Cindy and Tom Pontes grew up attending Mass and learning about their faith at their neighborhood parish, St. Felicitas, in the East Bay community of San Leandro.

Cindy Pontes worked as Catholic school teacher for a time and when the couple was married and then blessed with three children, St. Felicitas was where all five came to pray with friends who had become like family.

For the Pontes, being Catholic had always been a community experience. So when they moved into a new development in the north Natomas area of Sacramento three years ago, one of the first questions they asked was, “Where is the Catholic church?”

Across Interstate 80, several miles away at St. Joseph Parish in north Sacramento, Father Cesar Ageas had been hearing the same question from people he met during a growing number of house blessings he went to in the north Natomas area.

“People were asking for a parish,” said Father Ageas, pastor of St. Joseph Parish. “Some Catholics were going to different parishes outside the area and some were even attending Protestant churches on Sunday because they didn’t have a Mass there.”

Father Ageas, who became pastor of St. Joseph in September 2003, addressed the situation just as former pastor, Father Robert Copsey, had done before him. He made arrangements for Mass to be held at various locations in public school facilities in the north Natomas area.

As word spread about the traveling Sunday Mass in Natomas, attendance grew from 15 to more than 200 people by October 2003.

Father Ageas was convinced that what he had been hearing about the need for a parish in north Natomas was a genuine concern.

“There are 10,000 new houses over there and a projection that the number residing in north Natomas is continually increasing,” he said. “There is a core group of people who are ready to be ministry leaders.”

Informed of the desire for a new parish by numerous letters and telephone calls from people like the Ponce family, this past summer Bishop William K. Weigand appointed a task force to study the feasibility of a parish in north Natomas.

The region is presently within the boundaries of both St. Joseph and Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Sacramento.

At a Sept. 10 meeting of the Council of Priests, Thomas McNamara, chief financial officer for the diocese, presented information on the projected growth within the proposed boundaries for a Natomas parish based on data compiled by Sacramento Area Council of Governments. Among the findings was a projected general population growth from 80,000 to 137,000 over the next 20 years.

The heart of the growth in Natomas Park, north of Del Paso Road and east of Interstate 5, is expected to increase from 13,000 to 40,000 people by 2025.

By the end of the meeting, the Council of Priests had formally recommended to Bishop Weigand the formation of a new north Natomas parish.

Under the direction of Father Ageas, the Natomas Catholic Community Core Planning Group was formed and began meeting weekly. The 17-member planning group began the process of identifying and training lectors, eucharistic ministers, altar servers and ushers for weekly Masses currently being held at the Natomas Park Elementary School.

Two members of the team are Tom and Cindy Pontes.

“Our vision is to get everybody back into a community and serve their needs,” said Cindy Pontes, who is helping start religious education classes and youth groups for a community “bursting with young families.”

“It’s exciting to start having our children worshiping together,” she said. “We’re building every day.”

Alex Alanis, who moved into a new home in north Natomas in 2001, is also a member of the Natomas Catholic Community group. He said he and his wife Judyanne had been going to a variety of Catholic churches out of the area but want a church nearby where they can come together with their neighbors, many of whom he has been discovering are Catholic.

“I want to be very much involved with starting a new parish so we can start having community events and form groups like the Knights of Columbus,” Alanis said.

Mercy Sister Eileen Enright, vicar for pastoral ministry in the diocese, is a member of the diocesan task force planning for the formation of the new parish. She was among those attending a town hall meeting held Oct. 31 following Mass celebrated by Bishop Weigand at Natomas Park Elementary School.

Sister Enright said some of the concerns she heard at the meeting were the need for catechesis for children, teens and adults; outreach to the homeless, the elderly and inactive Catholics; and the need for a Catholic elementary school.

“People expressed a deep concern for building the faith,” she said.

She views efforts of the Natomas Catholic Community to start small faith sharing groups, religious education classes, and plan parish socials as a very positive beginning.

“My vision of the parish is a community of believers, people called together by God,” Sister Enright said. “So community building is a critical first step.”

Linda Rapattoni, who moved with her family to north Natomas from Davis more than two years ago, also attended the town hall meeting.

“I sort of felt like a woman without a church,” said Rapattoni, whose search for a church to attend Mass revealed the closest option was St. Joseph, which was quite a commute from her home.

Then a few months ago Rapattoni saw a sign in her neighborhood that Mass was being held at Natomas Park Elementary School a few blocks from her new home.

“We’ve been kind of pioneers out here so I was astounded when I went to Mass and found 200 people,” Rapattoni said.

Diocesan officials recently moved the dream of a new parish in north Natomas a giant step forward with the purchase of more than eight acres of property in Natomas Park and plans for Bishop Weigand to appoint a pastor for the new parish early in 2005.

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