Perhaps more than any church in town, Iola’s St. John’s Catholic Church has felt the changing of the times.
Gone are its nuns. Its school. And if you go way back — 1952 — its hospital.
But the Catholic church, no matter the circumstance, has weathered the times.
St. John’s, 310 S. Jefferson Ave., is the largest church in Iola with a roster of 345 families.
A typical Saturday night service draws 200. Sunday mornings register about 325.
“That flips in the summer,” when more prefer the cool of the morning, said the Rev. Robert Wachter.
Wachter serves as Iola’s priest and for St. Joseph’s in Yates Center.
A native of southeast Kansas, he’s been in Iola going on eight years. He also has Iola roots. His mother, the late Rosemary Cowan, grew up here. Her family worked in management of a smelter company. His father, Paul Wachter, was from Frontenac.
Wachter grew up in Pittsburg and attended St. Mary’s Colgan High School. He studied for the priesthood at Holy Trinity Seminary in Dallas.
Wachter estimates about half of his 1,200 parishioners regularly attend church. Of those, 20-30 percent participate in confession, a sacrament unique to Catholics.
Wachter estimates one-third of the church’s congregation is its most loyal and upon which he can rely. “It’s the rule of thirds,” he said. Be it money or time, “One-third give the most; one-third give something and one-third give almost nothing.”
For the uninvolved, Wachter suspects, “They always say they’re so busy and need to get home — for nothing.”
No fellowship, no experience of God, no sharing of His message.
That lack of involvement — in both the church and the greater community — frustrates Wachter, who sees it as Christ’s message to serve one another.
THE CATHOLIC Church expects its parishioners to tithe one-tenth of their gross income, Wachter said. Of that, 8 percent goes to the Diocese in Wichita, the other 2 percent is directed to charity within the local parish.
Though his parish’s numbers are healthy, Wachter is anxious about its dwindling teenage participation.
“We’re competing to reach our youth,” he said. The competition comes from too-busy households, he lamented.
Wachter frequently addresses the issue in sermons, he said. It’s a lesson on materialism, parental indulgence and setting priorities.
Not all households require two incomes, Wachter said, if the money is used to buy their children a myriad of electronic devices, to provide them with their own bedrooms, or even automobiles.
“All this does is create more need,” he said, “and subconsciously is creating a selfish generation,” of youth. He also worries that the spending trend will further create a nation of debtors.
Out of a congregation of 1,200, about fewer than 10 regularly attend CYO, Catholic Youth Organization, its youth group.
The most effective way the church involves its youth is by having them serve Mass, Wachter said.
The church has weekday Mass at 8 a.m. Wednesday through Friday and again at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesdays. Saturday’s vigil begins at 5:30 p.m. and Sunday’s is at 10 a.m.
Sunday’s service at St. Joseph’s in Yates Center, 107 E. Bell, begins at 8 a.m.
WACHTER, 60, has been a priest for 34 years.
He eschews attempts at changing services such as adding different types of music.
“We have done guitar here,” he said of a previous time.
Wachter maintains his congregation prefers the traditional service.
“Mass is not a show,” he said.
A change that he remembers vividly is when in 1962-63 the Vatican ordered churches worldwide to conduct their masses in the language of the church’s people, not Latin.
Wachter said “more changes, small changes” will be due this year. The wording of responses, for example, are being tweaked.