By DIANE GASPER-O’BRIEN
Special to Hays Post
Father Gale Hammerschmidt was a junior at Thomas More Prep-Marian High School in his hometown of Hays when the Academy Award-winning movie “Field of Dreams” was released in April of 1989.
Like most folks who have seen Field of Dreams, especially sports fans, Father Gale probably well remembers the movie’s thematic phrase, “If you build it, they will come.”
That reference was to building a baseball diamond in the middle of an Iowa cornfield, which attracted ghosts of baseball legends to emerge from the cornfield to play ball.
Now a Catholic priest in the Diocese of Salina, Father Gale helped build a Catholic church in the middle of the Kansas Flint Hills.
The new, spacious St. Isidore’s church in Manhattan offers much more room for Kansas State University students to worship, making Father Gale’s reward much greater than an Academy Award.
Father Gale, the chaplain at St. Isidore’s chapel on the K-State campus, would be the first to tell you that students were flocking to St. Isidore’s long before he even became a priest.
After graduating from TMP-Marian in 1990, Father Gale attended K-State and frequented St. Isidore’s as a college student. He graduated from KSU in 1995 and taught middle school history at Manhattan Catholic Schools for 10 years before entering the seminary.
Not long after being ordained a priest in 2012, Father Gale founded Prayer and Action, a summer service mission trip for teenagers, who serve local communities around the Salina Diocese. Other dioceses across the state have since adopted that ministry as well.
After serving in several capacities in the diocese for five years, Father Gale was assigned to St. Isidore’s in 2017, and a building committee was formed soon thereafter.
It had been a dream for many years to expand the space or build a new church at St. Isidore’s, which has long has been a beacon to students from near and far, including several from northwest Kansas.
“I chose K-State because of St. Isidore’s,” Jamie Kuhlman from Oakley said of the Catholic campus center where she attends daily Mass and a plethora of other activities.
“Our goal is to get to heaven,” added Kuhlman, co-president of St. Isidore’s student leadership team. “St. Isidore’s has meant so much to me through my college journey. I’m excited to see more students get involved and grow in their faith.”
Following is my story of the dedication of the new St. Isidore’s chapel earlier this year, which first appeared in the February issue of The Register, the newspaper for the Salina Diocese.
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The bells in the tower of a beautiful new church in Manhattan, Kansas, began ringing at straight-up noon on a Saturday in late January, signaling the start of a day of grand celebration.
Students, family and friends joined clergy and alumni scurrying around, making their way to the Alumni Center at Kansas State University, awaiting their cue to march across the street for a special, long-awaited ceremony.
Excitement was in the air on the unseasonably warm afternoon as 600-some people anticipated the dedication of the St. Isidore’s Catholic Church.
“Oohs” and “ahs” could be heard as people got closer and closer to the 14,000-square-foot limestone church and student center at the corner of Anderson and Denison Streets.
The crowd gathered on the front brick patio, and Bishop Jerry Vincke smiled as he stood near the front doors.
The bishop accepted the keys to the church from the contractor, knocked on the door and walked inside. And the celebration began.
The dedication ceremony part of the Mass included blessing the church and congregation with Holy Water, anointing the walls and the altar with Chrism oil, placing incense on the altar and lighting candles on the altar and all around the church.
During the sacred anointing of the altar, the bishop poured oil onto the altar, then rubbed the oil into the marble top with his own hands.
Bishop Vincke likened the ceremony to the baptism of a baby.
“(Parents) bring a baby to the waters of baptism and are asked ‘What do you ask of God?’ One could say that we are baptizing the Church today,” he said.
Father Gale Hammerschmidt, pastor at St. Isidore’s, could only shake his head after Mass while thanking everyone. Overcome with emotion, he once paused for several seconds before continuing on.
“I was humbled by the hundreds and hundreds of people who have so appreciated this mission that we have been on,” he said. “I’m so grateful to God that he put the right people in the right place during this journey.”
One of those “right people” was Father Gale himself.
A Kansas State alum, Father Gale knew of the ongoing discussions about a new church. When he was assigned to serve as pastor at St. Isidore’s in 2017, he heard about it immediately. By the next year, he and the board had begun an ardent fundraising campaign that raised $11 million toward the $18 million project.
Less than five years later, the dream became reality.
After a new student center was built, the old church was demolished. During construction of the new chapel, Mass was held at the Alumni Center and/or the student center.
Now, visitors to St. Isidore’s are greeted by a large, ornate baptismal font as they enter the chapel. Eyes are drawn to the wooden vaulted ceiling. A stunning golden mosaic in the front of the marble altar from Italy draws them closer to the front of the church.
Stained glass windows of St. Isidore (the chapel’s namesake) and St. Robert Bellarmine (the student centers namesake) were saved from the old chapel and are in plain view over the choir loft above the back of the chapel. Those windows also can be seen from the outside, standing over the front doors.
“The Catholic Church is the world’s largest proponent of beauty, because one of God’s attributes is beauty,” Father Gale said. “If you design something beautiful, you are indeed honoring God.”
“As much as the building is beautiful, it’s even more beautiful today, because you are in it,” Bishop Vincke said, particularly addressing the students. “That’s why this church exists. You are Christ’s body, the Church. This church is a gift to you.”
Either expanding St. Isidore’s or building a new church had been discussed for many years. More than 1,500 students attend Mass at St. Isidore’s on any given weekend. The old church held about 425 people, with 80 more seats in the library to watch Mass on video.
The new chapel will seat 650, with additional chair seating for overflow.
Stan Weber, who attended K-State in the early 1980s, said he remembers the church being full to capacity 40 years ago.
Weber, who played quarterback for the Wildcat football tram from 1980-84, spent a lot of time at St. Isidore’s. He and his wife are both alumni of K-State, and all four of the couple’s children attended KSU – and St. Isidore’s. Weber, the long-time color analyst for K-State Sports Network, still frequents the church.
“St. Isidore’s has always been a big part of our lives,” he said. “It’s a great place to be for young people making informed choices about their faith.”
Dave Dreiling, one of the lead donors for the project, agreed.
“This project tugs at my heart like nothing else,” Dreiling said. “These 18- to 22-year olds are making the decision on their own faith, not that of their parents. They are getting involved and developing their faith, and lot of them will be active parish members decades from now.”
After much planning and meeting with focus groups that included alumni and students, a Neo-Gothic traditional architecture was chosen for the design. All along the way, the architects took students’ suggestions seriously.
“I’d say 99 percent of the students said they wanted the church to look like a church,” Father Gale said. “We weren’t going to do anything other than traditional.”
Ridge Pinkston, a history major from Kingman, was a member of the building committee. He is particularly interested in architectural history and was instrumental in helping choose the traditional Neo-Gothic architecture theme for the new church.
“It is really rewarding to help in the building of something beautiful like this,” Pinkston said, “something that will honestly change people’s lives.”
“I know the choices I make as a student really center around St. Isidore’s,” said Grace Gorges from Clearwater, another student who served on the building committee. “It has had a big impact on my life and my own personal progression, just my life in general. This gives more students the chance to experience that.”
One stakeholder in the project for many years who wasn’t present, Dr. Jack Peterson, was recognized at the dedication. Peterson was a former K-State professor and chair of the St. Isidore Foundation Board who led the charge for building a new church. He lost his battle with lung cancer last September and didn’t get to see the project to completion.
Nonetheless, Peterson’s legend will no doubt live on for generations to come.
