Shiheung St. Paul Catholic Church

History & origins

시화성바오로 Parish was established on February 14, 1997, after separating from Gunja Parish in response to urban development and the growth of the Catholic population in the Sihwa area. With Saint Paul the Apostle as its patron, the new parish began as an independent pastoral community for Catholics in and around Jeongwang-dong and gradually became an important center of Church life in the Siheung area.

In 2012, when the Diocese of Suwon standardized parish names and the expression of patron saints, the former name “Sihwa Paul Parish” was formally fixed as “Sihwa Saint Paul Parish.” This was not the creation of a new community but a clarification of the existing parish’s patronal identity according to diocesan naming standards.

As the parish grew, it also contributed to the formation of new Catholic communities nearby. With the development of the Baegot new town, the parish blessed a site for a new church in 2017 and prepared for a separate parish community, which later became Baegot Parish. This process shows how 시화성바오로 served as a mother parish responding to changing settlement patterns and pastoral needs.

In 2022 the parish celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary and published a history covering the years from 1997 onward. The anniversary was more than a commemoration of elapsed time: it also became an occasion to renew pastoral priorities such as Eucharistic adoration, respect for life, and the strengthening of small Christian communities. Its later role in helping a Catholic community in a newly developed area become independent, after it had grown into a district-center parish, shows how the parish’s growth contributed to the expansion of the pastoral structure of the surrounding area.