One of Denver’s most famous downtown churches turned 100 on Saturday, and the way the community chose to celebrate the milestone birthday might surprise some.
Known for its longstanding Eucharistic devotion and iconic location, Holy Ghost Parish in Denver came together to provide a sit-down luncheon for the homeless on Saturday. That very day in 1924, Bishop J. Henry Tihen dedicated the parish’s original basement church on the corner of 19th and California.
The annual event aims to provide a safe, warm, dignified place for a community meal before the holidays. Part of the parish’s robust Social Ministry, the Christmas Luncheon offered attendees a homecooked meal, live music, donated supplies and a warm community, all made possible because of the dedication of the dozens of volunteers involved.
“I love this Church. The people here are so nice,” said Cindy, a sandwich line regular who moved to Denver from Minnesota in August. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Church decorated so well for Christmas!”
“This is why I stay,” said Terry, a dedicated volunteer who helped host the Christmas luncheon. “This is what it’s all about.”
While the choice of anniversary celebration may seem out of the ordinary, the divine coincidence reveals the very heart of the parish community: service to the poor.
From 1930, if not before, Holy Ghost Parish has been a bastion of social service in the local community. When Father John R. Mulroy was appointed pastor in 1930, six years after the basement church was dedicated, the community welcomed the first director of Catholic Charities of Denver as their shepherd.
Renowned as “the social welfare apostle of the Rockies” and honored by the rank of Domestic Prelate, Monsignor Mulroy’s love for the poor was ignited during a period of great suffering. Battling an eye condition that “at one time left him in total darkness for more than a year and that threatened total blindness,” the Denver Catholic Register reported in 1955, “Monsignor Mulroy haunted the park benches of the Capitol grounds. It was there, in talking with weary indigents and aged, that he developed a burning desire to help the underprivileged and neglected.”
In the years that followed, the “long-time champion of social justice and the rights of the working man” would come to “[win] the respect and esteem of labor and management alike,” as The Rocky Mountain News reported in 1955, even being named to various mayoral and gubernatorial committees and commissions to build up Denver’s social service network.
Holy Ghost’s legacy of service to the poor continued even after Monsignor Mulroy resigned as director of Catholic Charities in 1955, when Monsignor William Monahan, an associate pastor of Holy Ghost in the 1940s and 1950s, was promoted to associate director of Catholic Charities.
A few decades later, in 1974, Holy Ghost established its sandwich line, which celebrates its 50th anniversary of continuous operation this year. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, the ministry continued to serve more than 180 people daily, according to one dedicated volunteer.
(Photos by André Escaleira, Jr.)
Today, “The history is in the water. Everyone knows Holy Ghost helps you,” said Father Paul Nguyen, O.M.V., parish pastor. “I’m very proud to be living the continuation of that legacy and mission here.”
Standing on the shoulders of giants, the dedicated parishioners of Holy Ghost encounter those who find their way to the iconic church and offer what assistance they can.
“People come with every different level of desperation or being misinformed. Having been turned down many, many times over, they come with their story of how things fell apart and how they got to where they are,” Father Nguyen explained. “The first thing is to hear the person, and the second thing is to identify the specific needs that we can respond to or a specific need for which we know a good referral, and to direct them not to another dead end — which may very well have been their experience before they contacted us — but to a place where they can really make ends meet, get that leg up and take some steps towards their own stability."
Because of the parish’s long history of service to those in need and its prime location downtown, Holy Ghost stands as a beacon of hope amid a broken world.
“This meal each year, and every sandwich that we hand out day by day, is a renewal of hope,” said Father Nguyen. “It’s a way of witnessing that this service, this outpouring of love, continues. It happened yesterday; it happened 50 years ago; and it’s still happening today. And we’re scheduled for tomorrow. It’s a very tangible reminder of that hope that we have beyond this world.”
And that hope does not disappoint, as St. Paul tells us in Romans 5:5. In fact, “Bologna Bob” is living proof of the perduring nature of the theological virtue.
Formerly homeless himself, Bob found Holy Ghost in a time of great need. While living on the streets, he was a regular at the sandwich line even as he frequented some local service agencies like St. Francis Center and Denver Rescue Mission.
After some time, Father Chris Uhl, O.M.V., Holy Ghost’s pastor from 2011-2022, invited him to volunteer with the social ministry, a position that earned him his moniker — along with his other nickname, “The Haminator.”
Having been born and raised Catholic, Bob fell in love with the beauty of the downtown church, both in its architectural majesty and in its compassionate community. He’s counted himself among the parishioners since 2011. Though he has stepped away from his volunteer duties, he remains an active member of the parish and is filled with profound gratitude for the downtown community.
“This place has been a blessing,” Bologna Bob shared after nearly a decade of service. “It’s always been a wonderful thing to come here. I’m grateful to be here, especially for my spiritual health and sobriety.”
100 years young, Holy Ghost continues to stand as a pillar of devoted service to the poor. With an evangelical spirit of compassionate care “in the water,” the parish gives life to the Gospel call to love neighbor as self. Though dwarfed by the skyscrapers surrounding it, the parish’s light shines forth, drawing thousands year after year into encounter with Christ: in the poor, in the community gathered and, most especially, in the Eucharist.
“The Gospel is timeless. Those words on the page don’t change. They’re the same every year. But it’s occasions like this that allow us to really hang on to the very particular way that those words strike a certain person, a soul at a certain moment in time that we get to live together,” Father Nguyen said. “More than just being something carved in stone as something left on a mountaintop, we’re able to see how the word of God is really living and effective in our own community and how those invitations to love touch each one of us.”
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