As the sun set over Green Valley Ranch on Sept. 7, a long-awaited new dawn rose for St. Gianna Molla Parish, which at last broke ground for a new church six years after its founding. Located at the intersection of Green Valley Ranch Blvd. and Jebel St., the three-acre plot of land on which the parish will be built was blessed by Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila during a joyous groundbreaking ceremony gathering parishioners, friends and benefactors of the parish, as well as representatives from the architectural and construction groups that are designing and building the church. Over the years, the community of St. Gianna Molla has gathered to celebrate Mass in a school, a Holiday Inn and various parishioners’ homes, until they found their current, temporary home in a former dance studio. Now, the parish community is ecstatic to finally be on the cusp of a permanent home — a church building to call their own. Building a new parish from scratch is no easy task, especially in a state like Colorado. Father Jason Wunsch, pastor of St. Gianna Molla Parish, shared how the parish has had to contend with rising real estate costs, which made finding the right plot of land for the church difficult. Thankfully, after much searching, God provided the future home of St. Gianna Molla Parish, which happens to be zoned for a church. So far, parishioners have pledged $1.7 million to help pay for the construction, while the Archdiocese of Denver granted $3.5 million. All told, the project will cost around $13 million. Construction will begin in earnest in October, and Father Wunsch is hopeful the building will be completed by Christmas 2025. The parish is very needed in the Green Valley Ranch area and serves a diverse population, including English, Spanish and Vietnamese speakers. Father Wunsch is bilingual and celebrates the English and Spanish Masses, while the parish’s parochial vicar, Father Vincent Bui, celebrates Mass for the Vietnamese community. As Colorado becomes increasingly secular, the parish is leaning into its missionary call to bring the light of Christ to the surrounding area. In fact, Father Wunsch told the Denver Catholic that St. Gianna Molla’s presence in Green Valley Ranch will mark the very first actual church in that area. “In our parish boundaries, there are probably 60,000 people, at least, and there's not a single ecclesial structure,” Father Wunsch told the Denver Catholic. “No churches. There's one Mormon ward, but there are zero Christian churches.
“The reason why there are no churches in our area is because it's a symptom of the modern world,” Father Wunsch continued. “It's godless. People don't build churches anymore because God is not part of the modern world. It's a post-Christian era, so the church has to really turn from a maintenance mode to a mission mode. I want our parish to be very missionary.”
God has provided for St. Gianna Molla all along the way. From a donated altar and tabernacle to beautiful religious art and handcrafted Stations of the Cross, which adorn their current meeting space, the generosity of others has played an integral role in making the parish what it is now. But of course, a parish is so much more than just a place; a parish is comprised of a community of people who love the Lord, and Father Wunsch said that the Lord has provided abundantly in that respect.
“God has provided people with generous hearts to help build the church,” Father Wunsch said. “We’ve got a volunteer flower ministry that has a very evangelical mind, where this is a form of discipleship for them. We have volunteer cleaners. The first real strong ministry was the Society of St. Vincent of Paul, we have such need in our community. We have five to 10 families coming to us weekly sometimes that are in need of help. We're now growing the catechism program, and we all of a sudden have new catechists that are bilingual that are really great. He's provided for what we need when we need it.”
This provision has also extended to the parish building project and all the moving parts that go into designing and constructing a church from the ground up.
“God also provided people in the parish that had some experience with building projects and had started new churches before or were involved with real estate, guys filing the land, and other people helped to find the right candidates,” Father Wunsch shared. “We had someone who is an interior designer help design the new church space. Then also a great architectural firm and a great general contractor that work so well together. It really feels like we're working with family.”
Another welcome touch of divine providence comes from the parish’s namesake of St. Gianna Molla, whose life was a beautiful example of holiness.
“I see her as a great patroness for the parish, but I think she's also a great modern saint to show that you can be a saint in the modern world,” Father Wunsch said. “She was a saint that is a modern woman who worked, but also had a beautiful marriage rooted in God, and just a great woman of faith. She was involved with Catholic action and St. Vincent of Paul, and you can see her inspiring people. We've had Africans, Spanish speakers, English speakers, all naming their kids Gianna. She’s a good model of the Second Vatican Council’s call to lay holiness. One of the major themes of the Second Vatican Council is the universal call to holiness, and here we have this woman who's a doctor near this place where the hospitals are, but just being a young woman and who is a great witness to life as well.”
Living up to her patronage, her intercession has proven to be especially powerful for couples struggling to have children. “We have done some Masses along with another priest, Father Nathan Goebel at St. Joan of Arc, for couples that have struggled to conceive, and I know St. Gianna is very powerful in that intercession,” Father Wunsch said. “Her daughter said that's the number one thing that people say that she's interceded with, and we've had Masses praying for Christian fertility and for life and had couples be able to adopt and conceive.”
It is a tall order to be pastor of a fledgling parish — especially considering this is Father Wunsch’s first assignment as a pastor. He, along with the parishioners of St. Gianna Molla, has been tasked with setting the foundation for generations of families to come, families who will continue to grow and carry out the mission of St. Gianna Molla Parish long after the final brick is laid. As the parish looks to a future that the Lord has ordained for them, Father Wunsch desires that it be a place where people feel welcome and loved and, ultimately, find communion with the Lord and each other.
“I want it to be a parish that really goes out — not a ‘come ye’ Gospel but a ‘go ye’ Gospel. I really want to have that as the end, but the mechanism of that is always communion,” Father Wunsch concluded. “Without the dynamism of divine intimacy and real strong community, you don't have the energy of charity to go out and love people for God's sake. So, keeping that front and center is key because I also want a place for divine intimacy where there's Adoration every day and confessions every day, where people can really meet God, where more and more people can come to be healed and can eventually be formed to be Catholic and understand and see the beauty of the Catholic faith.”
