“He wouldn’t let us in there to get our food,” pantry coordinator Ed VanBarriger said. “It was locked away. People started showing up, and we were telling them they had to leave, they couldn’t get any food. It’s a crime.”…
Federspiel and the parish Finance Council decided to start renting out the bingo hall this spring, said Penny Wiegert, director of communications for the Catholic Diocese of Rockford.
“The parish and the school no longer needed to use the mobile building as an extra classroom, so the Rev. Federspiel and some members of the parish Finance Council decided to give them that building to use instead and use the bingo hall for other activities,” she said. “So the food pantry was temporarily closed for about six weeks to move all of the stuff from the bingo hall to the mobile classroom.”
The above Rockford Register Star article is available in its entirety at: http://www.rrstar.com/top_stories/x149331342/Society-of-St-Vincent-de-Paul-seeks-indoor-permanent-food-pantry-site
For other stories on St. Peter’s and the state of affairs there go to: http://boonecountycatholics.blogspot.com/2011/09/aftermath-of-south-beloits-failed.html; http://boonecountycatholics.blogspot.com/2011/08/observer-reports-south-beloit-church.html; http://boonecountycatholics.blogspot.com/2011/07/look-at-what-happened-at-st-peters-in.html; and http://boonecountycatholics.blogspot.com/2011/07/beloit-daily-st-peters-school-building.html
Here is a very old Beloit Daily News article regarding what the St. Peter’s Parish was attempting to do under Father Koutnik.
Posted: Monday, March 10, 2008 12:00 am
$1 million still neededBy Ashley Rhodebeck
Daily News staff writerbeloitdailynews.com | 3 comments
St. Peter's asks community to help fund a larger school, gym and chapel in Roscoe
Late one morning last week, the Rev. Jerome Koutnik took a seat in a back pew of St. Peter's Catholic Church and began spouting the hardships the parish's 40-year-old school faces. Meanwhile, a cameraman panned the chapel, keeping the priest in frame.
“We're in definite need of a new building,” Koutnik began one take and explained how the roof above the first-grade classroom is leaking and the third-graders receive their lessons in a temporary structure resembling a mobile home.
Koutnik's recorded plea will be part of a five- to seven-minute DVD soliciting Stateline Area businesses for donations for the parish's capital campaign to build a one-story grammar school and chapel in Roscoe that would hold 250 students. About 144 attend St. Peter's Catholic School in South Beloit this year.
The Catholic Diocese of Rockford has owned the 15.8-acre site located across from the Hilander on Hononegah-Elevator Road for 20 years. St. Peter's began putting expansion plans in action in the past year after seeing Roscoe's, Rockton's and South Beloit's populations rise.
Moving to Roscoe is a logical choice because about 80 percent of St. Peter's congregation lives in the Rockton-Roscoe area, Koutnik said.
The second phase of the expansion project will include a $10 million church that will seat 1,000 and will have the capability to add another 500. The parish's current facility holds 380.
Renderings of the future school have been drafted, and Koutnik has begun discussions with the “unbelievably helpful” Village of Roscoe authorities about settling a pre-annexation agreement.
Just about everything is in place for a groundbreaking except for choosing a construction company and reaching the fundraising goal.
Since July 2007 more than 400 of the South Beloit church's 1,111 parishioners have committed $3 million to the new school, but Koutnik said another million is needed to start the project.
“If $1 million shows up we'll start right now,” he said. “The question is how to get the rest of the people to play their part.”
The average gift totals $1,400 per year over five years, Koutnik said and gestured toward a stack of 200 letters he planned to mail those who have not yet donated.
The church has also scheduled its second fundraiser, a spring gala dinner and auction for April 11 at the Radisson Hotel in Rockford. Tickets cost $100 and can be purchased by calling(815)389-2024 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (815)389-2024 end_of_the_skype_highlighting.
Koutnik hopes enough funds will be raised to build the school, gym and chapel, but, he said, if the money doesn't come through by next summer he will have to eliminate plans for the chapel.
“I don't want to, but I will,” Koutnik said. But, he added, “As long as God's in front of it I think everything's going to be fine.”
Despite the emphasis on fundraising, Koutnik said money isn't the forefront issue.
“It isn't as much about the money as it is about the spreading of the gospel,” he said, “and creating opportunities for people to draw closer to Jesus Christ.”
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