St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in rural Ripon is undergoing a facelift both inside and out. All renovations, to the tune of $248,000, are expected to be completed before year’s end.
The most visible change that parishioners will see when they come to Mass during the week and on the weekends will be a more open floor plan. The current worship area is L-shaped. And while worshipers on both sides have a clear view of services taking place at the altar up front, they are visually isolated from each other by the walls at the intersection of the two wings where the east entrance to the church is located, below the bell tower.
The worship area on the east side of the altar is the newer section of the church which was added on to accommodate the increased worship attendance through the years.
To create a more unifying prayer ambience inside the church, part of the corner walls that visually separate the two worship areas will be removed. The walls will be replaced by post and beams. Architects’ renditions of the before-and-after renovations were presented to parishioners during the weekend Masses earlier this summer by Father Jeff Wilson, church pastor. He assured members of the congregation that work on the project will not disrupt regularly scheduled worship services.
Concurrently taking place with these ongoing inside structural changes is the renovation and expansion of the bathrooms in the back side of the building.
“They will be demolished, gutted out and replaced with four separate bathrooms that will be handicap-accessible,” explained Father Wilson who was a building contractor by profession prior to entering the seminary as a late vocation.
Repairs being done more unobtrusively than the projects mentioned above is taking place literally at the top of the church facing busy East Highway 120. The old wooden cross, through the years, has deteriorated and come loose so it’s being repaired and then put back in place later, the pastor explained.
All renovation work will begin this week.
Prior to this quarter-million renovation project, St. Patrick’s parking lot also underwent improvement. That was three years ago with the parish’s Our Lady of Fatima ministry sponsoring this project which included the installation of three parking lamp posts in the back.
Another part of the church that needs repair attention is the lighted sign facing East Highway 120. Father Wilson admitted it is “an antique sign” with half of it lit. They tried to repair it a year ago but that was not completely successful.
“So that’s one thing we also need to address,” he said.
St. Patrick’s Parish serves three communities – the incorporated cities of Ripon and Escalon, and unincorporated Farmington. Pastor Wilson is assisted by Tom Ciccarelli, deacon and administrator.
 
History of St. Patrick’s Church goes back to the late 1880s
The church’s history goes back to 1874 when the first Catholic service was held in Atlanta, which is now the town of Ripon. With the subsequent growth of worship attendance, the then pastor of St. Mary’s in Stockton, Father William O’Connor, built a small wooden church that same year. The chapel was remodeled in 1900 with windows installed, and the altar coming from the St. Agnes Convent in Stockton.
The corner property that is currently the site of St. Patrick’s Church and the St. John’s Cemetery adjacent to it was donated by John B. O’Malley who came from Ireland in 1853. The new church was named after St. Patrick since the members of the congregation at the time were predominantly Irish. The cemetery was named in honor of resident philanthropist John O’Malley.
St. Patrick’s was established as a parish in 1946, the year a new church was built at this site on East Highway 120, with Father Leon Bernard as the first pastor. The church building was last renovated in the 1960s.Through the decades, several structural additions were built as church membership grew. These included a parish hall, classrooms, a shrine to Our Lady of Fatima between the church and the office, and just a few years ago, a chapel along Carrolton Road which was built when the late Father Peter Carota, the pastor whom Father Wilson succeeded about two years ago.
Trivia about the Ripon church: an oil painting of St. Patrick hanging inside the church dates back to circa 1880.
For more information about St. Patrick’s church and parish — 19399 E. Hwy 120, Ripon, CA 95366 – call (209) 838-2133 during regular business hours, or visit http://www.stpatricksripon.com/