Mission:

As members of St. Callistus Parish we are called to be a Community of Christ's Disciples who participate in common worship and live the Gospel values by reaching out to others in loving service and by supporting, affirming, encouraging, healing, reconciling, and challenging each other to continue the work of Jesus, thereby promoting unity within the Parish and the broader community.  Do this in memory of Me!

About Us:

In the year 1866, the first church was built in Kane, located on Fraley St., at a cost of $686 and was named St. Thomas Church. The Rev. Thomas Lonergan attended the early mission church and was in charge of the church while it was being built. The first resident pastor, the Rev. Bernard Klocker, came in 1878. He built a church rectory on the corner of Fraley and Field Street at that time.

Disaster came to that first church in 1880 when it burned down. Services were held in a stone building known as “Temperance Hall” until the completion of the present church on Chase St. The new church building was started and the corner stoned placed on October 14, 1888, the feast day of St. Callistus, for whom the new church and parish were named. In the Fall of 1889, with the steeple towering 131 feet into the air, the new church was completed at a cost of $24,000 and still stands today, as a monument to the faith and courage of those early 150 Catholic families and their pastor, Father George Winkler, who served until 1898. The steeple was destroyed during the tornado which struck Kane on June 28, 1924.

The present parochial school building was built in 1898 under the direction of Rev. James Lavery who was pastor here until 1905. Approximately 60 Benedictine Sisters served in Kane, until the school closed in 1970.