Groundbreaking Held For New Hostyn Church

On the site where their church was destroyed in a gas explosion more than three years ago, parishioners of Queen of the Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Hostyn finally saw the first tangible signs of a rebuild.

As the Saturday evening sun set after Mass on the Hostyn hill, a groundbreaking ceremony was held for a new roughly $10 million church on the site of the old one.

“It’s amazing how it was more emotional than I thought it would be,” said Father Eddie Winkler after the ceremony. “I thought we’d go through the motions of putting our shovels in the ground, but every time I opened my mouth I got very emotional.”

In his homily during the Mass before the ceremony Father Winkler mentioned that there were some detractors that wondered whether or not the rural community of Hostyn was big enough to need a church, but the faith of the hundreds present Saturday for the event answered that doubt – as have the years of work that have gone into the planning for a new church.

“I thank God for each of you and your faith. I feel very blessed to be here,” said Bishop Brendan Cahill. “We will do the ceremonial shovels today, but the real shovels will be out soon.”

“Within a month,” said Winkler.

The new church is expected to be completed in the Spring of 2027.

One of its marquee features will be huge stained glass windows depicting all 20 mysteries of the rosary (an apt feature for a church named Queen of the Holy Rosary). Many of those windows are historic ones saved from a church destroyed by a hurricane in Port Arthur and being redone by Cavallini Stained Glass Studio in San Antonio (more on those windows in a future edition of the newspaper).

Building a new church is not exactly commonplace – especially in the Diocese of Victoria.

Father Winkler said he believes Hostyn’s new church will be the first in the Diocese since Victoria’s Holy Family church was built in 1981 – 44 years ago.

Also on hand for Saturday’s ceremony were several first responders who hurried to the church on the morning of June 9, 2022 after the explosion to fight the fire and tend to church member Verlene Kuntschik, who later died from her injuries.

Before the church officials donned hard hats and grabbed their shovels Saturday, Winkler held up a piece of paper.

“I want to show you we have the permit to begin (construction) from Fayette County,” Winkler said. “It usually costs a whopping $20. I think we’ve got that in the bank, but they waived the fee.”

On that subject of funds, the church did get about $6.523 million in insurance and has received an additional $1.036 in donations for the rebuild, but it still lacking about $2.5 million for construction and is actively seeking more donations.

Initial designs of the new church were scaled down to save money, and with each setback more doubts arose about whether or not the project would ever materialize.

But with the turning of some dirt Saturday, those fears faded.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said architect Brad Kocurek, who designed the new church along with a large group of church members. “Everyone’s been waiting so long – you can feel that ... You see the relief that something is moving forward.”