Gaelic & Garlic Festival: St. John the Evangelist celebrates community center groundbreaking

There were a lot of strands coming together during the weekend’s events at St. John the Evangelist. The Catholic Church in North Naples held their first-ever “Gaelic and Garlic Festival,” a two-day celebration commemorating at one time the Irish and Italian heritages of many of their parishioners.

And on Saturday, they welcomed Bishop Frank Dewane in full miter and vestments to celebrate the groundbreaking for the new $6.2 million Pulte Life Center, destined to be a second home for the church’s 3,500 member families.

St. Patrick, apocryphal or not, is the symbol of Ireland, and his feast day on March 17 has become a major focal point for an outpouring of immigrant pride, with green beer, leprechaun costumes, step dancing and corned beef. The celebration is if anything observed more in this country than back in the Auld Sod, where of course everyone is Irish all year.

But not nearly as many people are familiar with St. Joseph’s Feast Day, just two days later, honoring the patron saint of Sicily, when Italian pride is front and center. Celebrants wear red instead of green, drink more wine than beer, eat meatballs and fava beans, and listen to opera and traditional Italian folk music. This was the “garlic” to complement the “Gaelic” – traditional language of Ireland – of St. Patrick’s Day.

In Catholic tradition, St. Joseph was the husband of the Virgin Mary, and stepfather of Jesus. During the Middle Ages, according to legend, when Sicilians were starving during a drought, they prayed to St. Joseph, and were sustained by a bountiful harvest of fava beans even as other crops failed.

At St. John the Evangelist, visitors got a liberal helping of both traditions. Dance troupes and musicians including the Tir Na Nog step dancers and Wolfhound and West of Galway Irish Bands were featured, alternating with Italian opera singers and tarantella folk dancers. A meatball cooking contest to determine the “best Nonna’s meatballs” was followed by, what else, a meatball eating contest. On Sunday, cars from Italy’s famed automotive designers were on display.

But as Father John Ludden, pastor of St. John said, the church is all about families, and they were the impetus behind creation of the church’s new Pulte Life Center, which broke ground on Saturday. Bishop Dewane officiated at the ceremony, sprinkled holy water on the site, and participated with dignitaries, helpers and donors, including Bill Pulte of Pulte Homes in tossing an honorary shovelful of sand with special gold-painted shovels.

“We have the church and the parish hall. The families were asking for that third place to come to” to focus their lives on the church, said Ludden. “We’re the first (Catholic church) in the area to build such a center. It just shows you, the church is still growing.”

St. John the Evangelist, he said, will host more than 5,000 scheduled events this year. “We just ran out of space – but it’s a good problem to have.”

The Pulte Life Center, named for its principal donor, will cover approximately 30,000 square feet, and include two full-court gyms, a stage, and music and theatrical production areas when it is complete, said Jean Paul Boucher, who has coordinated the effort for St. John, and whose efforts were singled out for congratulation during the groundbreaking ceremony.

“This building is about building community,” said Boucher.