Our Parish - About Us - Parish History - House of God/ People of God The good work so well begun in 1948-1955 by Fathers Joseph Ciesluk and Julius Amman and the earliest members had indeed given both body and soul to St. Francis De Sales Parish. Nevertheless, to a community accustomed to lake effect, the years 1955-1970 saw a blizzard of changes. Pastoral leadership exemplified both continuity and change. Father Louis LaPres had the longest pastorate in the history of the parish, yet it was a leadership shared with pastoral associates, Sister principals and teachers, committees, councils and boards, directors and chairpersons, and sometimes as in the case of major building, the parish as a committee of the whole. Before Vatican Council II had popularized concepts of collegiality and subsidarity, St. Francis De Sales Parish experienced the call to serve in new ways. At the same time Father LaPres brought to parish life a presence and passion quite unlike that of his predecessors and successors. With each of his associates there was a richness of gifts and particularity of character. A Muskegon native, Father LaPres nevertheless brought a world-vision, anticipating the enthusiasm and liberation and, in some respects, the upheaval of contemporary world wide revolutions in thought, worship, governance, morality, and popular culture. Throughout the nation, suburban parish growth was phenomenal in the late 1950's and the 1960's. The church hall built by Father Ciesluk and the early membership and the school built by Father Amman and the parishioners were, by 1958, already inadequate for the fast-growing parish. The next decade was consumed in church building, building not only a fitting Domus Dei - a House of God - but building church as People of God. It was a constructive task of architecture and ecclesiology, of community building and of ecumenism, of sacrifice and stewardship, of keeping faith and of searching for God.
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