Detroit — Archbishop Allen Vigneron visited the southernmost outpost of the Archdiocese of Detroit in early February to dedicate the first-ever Catholic church to be built on the island of Cayman Brac in the Caribbean.

The archbishop celebrated Mass Feb. 5 to dedicate the new Stella Maris Church on the island, one of the smaller in the Caymans group.

“Everybody remarked how gracious he was during his visit,” said Fr. Paul Ballien, pastor of St. Ignatius Parish, based in George Town on Grand Cayman, of which the new chapel is a part.

The chapel will serve the little more than 100 Catholics who live on the 14-square-mile island, as well as tourists attracted by Cayman Brac’s reputation as a great place for scuba diving.

St. Ignatius Parish also has another chapel, Christ the Redeemer, at the other end of Grand Cayman from George Town. The parish came under the care of the Archdiocese of Detroit when Pope John Paul II requested several U.S. dioceses take pastoral oversight of various missions in the Caribbean.

Archbishop Vigneron also celebrated Mass at St. Ignatius Church on Feb. 6.



Stella Maris Church was built and furnished at a cost of about $800,000 in U.S. funds. For the present, the chapel is filled with chairs, but when St. Therese of Lisieux Church in Shelby Township gets new pews this summer, its old ones will be shipped to Cayman Brac for Stella Maris.

A rectory will be built adjacent to the chapel when another approximately $100,000 U.S. has been raised, Fr. Ballien added.

The Catholics of Cayman Brac had been worshipping in a small cottage owned by the parents of one of the congregation. Fr. Ballien or his associate fly over to Cayman Brac most weekends to celebrate Mass for the Catholics there, but he said he is hoping visiting priests from the United States will take over most of those duties in exchange for the chance to spend some time on an idyllic Caribbean island.

Built on a rise, the site has “a beautiful view of the ocean,” Fr. Ballien added.

He explained that the effort to raise the money to build a Catholic church on Cayman Brac began after a former pastor of St. Ignatius Parish, Msgr. John Meaney, retired to the smaller island.

“Catholics didn’t used to be very well thought of on Cayman Brac (population about 1,500), but Msgr. Meaney did a lot to turn that around,” Fr. Ballien said.

Then, Fr. Michael Molnar, the first Detroit priest to be pastor of St.Ignatius, “really picked up the ball” on the fund-raising effort, he continued.

Besides the small Catholic community on Cayman Brac, many Catholics on Grand Cayman also contributed to the effort, Fr. Ballien said.

He also acknowledged the help provided from Propagation of the Faith through Msgr. James Moloney.

And when it came time to build the church, the Archdiocese of Detroit contributed a relic of fourth-century martyr St. Theophilus for its altar, Fr. Ballien added.