Dear friends,

For the past several years, the Holy Nicholean Catholic Church, despite being a cloistered ministry with a strong public outreach, has held a space for offering public Mass. We have referred to this space as the “Mission Church.” It was established to be a base of operations for our teaching and exorcism outreach ministries, while also serving as our liturgical headquarters to Sacramentally support our clergy and clients.  Within the last two years, we opened a 2,000 square-foot facility to expand the outreach for the Atlanta, Georgia area and give clients a much needed spiritual home. The cost of doing this was substantial, but we were able to accomplish this with the help of some key benefactors and a staff of volunteers who believed in the Mission Church’s purpose.

Unfortunately, within the last two years, the Mission Church has been riddled with problems that can no longer be ignored.  These problems are as follows:

1. Clients regularly do not show up to their appointments. Some members of our staff commute more than two hours and often they would arrive for a day of four client assessments and not one client on the book would show up or even call to explain their absence and reschedule.
2. An essential part of the successful resolution to a spiritual crisis involves Sacramental support and commitment, but almost no one complies with their treatment plans. In fact, it is a regular occurrence for us to never see or hear from our clients again once we initially resolve their problem. In other words, most clients are seeking an immediate solution, but are not making use of our long term care options.
3. The most severe cases we receive tend to be far outside of the jurisdiction of the mission Church. What this means is that the people who really need our most critical help are often unable to even utilize the benefits the Mission Church provides, simply because they are not local to us.
4. The Mission Church is located in a building that is not conducive to our needs.  It is sandwiched between a tattoo parlor that regularly plays loud movies on a flat screen television hanging on our mutual wall and a “Soap by Appointment” shop that blasts unthinkably loud music all of the time. We have filed complaints to management and to the individual problem tenants, but the issue has only worsened. It is now at a point where it has become intolerable and we can no longer function properly in this space.
5. The space is expensive and contributions are irregular. The ordinary cost for the location is over $1,500 a month. While we have conducted a few moderately successful fundraisers over the last few years, we have found that it is all too common for people to pledge a monthly or annual amount, but suddenly cancel the contribution without warning or explanation a month or so later. Money that gets put into a budget or is committed to a legal contract, suddenly is no longer there.Additionally, we don’t charge for our pastoral services (weekly pastoral counseling excluded); therefore, without a solid base of frequent support from those we help and the public that believes strongly in what we do, it is financially impossible to commit to leases or invest in a better location. While we are extremely grateful to all of our benefactors that continue to maintain their pledges, too many have retracted help in order to maintain the Mission Church’s financial viability.

While there are some other issues present beyond the ones I have stated here, these five are the primary conditions that have led to this decision. In short, we feel that continuing to allocate so much money to a program that the local Atlanta population doesn’t seem to want or utilize is not an efficient course of action. So with this firmly in mind, I would like to share with you our thoughts for moving forward.

First, let me say that if you support this ministry, please continue to do so. Our new plan of action hopes to put your contributions to better use than before. Our Board of Directors has decided to bring our liturgical life back to the cloister and while this means we will no longer be able to offer a public Mass (at least for the time being), we will be able to use the funding that was going to rent and redistribute it into a national travel budget.

This will, in turn, allow us to reach those severe outside-of-jurisdiction cases that we previously didn’t have the resources to help. In light of this change, the outreach ministry is going to become a type of “spiritual paramedics” program. We will continue to assess clients as before, but now offer emergency short-term spiritual crisis care, and guide them to finding follow-up support locally, perhaps within their own church if applicable.

Of course, this will mean that we will be taking far fewer cases, we also feel that the benefits of reaching the most severe clients, in places we couldn’t go before, should outweigh any disadvantages. And, of course, at some point in the future, if we can relocate to a better area and gain new sources of stable funding, we will revisit the Mission Church concept and return to offering the Mass to the public.

Again, if you support this ministry, we offer you a sincere thank you! We couldn’t do what we do without you, but if any of you don’t currently contribute to this ministry, please consider doing so (especially on a monthly basis). The more support we receive, the more families we can travel out to and help. So many people need what we provide. Let’s not let them down.

Donations can be made here: https://esotericcatholic.org/help-us-help-others/

Sincerely,

Bryan D. Ouellette, SOSM

Presiding Bishop/Exorcist Bishop

Holy Nicholean Catholic Church/Order of Exorcists

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IMPORTANT NOTE: All liturgical functions at the Mission Church have been suspended until further notice. All Ministerial outreach programs will continue as normal and will be unaffected by this change. 

The Mission Church of the Holy Innocents in Cartersville, Georgia generally holds Mass Sundays at 8:00AM or Saturdays at 8:00PM and on special feasts during the weekdays at 8:00PM.

We welcome you to visit us for Mass at:

Holy Nicholean Catholic Church
1241 Joe Frank Harris Parkway
Cartersville, GA 30120

Please note that Mass dates and times are subject to change without advance notice. Please refer back to this page regularly to confirm that liturgy is being held before you travel out to us.

Mass Times from Corpus Christi through Pentecost to Corpus Christi the Memorial of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist

 JUNE

Saturday 22nd (Vigil for Corpus Christi): 8:00PM

Sunday 30th (Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time): 8:00AM

JULY

Saturday 6th (Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time): 8:00PM

Thursday 11th (Memorial of Saint Benedict, Abbot): 8:00PM

Saturday 13th (Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time): 8:00PM

Sunday 21st (Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time): 8:00AM

Monday 22nd (Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene): 8:00PM

Saturday 27th (Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time): Cancelled

AUGUST

Saturday 3rd (Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time): 8:00PM

Saturday 10th (Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time): Cancelled

Wednesday 14th (Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary): Cancelled

Saturday 17th (Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time): Cancelled

Saturday 24th (Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time): Cancelled

Thursday 29th (Memorial of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist): Cancelled