The Official Newspaper of the Diocese of Little Rock
FOREMAN -- Sacred Heart Church in Foreman has a storied past, steeped in church and secular history. Most of the 30 or so people who attend 9 a.m. Sunday Mass in the brick-and-frame building on Bell Street know the history, which dates to the dawn of the Diocese of Little Rock.
But new parishioners are arriving. Three Hispanic families joined recently and more people are expected, due in large part to a multimillion-dollar expansion of a local cement manufacturing plant that is funneling jobs to the southwest Arkansas town of 1,100.
John Hunter Taaffe and other descendants of Sacred Heart's founding families believe the influx bodes well for the future. Increasing the 2006 parish count of 17 households and 41 individuals could help maintain its status as the oldest, still-active mission church in Arkansas.
As for newcomers unfamiliar with past history, Taaffe has it written down. For those who have the time, he relates it from memory. A short drive also is in order: to Holy Cross Cemetery off Arkansas 108. Sarah Jane Taaffe, John's great-great grandmother, is buried there. She died in 1845, two days before the first bishop of Little Rock arrived in answer to a letter requesting a sickbed visit from Sarah Jane's husband, George Taaffe.
Bishop Andrew J. Byrne made the 200-mile overland trip on the back of a mule. To show his appreciation, George Taaffe donated 40 acres to the fledgling diocese as well as the use of a log building for the Catholic residents in the community then known as Rocky Comfort. The acreage became a hilltop gravesite for Taaffe's relatives and for Catholics who wished to be buried there.
Bishop Byrne had also visited Rocky Comfort in 1844, in the company of Father Thomas Donohoe, who was the first priest to regularly visit the mission church, also named Holy Cross. It had been a year or less since Pope Gregory XVI, on Nov. 28, 1843, established the Diocese of Little Rock.
Several priests trekked to Holy Cross leading up to the Civil War. In 1868, during the turbulent era of reconstruction, the Arkansas state militia destroyed the church and erected a blockhouse in its place to prepare for a purported uprising of rebellious locals. Nothing happened.
Five years later, the Arkansas Legislature appropriated $1,000 to rebuild Holy Cross. As recounted by John Taaffe's step-grandmother, Lillie Byrd Yauger, Father P.H. Garaghty supervised construction of a frame church in 1870. Bishop Edward Fitzgerald, the second bishop of Little Rock, had appointed Father Garaghty three years earlier to look after the mission church.
Rocky Comfort eventually came to be known as Foreman. The community physically shifted 21/2 miles northeast, moving closer to the railroad that served prospering farmers and businessmen. The church followed a similar path, gaining a new home and a new name in the process.
Sacred Heart arose at its present location in 1939. Its original pews and Stations of the Cross remain. A confessional niche at the rear of the church was converted to a closet for the priest's vestments. Time was when anyone seated in the back pew could hear firsthand the transgressions of his or her neighbor.
The church occupies a neighborhood street within shouting distance of Foreman public schools. Father Vincent Flusche, the pastor of St. Edward in Texarkana, alternates celebrating Sunday Mass with Father Lawrence Chellaian, an Indian priest who is in residence at St. Edward's while serving as chaplain at St. Michael Hospital in Texarkana, Texas. Foreman is 34 miles northwest of Texarkana, on Arkansas 41.
Sacred Heart had been a mission of St. Barbara in De Queen for decades prior to 2000. John Taaffe can name at least 25 priests he knows have ministered to the parish. He served five of them as an altar boy.
Taaffe has updated his church history to note the drop in Mass attendance since World War II, after which many older parishioners died and younger members began looking elsewhere for education and employment.
Prospects appear brighter of late. A photograph taken outside the church after Mass on Sunday, Nov. 11, pictures a dozen children or young adults among the 30 shown.
"We have had inquiries about the Catholic Church and we do expect an increase in attendance," Taaffe said, referring to the expansion at Ash Grove Cement.
"At this time, we are in the process of planning to do some cosmetic work on the church building -- like a new roof, paint inside and out and installing new carpeting," he said.
"This parish is good about taking care of whatever is needed. We have volunteers that do the yard work, clean the church, play the organ, do the bookkeeping."
History, it seems, is still being written.
Sacred Heart Church
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