History
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The Beginnings
After a few years of working with the University of California-Santa Barbara and the University Religious Conference of Santa Barbara, St. Mark’s University Parish was officially founded in 1965 when UCSB began to expand rapidly from a couple thousand to 14,000 students. Early in the 1960’s, a 1.5-acre property was purchased very close to campus and a small church and office/rectory structure was completed in 1966 to serve the students at UCSB and in the surrounding community of Isla Vista, CA.
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(Left) The very first piece of correspondence indicating that St. Mark's would be established.
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Leadership
St. Mark's was staffed for 40 years by Paulist Priests until 2006, when priests of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles took responsibility for ministering to the community. It was while under the care of Fr. Ruben Patiño, CSP that the interior of the church was renovated and likewise during the twelve years of Fr. John Love's service that the first phase of the major restoration was conceived and accomplished.
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Currently, the care of the parish has been entrusted to a Franciscan friar, Fr. Ryan Thornton.
(Right) Fr. Bob Donoghue, CSP and UCSB Chancellor Vernon Cheadle, PhD at the 1966 groundbreaking for St. Mark’s University Parish.
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COMMUNITY LIFE
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About 1,200 students walk through the doors of St. Mark's each year, with about 400-500 of these students active most Sundays during school quarters. While formally a parish, the last 20 years have seen St. Mark's become more and more like a Newman Center as real estate investment trusts buy up apartment blocks and local families are forced to move out of Isla Vista to make way for new students from both UCSB and the local city college, SBCC. Even so, St. Mark’s still has about 350 regular families, who provide a stability, depth, and richness to the community as well.
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CONTINUING TO BUILD
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In the late 1990’s, the parish underwent an extensive $1 million-dollar project to renew the interior of the church sanctuary. The remodel resulted in a much brighter and more inviting worship space complete with a distinctive Blessed Sacrament chapel.
Some two decades later in 2015, a $1.5 million-dollar capital campaign was started in order to renew the exterior façade, the parish offices, and residence as well as to completely overhaul the infrastructure of the plant, which included new IT, sewer, and electrical systems.
Still, perhaps the proudest achievement in the last ten years has been the number of fostered vocations to the religious life and priesthood. In the past few years, St. Mark’s has seen 8 vocations in all, 5 going to religious orders and 3 to diocesan seminaries, and with many more in the discernment process.
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PASTORS OF ST. MARK’S UNIVERSITY PARISH
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ADLA – ARCHDIOCESE OF LOS ANGELES CLERGY
CSP – PAULIST FATHERS
OFM- FRANCISCAN FRIARS
Fr. Robert (Bob) Authur Donahue, CSP (1966-1970)
Fr. Rudolph (Rudy) Thomas Vorasek, CSP (1970-1976)
Fr. Francis Michael Sweeney, CSP (1976-1978)
Fr. Philip William Hart, CSP (1978-1981)
Fr. Kenneth Harlan McGuire, CSP (1982-1990)
Fr. William (Bill) Lahey Edens, CSP (1990-1994)
Fr. Ruben Patiño, CSP (1994-2000)
Fr. Edward Casimir Nowak, CSP (2000-2002)
Fr. Joseph Scott, CSP (2002-2006)
Fr. Tomas Elis, ADLA (2006-2009)
Fr. John Wayne Love, V.F., ADLA (2009-2021)
Fr. Ryan Thornton, OFM (Administrator) (2021-)
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RECENT ARTICLES ABOUT ST. MARK’S UNIVERSITY PARISH
