St. Pius X: the farm becomes a parish

1936–2017

The farm's chapel community grew into one of the largest parishes in the diocese: the Catholics of St. Joseph's Farm were an unofficial parish community from 1936, on the parish's own history, served by Holy Cross chaplains whose list begins in 1924. A parish census in February 1954 counted 130 Catholic families within the boundaries, 75 enrolled. That year the building course ran: Bishop Noll gave permission on June 18, 1954; Kenneth Zook's five acres on Fir Road were in hand; on September 23, 1954 the new church was named for St. Pius X, newly canonized; groundbreaking followed on October 25, 1954. The parish was formally established in 1956 — the year of the first Mass in the Fir Road church — beginning with 145 families. Two datings in the place's own prose must print beside this course, unharmonized: the diocesan paper's campaign account says that "in 1951, a new church dedicated to St. Pius X was built on Fir Road south of State Road 23 for the 145 families it served," and the school's strategic plan likewise dates the parish's founding to 1951. The parish's detailed history governs the building course — 1951 belongs to the organizing effort, when the farm parish joined Christ the King and Little Flower to help the Sisters of Holy Cross build a school at St. Mary's, its bus running to the St. Mary's Campus School until that school closed in June 1969 — but the 1951 sentence stands in the record as printed, and the conflict is carried, not resolved. The later course is single-sourced and clear: rectory completed 1970; parish center and gym 1986; a new church and offices built between 1989 and 1991 and dedicated in 1992; the Congregation of Holy Cross handed the parish to the Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend in 2001, and Msgr. William C. Schooler, its pastor since that year and the first diocesan priest to hold it, held it until his retirement in 2024. Msgr. Michael Heintz succeeded him in the summer of 2024 and holds the parish (Religion, whole). The parish opened St. Pius X Catholic School in August 2008 in its new Parish Education Center, dedicated August 24, 2008 — the first newly built kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school in the diocese since the Second Vatican Council, on the associate pastor's contemporary account — with Elaine Holmes as principal; the school was named a National Blue Ribbon School in 2015 and stood at near capacity with some 675 students in 2024–25. A $20 million campaign announced in February 2014 built the present church: groundbreaking April 19, 2015, and dedication on March 25, 2017 by Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, seating 1,300, at 52553 Fir Road. By 2017 the parish counted more than 3,100 families and some 10,000 registered parishioners — in a township that counted 2,860 people entire in 1970.

Sources:

1. Saint Pius X Parish, parish history (the chaplain list from 1924; the February 1954 census; the Zook gift; Bishop Noll's permission of June 18, 1954; the naming of September 23, 1954; the groundbreaking of October 25, 1954; the St. Mary's school arrangement of 1951–1969), read first-hand.
2. Saint Pius X Parish, Strategic Plans 2019–2024 and 2024–2029 (the 1951 founding statement; the 1956 first Mass; the 1992 dedication; the 2001 handover; the school's August 2008 opening and 2024–25 enrollment).
3. Today's Catholic, 2006–2017 (the Parish Education Center groundbreaking of October 22, 2006 and dedication of August 24, 2008; the 2014 campaign account carrying the 1951 sentence; the March 25, 2017 dedication).