By Matthew Martinez

St. Simon parishioners fill the church Oct. 29 for the special Mass celebrating 50 years of church service.

San Jose Bishop Patrick J. McGrath joined hundreds of parishioners Oct. 29 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of St. Simon Church in Los Altos. A special jubilee Mass commemorated the event.

The current pastor, the Rev. Anthony Mancuso, recognized the contributions of the founding pastor, the Rev. James Spooncer, and his successor, Monsignor Ludwig Andre. Mancuso announced that the church’s parish center would now be named the “Monsignor Andre Parish Center” and the hall, “Spooncer Hall.”

Spooncer established the church at the request of San Francisco Archbishop John Mitty following the end of World War II. The first Mass was celebrated July 1, 1955. Since then the parish has expanded to include community services, outreach programs and St. Simon School, which opened in 1961.

Seventeen Sisters of the Immaculate Heart returned from their current service in Philadelphia to share the solemnization of the 1955 founding.

Their order staffed the school from its opening until their recall in 2002.

Judy Van Dyck, a parishioner since 1961, said that the parish has always supported the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, “a program to feed the homeless. We have a food collection every Sunday where we take donations of canned food. We also have a food drive every year to donate turkeys and entire meals for the holidays.”

Van Dyck said there is a great emphasis on community spirit at St. Simon, for which members credit its success over the decades. The original church members “had a wonderful vision of the future, of how to bring a group of volunteers together to form a community,” Van Dyck said. “And that, I think, is the whole key to the success of St. Simon: Bringing people together to share their time and their talent to form a community to become a church.”

Mancuso in his homily stressed, “the greatest tribute to our founders is to continue to thrive, and preach with our lives as a church, ‘all are welcome.’”

For more information, visit www.st-

simon.org.