St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton parish was established on June 6, 1978 when Bishop Thomas Mardaga appointed Fr. Richard Gardiner to shepherd the new parish in Bear, Delaware. The parish home was designated for positioning on a twenty-acre soybean field on the Bear-Christiana Road. Sunday Masses were initially held in the Pleasantville Elementary School, as the fledgling parish began to take shape. By late 1978, the rectory was built on the property. The living room served as the Daily Mass Chapel.
Funds were steadily raised and in 1980, a multipurpose building was erected on the property. This building became the parish church and doubled as the parish hall. For eighteen years, parishioners diligently made best use of the building and were quite adept at staging a dinner or fundraiser event on a Friday or Saturday and then “magically” transforming the space back into a church for Sunday Masses. Daily Mass continued to be celebrated in the rectory chapel. Slowly, the original 110 families grew into nearly 400 and additional ministries, committees and services were added. The Religious Education program grew from the initial 97 children to several hundred, so the multipurpose building was expanded to add more space for classrooms.
In 1985, Fr. Clemens Manista arrived with the goal of building a church. Finally, in 1992, a capital
campaign was initiated to fund the new church building and architect, George You, was contracted to design the sacred space. After much prayer and work for funds, design challenges and two campaigns, groundbreaking for the church occurred on September 15, 1996. The new church was consecrated by
Bishop Michael A. Saltarelli on February 1, 1998.
Msgr. Charles L. Brown, III was names pastor in 1998. Over the years a saying, often spoken during the capital campaign that funded the church building, began to come true… “if you build it, they will come” and we continued to grow. Realizing the need for educational space, Msgr. Brown used the opportunity presented by the Diocesan Schools’ Campaign, to use the ‘funds over target’ for another building project. Successful fund raising produced the Christian Formation Center that opened in 2005. Projects to beautify the Meditation Hallway and the construction of a Baptistry in the church were added as well. Plans were also completed for the support and unique relationship with our parish school, Christ the Teacher.
In 2002, Rev. Roger F. DiBuo, began his ministry as the associate pastor. In 2005, he became the parish administrator and then was appointed pastor on January 4, 2007, Mother Seton’s Feast Day. Fr. Roger continues to serve as the pastor with the assistance of Deacons Bill Kibler, Cruz Rodriguez and Jose Sanchez who were ordained to the permanent diaconate and assigned to the parish.
