Warren — Members of Our Lady of Grace (Vietnamese) Parish are all now able to sit down at Mass.

Before last summer, that was a real problem, said its pastor, Fr. Vincent Nguyen An Ninh.

“We had been in Eastpointe 12 years, but we’ve been growing so fast there were just not enough seats in the church.” Fr. Nguyen said, explaining that even after adding as many chairs as would fit in the parish’s former church, a hundred or more parishioners would have to follow the liturgy on closed-circuit television monitors set up in the hallways.

Also, there weren’t enough classrooms for the religious education program.

And there wasn’t room to expand the parish facility.

But all that is a thing of the past since St. Cletus Parish in Warren agreed to share its building with Our Lady of Grace. Now, the entire congregation can gather for worship in the church and for other activities in the parish hall.

And because the St. Cletus location — on Ryan Road between Frazho and the Walter Reuther Freeway (I-696) — is more central to the bulk of the Vietnamese immigrant and Vietnamese-American population, Fr. Nguyen is hopeful that some Vietnamese who have been attending other Catholic churches will join or rejoin Our Lady of Grace.

“This location is excellent, and I have very good hope for that to happen. I’ve already seen some faces from that group,” he said.

While, at 200 registered families, the official membership of Our Lady of Grace Parish is double what it was 12 years ago, Fr. Nguyen said many families who come to Mass have never registered.

But some idea of the size and vitality of the parish can be gained from the fact that it has more than 90 children and young adults in its Vietnamese Eucharistic Youth Society.

“We help the kids get closer to the Eucharist and learn more about the Church,” says its leader, Khoa Nguyen (no relation to Fr. Nguyen).

The group, whose members wear scout-like uniforms, also offers athletic activities and goes camping.

The move to St. Cletus has been “really a blessing,” said Khoa Nguyen.

“At our old church, we just didn’t have the facilities. Now, we have our own field where we can have activities for the kids,” he added.

The move to St. Cletus “gives us a better chance to serve our people. I’m very excited about it, and I’m very thankful to St. Cletus Parish, especially to Fr. Sidney Eckert and the St. Cletus parish council,” said Our Lady of Grace’s parish council president, Nam Nguyen (no relation to the other Nguyens – Nguyen is a very common Vietnamese surname).

Kim Doan, Our Lady of Grace activities coordinator, echoes those sentiments: “We’re all very appreciative to the people of St. Cletus Parish and to Fr. Eckert for the way they’ve welcomed us, and opened their hearts to us.”

Besides offering religious education, Doan noted that the parish offers instruction in the Vietnamese language through high school.

“We want them to understand where they are coming from and maintain their traditions,” she said.

Fr. Nguyen and other parish leaders also want to promote the tradition of Vietnamese Marian devotion.

The devotion to Our Lady of La Vang stems from the reputed apparition of the Blessed Virgin to Vietnamese Catholics hiding in the forest of La Vang during the brutal persecution brought on them by the Emperor Canh Thinh in the 18th century, he explained.

“Our Lady appeared to them, and consoled them, and showed them roots and how to cure the illnesses they were suffering from,” Fr. Nguyen explained.

Vietnam had been evangelized beginning in 1653 by Jesuits and Dominicans from Spain and French missionaries.

Fr. Nguyen estimated there are about 5,000 Vietnamese immigrants in the Detroit area, and about one-fifth of them are Catholic (Buddhism is the majority faith in Vietnam, though many Vietnamese practice no religion after decades of communist rule.

Fr. Eckert, administrator of St. Cletus Parish for the past three-and-a-half years, said the joint occupancy of the facility by the Vietnamese parish represents a different future for the property than had previously been envisioned.

Although St. Cletus still numbers 450 registered families, its membership tends to be older and it faced a downward trend. Before the arrangement with Our Lady of Grace, the plan was to cluster St. Cletus with nearby St. Louise de Merrillac Parish, with the St. Cletus property eventually being put up for sale.

He said the change in plans works out better for St. Cletus parishioners who wish to remain, because even if the parish closes sometime in the future as an entity, they will still be able to attend the church and have their pastoral needs administered to by Fr. Nguyen.

Exactly how things will be eventually structured from a canonical basis is still to be worked out.

Fr. Eckert said the arrangement has mostly met with approval from St. Cletus parishioners: “There are people who are really quite happy about it, while there are some who give it tacit approval. Things are going smoothly, as people have had a chance to get used to things.”

But people from both parish communities have attended the other’s events, with many St. Cletus parishioners recently taking part in the Vietnamese parish’s celebration of the Chinese New Year.