Service to illuminate St. Charles history

by Nathan Arneal
Published 10/22/25

Marking the 110th anniversary since the current St. Charles Borromeo Catholic church building was erected, the congregation and the North Bend community will celebrate the building and its history with a special day of events on Sunday, Nov. 2.

The Rev. Keith Rezac, the most recent resident priest for St. Charles, talks about the Ascension Window which is lit from the outside of the church and shines brilliantly in the darkened sanctuary.

The day has been titled “Reflections of Glory and Praise: our church and the story it tells.”

At the conclusion of that day will be an interdenominational illumination service showcasing the ornate stained glass windows of the church.

The pastors of the other North Bend churches, Rev. Lawson Short of St. Peter Lutheran Church and Rev. Connie Stone of the United Presbyterian Church, will participate in the service, and several non-St. Charles members will take part in the readings and music of the evening.

The illumination service is not a tradition church service, but a mix of local history and bible stories.

Last Wednesday, the participants met for a practice run of the illumination ceremony.

Bob Hines gave a history of the St. Charles parish, which begins in 1892, more than two decades before the current church was built.

In late 1892, North Bend Catholics bought a white, one-room church with a steeple at the corner of Ninth and Locust from the defunct Congregational Church. This church sat on the northwest corner of the block where the current church now stands.

It was dedicated as a Catholic Church on January 29, 1893, and the St. Charles Borromeo parish was born.

After being served by a rotating cast of priests from nearby towns for more than a decade, the priest at St. Mary’s Ridgeley was assigned to move 10 miles south to North Bend. A 26-year-old Irishman named Thomas Moriarty became St. Charles’ first resident priest in 1903.
Under Moriarty’s leadership, the parish began to aggressively evolve and grow. In 1905 a rectory was built south of the church, a home that stood until 1991 when it was replaced with the current rectory.

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