St. Stephen Martyr parish was established with about 350 families
from the neighboring parishes of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Our Mother of
Sorrows and Holy Family. The parish serves Catholics in the central
Louisville area.
Founding pastor Father Clemens Weiker took up residence at Our Mother
of Sorrows rectory in 1948 and began preparations for building the
parish church and school through soliciting donations from prospective
parishioners. Parishioners purchased a prefabricated structure to serve
as the rectory. For a convent, they converted a building that had been
used by the Camp Taylor Army Post as a World War I hospital.
Construction of the parish church and school began in 1949, and the
Dominican Sisters from Saint Catherine, Springfield, Kentucky, taught in
the school. The school’s auditorium served as a temporary church, until
an L-shaped church with a seating capacity for 600 was completed and
dedicated in December 1950.
The 1950 church was attached to the school, and eight classrooms were
added in 1954. The school reached its peak enrollment—more than 700
students in the 1960s—with lay teachers and Dominicans staffing 16
classrooms. In 1970 when the Dominican Sisters left the school, the
parish formed a parish school board and hired its first lay principal.
In addition, the parish began religious education classes for the
children of the parish who attend public schools.
A new church with theater-style seating in a semicircular
configuration was constructed and dedicated in 1982. In 2000, the parish
began a capital campaign, raising $2.1 million to renovate the old
church, then the gymnasium, into a junior high wing for the school. In
addition, the capital campaign enabled the community to build a new
parish activity center with space for a children’s day care center,
gymnasium, offices, meeting room and a kitchen.
Now with 3,300 parishioners, St. Stephen Martyr Parish continues to
be a vibrant parish that is committed to serving the local community’s
poor and needy.