St. Dominic Catholic Church

 
 Welcome to the Saint Dominic Parish Web site! Our Parish exists to meet the needs of its members and to help witness the transforming love of Jesus Christ in our lives.  Our Parish is involved in many activities designed to meet our community  needs.  We worship together as a community of believers.  We support one another in living Christian values and beliefs.  We nurture the faith of our members in a variety of ways including adult education and catechetical programs for the children and the young people of our community. 
  
We hope that we can serve your religious needs by the quality of our Liturgy which constitutes the focal point of any Catholic Community.  If you have questions please call us.  We look forward to having you share your gifts with us. 
 
 Rev. Roger Estorque

HISTORY

***St. Dominic Catholic Church in the early days of 1965 was referred to as the Sheldon Area Catholic Church.  After an article was published on March 21, 1965 every Catholic living in the Sheldon area wrote  to the Chancery to see if there were enough Catholics.  Shortly afterwards, a group of Catholics in the area contacted Rev. Louis Cotrone, administrator of Resurrection Church and with his guidance, it was decided to take a Sheldon area census on April 3-10, 1965. The census showed there were 119 Catholic families, approximately 170 school age children, 88 pre-school age children.    Fr. Fee, of Resurrection Church purchased a school bus  which was used every Saturday morning to take the children to Resurrection Church for CCD classes (Catechetical program).  There were several organizational meetings at Resurrection Hall.  Land for the new Church was purchased  by the Diocese in 1965;  $ 100.00 pledge from everyone  on the census, which was very successful. A loan was obtained for $2,500.00 by Mr. I. H. Perry and our first church, a metallic building, was constructed.

While waiting for the new church to be built, it was decided to find a place  in the Sheldon area to have our CCD (catechetical program) and Holy Mass.   The only available building was the condemned old Sheldon Elementary School.  After spending days of cleaning and repairing, our first CCD classes were held   on September 17, 1966.  Holy Mass was offered on Sunday mornings starting October 1966 with visiting priest from Resurrection Church.

A building was purchased from Ellington field.  It was moved to our property to be used for CCD classes.   We started holding our CCD classes in   this building on January 14, 1967.   Our new Metallic Church was finished in Decemb er 1966.  Our first Holy Mass at St. Dominic –in the new church building was Midnight Mass-December 25, 1966.

St. Dominic Catholic Church has been a Mission of Resurrection Church. St. Dominic Church became a Parish on January 24, 1969.  

Rev. Louis Cortone (April 1965-1969), Rev. Paul Fee (September 1965-1969) served St. Dominic Church while at the same time serving and residing at Resurrection Church.    Our first administrator was Rev. Gil Leduc (January 1969-August 1969), followed by Rev. George Olsovsky (August 1969-March 1971), Rev. Charles Burns (March 1971-August 1973) , the present Rectory was built during his term;  Rev. Wayne Elkins  (August 1973-June 1985), the present Church was built under his guidance and the Church was dedicated on August 10, 1980;  Rev. Gary Wanzong (June 1985-August 1990), Fr. John Weyer  ( August 1990-February 19904),  Fr. Anton Sheltz (February 1994- May  2003), Fr. Chacko Putthumayil (August 2003-August 2008), and the present Pastor-Fr. Roger Estorque ( September 1, 2008- to the present); the idea of  Constructing a  new St. Dominic Parish Life Center began even before Fr. Estorque came in.  A survey  and a feasibility study on the project was done in 2009; the first capital fund campaign started on June 14, 2011.  The Project was approved by the Chancery in 2011.  Ground breaking was held on June 16, 2014  with Bishop George Sheltz as the presider  and the construction finally  began on May 6, 2015. St. Dominic Parish Life Center was dedicated and blessed on May 15, 2016 at 3:00 PM by Archbishop Emeritus Joseph Fiorenza.

In 1992, St. Dominic Community has over 600 families and is working and praying together to form a strong community.  At this time, the parish has already a community building (Lewis Hall) & a Pavilion & Kitchen (Jurek Pavillion/kitchen).

When established in 1966, the Parish census was about 120 families. The Parish was a mixture of rural in terms of farming and ranching and urban because of the growing chemical industry along the Houston Ship Channel. Because of its proximity to the Sheldon Reservoir and Lake Houston, it also was an area that attracted those wishing to be free of the big city. Even though the area is now serviced by several major freeways, most notably I-10 and Beltway 8, making downtown Houston only twenty minutes away, it still maintains some of those relaxing qualities not found in the big city setting. Nevertheless, we are also confronted with some of those big City problems like poverty. St. Dominic`s was one of the founding members of the North Channel Assistance Ministries to help meet these needs not only with our financial support but also with numerous volunteer hours. Other volunteer hours are offered by our Parish family to hospitals, nursing homes(Silver Spring & Legend Oaks).

At present,  (2025), the parish has 3,500 registered families; we have 550 registered children in our catechetical program (OEC) and a strong Youth Group that meets every Thursday evening; a spanish prayer group-Asamblea de oracion/Jesus esta vivo that meets every thursday from 6pm to 9 pm in the Church.

