Mass offered in historical Brush Creek church

About 60 people from as far as St. Louis, Kansas City and Quincy, Illinois, and from as near as Monroe City, Palmyra and Shelbina attended the fall Mass Oct. 20 in historical St. Peter Church in Brush Creek.

Father Gregory Oligschlaeger, pastor of Holy Rosary parish in Monroe City and St. Stephen parish in Indian Creek, presided at the Mass.

Many who have familial ties to St. Peter Church, built in the 1860s and used every Sunday until the parish closed in 1968, attended the Mass. The church stands at the site of where Venerable Father Augustus Tolton (1854-97), a candidate for sainthood, was baptized. Born into a family of enslaved people on a nearby plantation, Fr. Tolton endured overwhelming racism along the way to becoming the Roman Catholic Church’s first Black priest, ministering in Quincy and later in Chicago.

Dominican Sister Loretta Keller, who lives in Monroe City, was present, having received her First Holy Communion in this church as a child.

The Oct. 20 Mass was the first Mass for a week-old baby whose parents brought him there for Mass.