Knights of Columbus

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. At present, construction is on progress…..

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,  (2015), the parish has 2,350 registered families; we have 607 registered children in our catechetical program (OEC) and a strong Youth Group that meets every Thursday evening.