 ******St. Dominic parish life center

On January 21, 1969, St. Dominic Catholic Church was elevated to parish status by Bishop John L. Morkovsky.  When the parish was first established, its membership of 120 families was a mixture of rural farming families and urban families from the growing industrial area along the Houston Ship channel.  In 1996, the parish numbers 530 families and despite being connected to the city by a growing network of freeways, it retained its original unique qtmosphere, a blend of down-home simplicity and big city commitment to growth and service.

The church was built it 1980.  The parish hall was a converted US Air Force building purchased in the late 1960’s.  over the past thirty to thirty-five years, the hall has been adequately serving the needs of the parish, until most recently.  The parish has experienced tremendous growth, which is consistent with the growth in many areas in eastern Harris County.  Presently, the parish has 1,300 registered families with another estimated 1,000 families that are unregistered but attend  regularly.  CCE registration have increased by approximately 430% over the past tgwo years.   The parish documented present challenges and reasons for the urgent need of a larger hall facility as follows:

1. inadequate classroom space to accommodate CCE students
2. lack of space to accommodate [parishioners for [parish celebrations and fellowship, i.e., feast day,  Easter and other special dinner events and functions.
3. Inadequate staff office space
4. Limitations in space to offer youth and family programs, counseling and other ministries
5. Having the flexibility to move an event indoors during bad weather.

The parish formed a building committee to initiate discussions and proceed with plans that have been discussed over past five years.  The pastoral council and finance council were in favor of proceeding with the plans; some of its members were also members of the newly formed parish building committee.   Recent informal parish surveys have also resulted in a common response for the need of expanded parish facilities, namely a new hall.  The proposed building includes classroom, office and storage space along with expandable meeting rooms and a large kitchen facility, a large open area to accommodate groups of 500 or more and restroom facilities.

In a letter dated March 1, 2010, Fr. Roger Estorque and members of the parish building committee requested approval from the chancery to proceed with construction feasibility plans to build anew parish life center for the st dominic parish.  Approval was granted by Cardinal DiNardo in a letter dated April 1, 2010.  The parish later received  approval letter dated July 19, 2012 from the chancellor to conduct a capital fund campaign as summarized below:

Reason for capital fund campaign:   family life center and septic system

Estimated range of campaign:   $ 1 Million

Start date:   june 5, 2011

End date:  june 30, 2014

Building fund rate:   1 %

Further communication included a letter from the chancellor (February 28, 2013) summarizing the status of the construction project and noting the following contingent steps:

1           begin with the project drawings as the parish has the cash to do this.   According to the Architect, this will take about 4 months to complete the drawings.

2          Begin direct-mail campaign to parishioners with outstanding pledges; referencing that the Archdiocese offer to match a portion of parish pledges going forward.

3          begin preparations for a subsequent debt reduction program            

4          Begin   with contractors to value engineer the project, but  not to the extent that jeopardizes quality or parish needs.

5          as a summary and final step, the Archdiocese will give St. Dominic a $ 100,000 matching grant if St. Dominic parish raises $ 300,000 by July 15, 2013.

6          St Dominic parish makes a firm commitment to run a subsequent debt reduction capital campaign as noted in 3 above.

Additionally, based on information presented to the Diocesan Savings and Loan (DS & L) committee on October 17, 2014 the chancellor granted approval to proceed  with the improvement presented to the DS & L committee subject to:

1. the budget for the project is not to exceed   $ 2.4 Million
2. maximum borrowing limit of $1.2 Million
3. the overall  budget amount includes both hard costs and soft costs
4. Archdiocese will provide a grant of $ 100,000; $ 50,000 at the beginning of construction and the second contingent on the parish achieving at least $ 600,000 in collectible pledges
5. DS & L funding of up to 1.2 Million

The above letter was later superseded  and replaced with a letter dated July 26, 2016 summarized in part as follows:

Brave Architecture provided the Architectural services and ZenCon, Inc dba Zenith Construction was selected as the general contractor (GC).  AIA document A102-207, standard form of agfreement between owner and contractor where the basis of payment is the cost of work plus a fee with a guaranteed maximum price, was designed on December 1, 2014.  The contract sum was two million five hundred thirty nine thousand four hundred thirty one dollars ( $ 2,539,431.00) subject to additions and deductions as provided in the contract documents.  Additional information includes:

*retainage: 10 % of the completed work at each payment application

*payment and performance bonds: excluded

*change orders: $ 336,420 or 13.25 % of the original contract sum.  Approximately $ 210,000 was due to enlarged detention pond, added water quality control and lift station.

*construction project cost: project costs incurred totaled approximately  $3.3 million.   These included $ 388,000 for Brave Architecture and $ 2.876 million for Zenith Construction.

Starting in May 2022, the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston will kick off a year-long celebration of its 175th anniversary. Read the Texas Catholic Herald, follow the Archdiocese on social media, and visit www.archgh.org/175 for updates and dedicated content on this historic milestone.

Learn about the history of the Archdiocese