Our Story

Mary, Mother of the Church is a thriving, active Catholic parish family located in La Crosse, Wisconsin, in the United States. We are over 3000 people coming together to engage in worship, education, service, and social programs. With over 1000 registered households, we are the largest Catholic parish in the city of La Crosse. Our parish mission statement is this:

Our History

The parish of St. Thomas More branched from Holy Trinity parish in 1946 in response to tremendous post-war growth on the south side of La Crosse.  The first pastor was Fr. Joseph M. Wagner.  Construction began with St. Thomas More School, which opened in September 1948.

St. Pius X parish branched from St. Thomas More parish in June 1960; the first pastor was Fr. Francis McCaffrey.  Initially the parish worshipped in the Christ the King Chapel at the Diocesan Center.  St. Pius X School, at the intersection of Mormon Coulee Road and Broadview Place, was dedicated in May 1962, and the parish began to worship on the lower level of that building.  After the Diocesan Seminary closed, St. Pius X parishioners voted in 1973 to sell the Mormon Coulee building and move the school into one wing of the La Crosse Diocesan Center. We thank Donna Omernik for preparing a history of St. Pius X Parish (PDF).

Mary, Mother of the Church Parish was formed in 2000 with the reunification of St. Thomas More and St. Pius X.  Recalling the first Catholic church built in La Crosse—St. Mary's, or more formally, The Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary—Bishop Raymond Burke declared that La Crosse should once again include a parish named in devotion to Mary. Our parish marks its Patronal Feast Day on the Monday after Pentecost.

In 2011, structural problems in St. Thomas More School were discovered and the building was deemed unsafe for occupancy. After wide consultation and prayerful reflection, our pastoral council made the painful decision to close St. Thomas More School. For several years, Religious Education classes for grades K-8 took place at Holy Trinity and we were without a parish social hall. In November 2014, the "Building Our Future Together" Commission was formed to make a strategic plan about our building needs. (You can read a chronology of events in our parish history from 1945 to the formation of the commission.) By God's grace and the sacrificial giving of so many in our parish, today we have a finished Parish Hall and our K-8 students again have class in our own Religious Education Center.

A history of our pastors and religious is on our Legacy of Faith page.

Our Place of Worship

The building where we worship today was dedicated in 1961 as St. Thomas More Church, and the building continues to carry that name and imagery. The cornerstone was blessed on 6 July 1960, the 425th anniversary of the martyrdom of Sir Thomas More. (He is the patron of lawyers and government leaders.) The first Mass in this building took place on 2 June 1961. The building was formally dedicated on 17 September 1961.

We invite you to learn more about the symbolic windows in our church. Our mosaic of Mary, Mother of the Church was blessed during a Mass celebrating our patronal feast on 20 May 2024.

Men and Women of the Year

Each year at the celebration of our patronal feast, it is our tradition to name a Woman of the Year and Man of the Year. Plaques bearing these names hang in the gathering space of our church.

Our Song

Thanks to Fr. Douglas C. Robertson for information used in this page.  Further information about the history of Catholicism in the La Crosse area is available at La Crosse History Unbound, a project of the La Crosse Public Library and UWL's Murphy Library.

Updated 20 May 2024