The History of Our Parish
Sts. Peter & Paul Parish was established on July 27, 1967. We celebrated our first Mass on August 13, 1967, on the grounds of Camp San Pedro. During the following two years, Pastor Michael Troy and 200 families were a community on the road, celebrating Mass at the San Pedro Center, New Hope Baptist Church, and Aloma Elementary School. On November 1, 1969, we celebrated the first Mass in the domed recreational building. It served not only as our church, but also as the rectory, church offices, ministry meeting room and community auditorium.
As our community grew from the original 200 families to 1000 families in 1980, the need for a larger church was recognized. Through the generosity of our parishioners, a church was built and dedicated on September 14, 1980, by the Most Reverend Bishop Thomas Grady and Pastor John Mitzi. The church provided a place for our growing parish family to express our unity and common faith, and to publicly manifest our love for Almighty God. The domed building was converted to a social hall, child care and pre-school. The domed building was demolished in 2007, and the church building was demolished in 2015.
Over the years, our facilities have expanded to provide for the growing needs of our community. A social hall was built in 1974 and later converted to our present Early Learning Center in 1980. The current Parish Family Center was dedicated on March 3, 1991; it is used for the religious education of our children, meeting places for parish ministries, social functions, and many community groups.
Continuing in the tradition of planning for future generations, our parishioners conducted a study in 1996 to develop a 20-year Master Site Plan for the best use of our facilities. The first priority identified was to build a larger church to provide for our growing parish community, which currently has over 3100 families - "And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room for them, not even about the door; and He was preaching the Word to them" (Mark 2:2,4). And so it is at Sts. Peter & Paul - there are many at the door.
Our current church building, which seats 1200, was dedicated on September 15, 2002 by Bishop Norbert Dorsey. Rev. Sean Cooney, the Pastor at that time, commented, "Without a vibrant worshiping community, a new church may be a beautiful building but it remains irrelevant and without purpose. So our gift to the Lord of a new worship space is a challenge to us to deepen our commitment to being all that we can be as faithful stewards and disciples of the Lord." From its beginning, the strength of our faith community has been our love of God and a spirit of hospitality and sacrificial generosity.
More recently, we completed our New Ministry Center in early 2017 which houses our office staff and has the capacity to comfortably hold medium to large sized ministry functions. This new building is designed to enable our community to continue to grow and meet the needs of the parish and the community.