Artist rendering of the completed church. The $20-million place of worship is on schedule to welcome parishioners by early summer. Photo credit: ATA Architects
A new Catholic Church is being built on Hamilton Mountain and, once complete, will be the first new Catholic Church built in the city in over four decades.
The new $20-million, 27,000-square-foot St. Catherine of Siena Parish at 620 Rymal Road East will be completed by summer if all goes accordingly to plan. A dedication Mass is tentatively scheduled for Sunday, June 18.
The church is near the Rymal Road East and Upper Sherman intersection. The project is more than 60 per cent complete, after breaking ground in June 2021.
It was supposed to be completed by December 2022, but the project was marred by delays due to rainy weather, the pandemic, and materials shortages.
Walters Group was awarded the contract for the church, with Nolan Hunter from Ira McDonald Construction serving as the project manager. ATA Architects designed the Church and Mantecon Partners serves as the structural engineering firm for the project.
There are approximately 60 workers on the site each day.
Father Mark Gatto serves as pastor at the Parish.
The church will reportedly be the only Catholic Church in Hamilton located south of the Lincoln Alexander Parkway.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Hamilton recently merged and sold two other Hamilton Mountain churches: Our Lady of Lourdes and Corpus Christi.
The proceeds from the sale of those two churches cover most of the construction costs for the new building.
The property is eight acres.
The development is meant to accommodate 800 parishioners. Additional spaces included in the development are a pastoral centre fitting 150 people, an administrative centre, meeting rooms, a choir rehearsal space, Adoration Chapel, Baptismal Font, Narthex (essentially a foyer), a Confessional, Sacristy, and a Rectory (living accommodations for the church’s pastor).
There will also be parking for 300 cars and an exterior Holy Shrine and Stations of the Cross.
The building will also feature a bell tower.
The Rectory will be located at the south-western edge of the property and will front Wagner Drive.
The church design is meant to be “simple and timeless” and “united by three basic elements: a base, middle band, and roof.”
The church’s base is natural limestone and patterned to pay homage to the Siena Cathedral in Siena, Italy. The roof peak is 65 feet high.
While some have questioned whether there are enough Catholics in the area to support the new church, the East Mountain area has seen a lot of new residential growth and will continue to grow significantly over the next few years.
Nearby Bishop Ryan Catholic Secondary School, for example, was opened in 2013 and is already at over 150 per cent capacity and making use of 12 portables.
Hamilton’s Catholic school board is building an $8.4 million expansion for Bishop Ryan and may even be constructing an entirely new school in the next couple of years.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
