GROUNDBREAKING EVENT AT COLUMBIA ST MARY'S

In what has become a rather routine event at the various campuses of Columbia St. Mary's Hospital, a groundbreaking was held Wednesday, April 19th at the facility's lakefront Milwaukee Campus at the terminus of E. North Avenue.
The most recent of a spate of building projects underway, the Water Tower Medical Commons, named for the nearby 1871 landmark that dominates the area, will be a 40,000-square-foot Cancer Center when completed in 2008.
The commons is but one part of the $417 million, 670,000 square foot expansion of the hospital founded on the site in 1845 by the Sisters of Mercy, a religious order affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church.
The master of ceremonies for the event was Leo P. Brideau, President and CEO of Columbia St. Mary's, who did his best to keep the crowd in the rented white tent on message.
The problem is, Brideau wants to talk hospital, but everybody else just wants to talk about the Whole Foods Market under construction a block away in another component of the massive construction project, he said.
The groundbreaking was light on politicians -- none came. (Just wait until the ribbon-cutting. Then you'll have to fight them off!)
The event was doubly blessed -- quite literally.
Chaplain Gloria Krasno of the Jewish Chaplaincy Program of Milwaukee said that the day was one of significance in the Hebrew calendar, and was an auspicious time for work involving shovels.
As she spoke, a dozen golden shovels glistened under a bright but cool sun, standing erect in an archipelago of sand that had been laid atop the unwieldly asphalt of what had once been the parking lot for St. Mary's Hill Hospital. Soon, ten of the shovels would be in the hands of hospital officials for the ceremonial dirt-turning act, a photo-op the genesis of which predates not just the camera, but the builders of the pyramids, as well.
But not until the second blessing was given by Rev. Tim Kitzke, the pastor of Three Holy Women Parish.
Father Tim carried a large volume that, in the hands of Protestant clergy, would have been the Holy Bible.
However, his was emblazoned in gold letters with the title, Book of Blessings.
"There is a blessing for everything," said the charismatic priest. "And a schedule of stipends for that blessing," he added, to uproarious laughter.
He then sprinkled Holy Water -- specially blessed on Easter Sunday -- from a little container, pocket sized, that he carries around with him and blessed the site and the work to be done.
After that, the shovel pantomime followed at which point the guests were treated to a buffet catered by Louise's Restaurant, located at the corner of Jefferson and Wells. The food consisted of cold little beef or ham sandwiches, a corn slaw (I guess you'd call it that) and plump strawberries wearing chocolate tuxedos.
--Michael Horne

ANOTHER POST FOR REV KITZKE

The Archbishop has tossed another responsibility onto the plate of Rev. Tim Kitzke, the pastor of the merged churches of St. Hedwig's, St. Rita's and Holy Rosary, the east side triumvirate that now operates as Three Holy Women Congregation.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan has asked Kitzke to also serve as pastor of St. Mary Church, 836 N. Broadway, the nation's oldest German Catholic parish, which goes by the name "Old St. Mary Church," which has always conjured for me the image of a very elderly virgin.
(The "Old Church of St. Mary's" would be a more dignified name, and would be appropriate for a building constructed in the 1840s, before all the wannabe St. Mary's churches started cropping up all over Christendom. Probably sounds a bit too Anglican for the Catholics.)
"This is not a merger," Kitzke said. "I've gone from mergers to mergers and acquisitions."
Reverend Kitzke will be the guest of honor Monday, April 24th, at a cocktail party reception hosted by Atty. Patrick O. Dunphy at his fabulous lakefront highrise condominium. The party will kick off a drive to complete raising the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to replace the 120-year old copper roof of St. Hedwig's, located at the intersection of Brady and Humboldt.
--Michael Horne