Kevin Kelly/Key photo Bishop Raymond J. Boland incenses the new altar at Christ the King Church June 22 during the dedication of the parish's $2.5 million renovation project.

Salina, Kan., Bishop George K. Fitzsimons, a former pastor of Christ the King Parish, joined Kansas City-St. Joseph Bishop Raymond J. Boland and Coadjutor Bishop Robert W. Finn in dedicating the new Christ the King parish worship space at 85th and Wornall in Kansas City. Gone, however, is the historic 1954 altar - built with the present church a decade before the Second Vatican Council and designed to allow the priest to celebrate Mass facing the people.

"It made liturgical history," Bishop Boland told the congregation that packed the new church for the Tuesday evening dedication.

"By special permission of Pope Pius XII, an altar facing the people was installed in the sanctuary," he said.

The pope also granted then-Bishop Edwin V. O'Hara special permission to celebrate Mass facing the people at Christ the King Parish.

"The recommendations of the new forms of liturgical expression were not always the source of popular serenity within the parish community," said Bishop Boland, making note of the parish's sometimes turbulent past. "But that is a chapter of the past best left to the historians.

"It is well-known that the people of this parish have an extraordinary attachment and a great love for this place of worship, this house of prayer located at a busy corner of a busy city," Bishop Boland said.

Bishop Boland noted that the parish's birth in 1938 was humble. Thirteen years after Pope Pius XI added the Feast of Christ the King to the liturgical calendar, the parish was formed as "one of the many responses to this new Christocentric devotion."

"The designated largely rural area of scattered farmhouses only yielded 17 Catholic families who assembled for the first time for Mass in October of 1938," he said.

"The first Mass location for the infant parish could not be rated as a grandiose palace worthy of a king," he noted. "It was a former night club known as the Silver Barn."

In 1941, the parish's first church was built, but it burned two years later. Coping with the shortage of building materials during World War II, the parish worshipped in the basement of the burned out church until a new church was built as the war ended.

Then the post-war urban sprawl hit the parish.

"The farms made way for houses, streets and streets of new houses, and the parish church was suddenly too small," Bishop Boland said.

The new church, he said, has served the community for a half-century.

"You have gathered this evening, 50 years after its opening, to celebrate its comprehensive renovation," Bishop Boland told the parish.

"Christ the King has put on a new suit of clothes," he said. "It continues to be the visible heartbeat of this community of believers, a veritable throne room for the Eucharistic presence of Christ the King.

Bishop Boland also reminded the congregation that they are the church.

"You are crowded in here this evening in a church of stone - solid and, we hope, immovable," he said.

"But each of you is a living dynamic stone - we might even say, 'a chip off the old block' - and that block is Christ the King," Bishop Boland said.

"You create a living structure that extends far beyond the four walls of this building," he said. "Inspired by the grace-laden sacraments which find reality within this church, Christ the King will go where you go."

Bishop Boland also told the congregation to "rejoice in the kind of king we have."

"He demands no marching armies, red carpets or 21-gun salutes," Bishop Boland said. "No, he patiently waits by the Well of Jacob in alien territory and he rises above his exhaustion to greet the woman with a checkered past who had chosen this hour to come to the well to draw water.

"Their conversation became a conversion. The sanctuary of the heart is more important than any sanctuary of stone. She met Christ and her life was utterly changed forever.

"Let us never forget this lesson," he said. "This place is Jacob's Well. Christ is here - patiently waiting for those thirsting for faith. May we share in the discovery and the amazement and the joy of the woman who laid aside her water jar and rushed back into the city proclaiming, 'Come and see a man who has told me everything I ever did. I wonder if he is the Christ?'

"We know who he was," Bishop Boland said. "Here, in this place, we call him Christ the King."

Concelebrating the Mass with the three bishops were priests with special connections to the parish, including former pastors, associate pastors, and two native sons - Father John Weiss, pastor for the past 11 years who would soon be leaving the parish to be pastor of St. Thomas More Parish; and retired Father John Eldringhoff.

In brief remarks at the end of the liturgy for which he received a standing ovation, Father Weiss thanked parishioners for their sacrifices, both in their generosity in making the renovation possible, and in their patience for enduring months of liturgies in the parish hall during construction.

Father Weiss noted that the new worship space will take some getting used to.

"But it won't be two or three weeks before people will wonder how we ever did without it," he said.

Bishop Finn also congratulated parishioners for the gift they have given to future generations.

"It is a gift not only for today, but for many years to come," he said. "It is a gift of charity and faith and hope for the future that you have given to generations to come."

In honor of the 25th anniversary of the ordination of Bishop Fitzsimons as an auxiliary bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Bishop Boland and Bishop Finn presented him with a framed copy of a photo of that day, showing the assembled cardinals, bishops and archbishops who attended.

Bishop Fitzimons thanked the parish for their support during his years as their pastor, and issued a call for vocations.

"I think of Father Weiss and Father Eldringhoff," he said. "And we need more vocations."

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