St. Juliana serves Fort Valley’s Catholic families

FORT VALLEY -- To the best of anyone’s recollection, the first Mass celebrated in Fort Valley was in 1937.

The circumstances of that Mass set a tone the church has kept through the years: fostering the faith of Catholics in a multicultural environment.

According to a history compiled by John “Howdy” Thurman, that first celebration brought together a young Irish priest living in Albany with a young Lebanese couple who had moved to Fort Valley to start a business: Khoury’s Department Store.

Other Masses followed irregularly in the home of William and Fefie Khoury and other Fort Valley locations. Responsibility for serving the faithful varied through the years among other larger Middle Georgia parishes.

In the early 1950s, discussions began in earnest about establishing a church in the community. In the coming years, the Khourys remained central to the establishment and life of the church.

“Since 1954, St. Juliana Church has nourished the faith of Catholics in the Peach County area,” said the Rev. Eric Filmer, pastor of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Kathleen, who also serves as priest and pastor at St. Juliana.

“St. Juliana has provided fellowship and outreach in the wider community and continues to be a home for people from diverse cultural backgrounds gathering under one roof as one family,” he said.

With Filmer as pastor, day-to-day life and worship at the church is generally carried out by Kenneth Hutnick, deacon (the first level of ordained ministry in the Catholic Church), and Matilde Morales, director of religious education and parish coordinator for St. Juliana’s Hispanic community.

“My role as deacon is basically to assist the pastor,” Hutnick said. “Whatever sacrament he doesn’t perform, I do. I work for the (diocese) bishop in the role of assistant pastor here. That includes administering Sacraments, performing marriages, baptisms, serving the altar, visiting nursing homes, making sick calls and other ministry in our small parish.”

Hutnick is an Air Force retiree who also taught at Fort Valley State University. He said he began his service at St. Juliana in 1991 and serves as needed in other area parishes.

Morales provides for the pastoral and educational needs of the church’s Spanish-speaking congregants.

Regarding its Hispanic members, Thurman’s history says it was in the 1980s that peach farmers began using migrant Hispanic workers for their labor-intensive operations. He called the shift one of the most dramatic events in St. Juliana’s history.

“First and foremost, St. Juliana could probably be called a multicultural parish,” Hutnick said. “It’s a very accepting community, very embracing of everyone. It’s not uncommon for any Catholic parish to serve a variety of cultures, but Father Eric often talks about how St. Juliana was a leader in assisting migrant workers here from very early on. We’re proud of that.”

But Hutnick said Hispanic and Anglo culture doesn’t paint the whole St. Juliana picture. He said there are members representing 10 different countries in the church.

Hutnick said the church’s sanctuary can seat up to 150. He said typically 200 attend the Spanish Mass with the spillover crowd seated in a fellowship hall.

He said there are about 75 families in the English-speaking church community.

As a mission, Hutnick said St. Patrick’s helps cover St. Juliana’s financial needs as well as its spiritual. He said the church is too small to run many of its own outreach ministries, so it joins with St. Patrick’s in outreach and in other ministries in the Fort Valley community, such as Grace House, which provides assistance and food to those in need.

Hutnick said St. Juliana is very active and serves as a Middle Georgia center for the John XXIII movement, an international movement in Spanish reaching out to inactive Catholics and working to enhance the spiritual lives of all Catholics. The group conducts various retreats and events throughout the year.

Hutnick said he is quite content at St. Juliana and with his almost 25 years there. He said the mix of people at the church is heartwarming, from partaking in communion together to mingling cultures over coffee and doughnuts.

Contact writer Michael W. Pannell at mwpannell@gmail.com.

St. Juliana Catholic Church

Address: 804 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Fort Valley

Phone: 478-956-0813

Leadership: Kenneth Hutnick, deacon

Mass schedule: Saturday 7 p.m. Spanish, Sunday 8:30 a.m. English

This story was originally published September 15, 2015 at 10:39 PM with the headline "St. Juliana serves Fort Valley’s Catholic families ."