The Rev. Paul Wicker shepherds a diverse flock at Holy Apostles Catholic Church, where the 2,500 member families include those with roots in Samoa, the Philippines, Germany and Portugal, among other nations. The parishioners are artists, singers, architects and landscapers; settled and struggling; new to town and longtime residents.

The vibrant tapestry they create is testament to the unifying power of faith, and what it can accomplish, for the 78-year-old priest, who will retire this summer after 35 years leading one of Colorado Springs’ larger Catholic congregations.

“He has often said that his greatest joy is helping others find God according to their gifts,” church executive assistant Maryanne Wright said. “He views the world as a kaleidoscope: different cultures, different people all coming together. This pastor will be missed.”

Today, Holy Apostles is home to a thriving congregation that meets in the largest permanent worship space in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs. When Wicker arrived in 1981 to lead the 8-year-old parish in the northeast part of the city, the local diocese didn’t exist and the landscape was much different.

“There was hardly anything out here and nothing beyond Powers going east,” said Wicker, who was leading a multicultural parish in his hometown of Denver when church leaders encouraged him to consider an alternate path in the Springs, then territory of the Archdiocese of Denver. “The bishop gave me the option to stay in Denver or help him as we were beginning to build a new diocese in Colorado Springs. I didn’t want to leave but said, ‘I’ll come down and talk to the parish council and get back to you with an answer.'”

What Wicker discovered was an energetic, but rudderless, community that recently had lost its pastor and was struggling with rapid growth. The original congregation, made up of only 13 families, came together as Catholics of Northeast Colorado Springs in 1972 under the leadership of Monsignor John Albert. By the following year, the parish had received official papal recognition and numbered 250 families, who celebrated services at a neighborhood elementary school for a time before moving to a permanent space nearby. Within a few years, membership soared to more than 1,000 families and Masses had to be held with the doors open to the street.

“There was no room at the inn. We had a building that hadn’t been designed to hold all these people and that probably broke fire codes, and we had to get new land and a new building,” Wicker said. “The pastor had left; it was holy chaos but really awesome people. There was no central organization, but there was a passion.”

In fact, the laity’s vision of “community with a sense of mission” was precisely what Wicker was trying to develop in Denver.

“A vision I live by is from John 17: ‘May they all be one as we are one.’ We’re a community of wounded, limited persons, so how do we use our gifts to support healing each others’ limitations?” Wicker said. “It’s like baking a cake. You bring all the ingredients, all those gifts, together and you can bake a beautiful cake.”

Wicker prayed on the decision, five hours a day at a 36-day retreat, and concluded that the Springs was his calling – to lead, but with a light touch.

“A pastor’s role is not to be an authoritarian but to be authoritative, to authorize and support life. There’s a big difference,” he said. “My job was to bring them together with a sense of a mission and encourage creativity and passion. God works in his people, so let him work in his people and get out of the way.”

By the time Wicker celebrated the 25th year of his ordination as a priest in 1988, Holy Apostles had dedicated a new parish building with a large worship hall and enough land to handle the growing congregation. An evangelization center, donated by a parishioner, and new rectory were added in recent years.

The Rev. Wicker’s long tenure in the Springs is something of a pastoral anomaly, said Brian Goodman, a parish member, with wife Kim, since the late 1990s.

“The average time frame for a pastor at a church is three to seven years, then they move on. Being in one spot 35 years, he’s definitely grown a community around him. He’s married the same people he baptized,” Goodman said.

The pastor’s encouragement and support of individual passions has led to the creation of more than 80 outreach ministries, including those offering support for youths and the elderly and families preparing to adopt or welcome a child from foster care; engaged couples, moms of preschoolers and parents of LGBTQ teens. Parish members who sew and knit give back through the Prayer Shawl and Sewing ministries; those with a green thumb handle the property’s lawn and grounds maintenance.

“If someone has an idea or a calling, he’s always there to help them move forward and get it out to the parish and get people interested,” Goodman said. “That’s allowed people to pursue what they thought their mission is through Christ.”

Wicker stepped down from the pulpit this spring and will enter retirement July 1. The chapter won’t be too quiet for the founder and director of the Catholic Outreach to Northern Ukraine, who plans to remain in the Springs while devoting more time to spiritual travel and growing the ministry in Eastern Europe.

“I don’t know what will happen exactly,” he said, “but my treads are still good and I’ve got some more miles in me.”

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Contact Stephanie Earls:

636-0364