GULFPORT – The priests of St. John the Evangelist Parish will soon move into a spacious new rectory.

As a result, the old rectory, which currently houses the priests’ living quarters as well as the parish offices, will be used for the different ministries the downtown parish offers, including its St. Vincent de Paul Society.

According to St. John the Evangelist pastor Father Joseph Uko, most of the work on the new rectory is complete and, essentially all that remains, is for the appliances and furnishings to be added.

“We actually inspected the rectory last week and pointed out a few things that needed to be put in place and I think that by early next week it should be all done,” Father Uko said.

Work on the new rectory began in April 2008.

Father Uko said the new rectory came about for a number of reasons.

“The big thing is that I think a lot of priests are beginning to think you should live a little bit away from your workplace. That could help with your sanity anyway,” he said.

“One of the other reasons is that we had a building that served as a convent and suffered bad damage as a result of Hurricane Katrina. We really needed to get rid of the building, so we had it demolished and that is when we started craving for a new rectory. We started thinking about what we anted to put on that site and we thought that a rectory would be something good.”

Currently, in addition to Father Uko, Father Gerard Cleary, who is the parish’s senior priest, is the only other priest who resides at St. John the Evangelist Parish. At the time the plans for the new rectory were being made, pastor emeritus Msgr. Andrew Murray, who had suffered with severe emphysema and its complications for years, was still living at St. John. Msgr. Murray died on Oct. 20, 2009.

The new rectory is located across from the old rectory, so neither Father Uko nor Father Cleary will have a long trek to work.

In addition, by separating the priests’ living quarters from the parish offices, Father Uko said the parish will be able to better serve the many people who come to it on a weekly basis to receive assistance from the St. Vincent de Paul Society.

The parish’s St. Vincent de Paul offers assistance to people who are down on their luck on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, although people come by for assistance every days at all hours.

“It is very, very congested and they come through the main door, so it actually interferes a lot with the other pastoral ministries,” Father Uko said.

“So, if you have to come here on those days for business unrelated to St. Vincent de Paul, you will not be able to get into the rectory. The lines are always out to the streets. Because we don’t have other buildings around, as soon as we move out, we want to convert the garage, which is located in back of the rectory, into a food pantry. Then we will be able to move St. Vincent de Paul into the back part of the building and that would ease a lot of the front desk traffic and enable us to use the front office for other pastoral needs, such as CCD, RCIA and other meetings during the week. We will keep this building really busy and that will also cut down on our use of Presentation Hall, which we will only use for big functions. The new rectory will really enable us to use the current rectory to the fullest.”

Father Uko said it always been very hard to concentrate in the current rectory complex. He estimates that between 180 and 250 people come to the parish for assistance on a weekly basis because St. John is practically the only church in Downtown Gulfport that provides assistance to transients.

“I don’t know how (parish secretary Linda Bangs) is able to do what she does,” he said.

“On any given Tuesday through Thursday fro 9 a.m. to noon, you can’t do anything, except St. Vincent de Paul. That has really been one of our big headaches and we hope that, by moving into the new rectory, we will be able to utilize the space here to concentrate on those other pastoral needs.”

Father Uko said the new rectory, which was designed by Keleal Hassin of Gulfport and built by Blanchard Construction of Gulfport, is “very unique.”

“Each priest has a study room and a bedroom with full bathroom. We have that for three priests. The reason we did that was because Msgr. Murray was still here at the time,” Father Uko said. “We will also have a single bedroom that will serve as a guestroom.”

Father Uko said there is a long list of furnishings that are still needed for the new rectory. So far, Father Uko said, St. John parishioners have responded to the tune of almost $12,000 in donations.

“It’s going well, but we are still looking for money to enable us to complete the furnishing process,” he said.

If you would like to help, call Father Uko at 228-864-2272.