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Flemish families at St. Joseph's from the 1840s; Father Charles Stuer arrived from Belgium 1902; frame church-school-hall dedicated 3 May 1903; brick church dedicated 1 January 1905; 511 W. Seventh Street
The Flemish parish: Mishawaka's Belgian colony — Flemish immigrants who had worshipped at St. Joseph's since the 1840s — got a priest of their own tongue when Father Charles Stuer was sent from Belgium, arriving, on the parish history's date, 2 September 1902; the Alerding excerpt in the genealogical timeline gives 29 September 1902, and both stand. The parish petitioned Bishop Herman Alerding in March 1903, and its first building — a frame church, school and hall at Eighth and West streets — was dedicated on 3 May 1903. The brick church at Seventh and West followed within the year: its cornerstone was blessed on 8 May 1904 by Bishop Meerschaert, and it was dedicated on 1 January 1905, at a cost of $13,081, as the parish record preserves the figure. The parish holds, and the record prints as the community's own claim, that St. Bavo's is the only church in North America named for St. Bavo.
The course: The parish school was replaced in 1954 and an educational wing added in 2001. The parish's bulletins today carry its school as the St. Bavo Campus of Mishawaka Catholic School — the city's Catholic elementary schools now operate under that single name, a consolidation whose full course stands in the schools leg. The parish stands active at 511 West Seventh Street, its office at 502 West Seventh, with bulletins current through the autumn of 2026: the parish's bulletins in the first part of 2026 name Father Peter Pacini, C.S.C., as pastor, and its September 2026 bulletin and November 2026 parish posts name Father Francis Mwanje — the change of pastor printed as the parish's own publications give it. A parish post of 2 November 2026 invites the community to a Mass and meal honoring the parish's African parishioners — the Belgian parish of 1903 keeping, in 2026, the same work of gathering newcomers that it was founded to do.
Sources:
- St. Bavo parish history, as carried in the parish's published materials and the genealogical timeline (the Stuer arrival dates in conflict).
- St. Bavo parish bulletins and site (stbavochurch.com), 2026 — Mass schedules, the Mishawaka Catholic School campus line, the pastorate change.
- Ed Chamberlin, Mishawaka church-history timeline, South Bend Area Genealogical Society, 2016.