신서 성당

History & origins

Sinseo Parish began as a new Catholic community formed alongside the expansion of residential districts in eastern Dong-gu, Daegu. According to a feature on the newly established parish in the Archdiocese’s monthly magazine Bit, Sinseo separated from Banyawol Parish on August 29, 2003. With no church of its own at first, the community celebrated its first Mass in the apartment that served as the residence of its first pastor, Father Barnabas Ha Sang-beom. The small community thus began under the practical difficulty of having to worship in a residential space.

In December of the same year, it acquired a prefabricated church of about sixty pyeong, giving the parish an independent place for Mass. As the number of parishioners increased, however, lack of space soon became a problem again, and the prefabricated church was enlarged. The rapid growth of the new parish led directly to the need for a permanent church.

In December 2005, a Mass formally announced the project to build a new church, and parishioners prepared for it through the Rosary and fundraising. When Bit reported on the parish, construction of the new church was under way, capturing the community in the midst of its transition from temporary worship spaces to a permanent church. The present Sinseo Church subsequently became established as a regular parish of the Archdiocese of Daegu and continues the Catholic community in eastern Dong-gu.

The pace of community growth recorded at the time also explains why a new church became necessary. When about three hundred people gathered for Mass, the prefabricated church became so crowded that more than half could not fit inside, leading to its enlargement to about ninety-eight pyeong. By the time of the report, the parish was said to have more than 750 Catholics, with about 150 students in Sunday school, reflecting the presence of many young families. The 2008 article reported that the new church was being built with completion targeted for the end of September that year, but because this source alone does not establish the actual date of dedication, that information is retained only as a contemporary construction plan.