by Joe Bollig
Special to The Leaven
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann’s coat of arms has many symbols, including loaves of bread, a cross, a red rose and a carpenter’s square.
But it would have been appropriate for him to add one more item next to the carpenter’s square: a construction worker’s hard hat.
Archbishop Naumann, like every ordinary of the archdiocese dating back to the pioneering Bishop John Baptist Miege, has overseen the building of the church in northeast Kansas in both the spiritual and physical sense.
A great deal of construction had already taken place under Archbishop Naumann’s immediate predecessor, Archbishop Emeritus James Patrick Keleher. And when Archbishop Naumann succeeded him on Jan. 15, 2005, he continued the trend.
The things that have been built, added onto or renovated during his time as archbishop include eucharistic adoration chapels, the chancery, a college campus, college campus centers, camp facilities, churches, grottos and shrines, offices, parish halls, rectories, retirement/care facilities and schools.
Archbishop Naumann has always been supportive of construction projects, said Dan Himmelberg, former archdiocesan director of real estate and construction. It’s the parishes, schools and other entities that undertake these projects, but ultimately approval comes from the archbishop.
“He’s been very supportive; he’s not been a roadblock at all,” said Himmelberg. “For the most part, he’s been pro-construction so long as there was a need and a way to pay for it. In the time I’ve known him . . . he’s had the same attitude for our rural communities as our urban ones.”
Himmelberg estimated that the insured replacement value of all archdiocesan new construction, renovation and the ever ubiquitous “miscellaneous” during the 20 years of Archbishop Naumann’s time here to be $265,704,000 (excluding Santa Marta retirement and care facility in Olathe and Donnelly College in Kansas City, Kansas), consisting of 653,828 square feet.
Historically, construction in the archdiocese occurred in stages: the founding pioneer stage with its mission parishes; the immigrant parish stage as various groups settled in the countryside and cities; a maturing stage up through World War II; a post-World War II boom stage; and — for want of a better name — the postconciliar stage (after the Second Vatican Council).
Even this last stage can be further subdivided when it comes to specific areas and decades, as in high-growth Johnson County, with expansion north of Interstate 435 versus later expansion to the highway’s south.
A lot of things fall under the archdiocesan construction hard hat, according to Himmelberg. This includes not only new construction, but renovations and ongoing maintenance and improvements.
For example, there have been several projects at Savior Pastoral and Retreat Center in Kansas City, Kansas, before and during the Archbishop Naumann years.
“[At Savior] in the last five years alone, we’ve renovated the parking structure and we did a complete rebuild of all the parking lots and sidewalks with handicapped accessibility,” said Himmelberg. “We put a new roof on the chancery and reroofs on the main chapel, and the recreation building.
Other examples of ongoing work are all the archdiocesan high schools have undertaken major, ongoing improvement projects and additions during Archbishop Naumann’s time.
The instances of parish consolidations have (but not always) led to the sale, repurposing or demolition of redundant or deteriorated parish structures.
“There was a dedicated fund in the One Faith capital campaign (the property revitalization fund) just for parish consolidation issues,” said Himmelberg. “That fund had $5 million. We’re just taking applications for the last round . . . so in three years, we’re going to implement all those — from demolition to badly needed repairs at 14 parishes.”
It can be difficult to get a full, complete picture of Catholic construction in the archdiocese because there are many kinds of work and there are different, independent corporate entities that aren’t strictly archdiocesan, but are Catholic or Catholic-affiliated.
One example is Donnelly College, which undertook a $34 million, three-phased, 10-year campus transformation project completed in April 2022. Another example is the Santa Marta continuing care retirement community which has been expanding since it opened its doors in November 2007. Himmelberg estimated Santa Marta’s insured replacement value currently at $79,659,000.
The long-established practice in the archdiocese (and the United States as a whole) has been that parishes have been encouraged to build schools first and worship in temporary spaces, and to build a church later. An example of this is St. Paul Parish in Olathe, which moved into its current campus in December 2018, but held a groundbreaking for its new church on May 11, 2024.
There have been 15 new churches built during Archbishop Naumann’s time, but most of these were for existing parishes that moved to a new campus or built a new church at an existing location.
Two new parishes were established under Archbishop Naumann, St. Rose Philippine Duchesne in Westwood in 2013, and St. John Paul II in Olathe in 2016. The former bought and remodeled a closed Lutheran church in 2012, and the latter has a temporary leased sanctuary until a new church is built.
New churches built during Archbishop Naumann’s years
2005: Sacred Heart of Jesus, Shawnee
2006: Divine Mercy, Gardner
2007: Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Topeka
2009: St. Francis de Sales, Lansing
2009: St. Michael the Archangel, Leawood
2010: Holy Angels, Basehor
2010: St. James, Wetmore
2010: St. Bernard, Wamego
2010: St. Ann, Effingham
2012: St. Stanislaus, Rossville
2013: St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, Westwood
2015: Holy Family, Eudora
2018: St. Patrick, Scranton
2018: St. Gregory the Great, Marysville
2018: St. Paul, Olathe
Projects new and remodeled
Eucharistic adoration chapels, new: 4
Churches, new: 15
Churches, renovated: 9
Offices, renovated: 2
Parish halls, new: 13
Parish halls, renovated: 2
Priests’ retirement home, new: 1
Rectories, new: 10
Rectories, renovated: 1
Schools, new: 1
Schools, renovated: 10
Source: Archdiocesan office of real estate and construction
