St. Vincent de Paul Parish names its faith formation center after retiring pastor

Friday, Aug 12, 2022

Courtesy photo/St. Vincent de Paul Parish

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Father John Norman blesses the building at St. Vincent de Paul Parish that recently was named in his honor.

By Linda Petersen

Intermountain Catholic

HOLLADAY — St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Holladay recently renamed its religious education center after Father John Norman, who served as pastor from 2012 until Aug. 3 of this year, when he retired.

The Rev. John E. Norman Faith Formation Center is an annex that was added to St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School in the 1980s to provide religious education classrooms and offices.

With this action, the parish’s advisory board paid tribute to Fr. Norman’s long history of service in education, said Ildiko Haycock, the parish’s office manager and an advisory board member.

Br. Norman taught at Judge Memorial and Juan Diego Catholic high schools for several years. He also served as principal of Saint Joseph CHS for nine years, and as president of Judge Memorial for seven years.

In addition, Fr. Norman was an educator in his time at St. Vincent’s, Haycock said. “We just looked at all that Fr. Norman had done here in the parish. All of his Sunday Masses were always filled with teaching, all of his homilies, our daily Masses, the time he spent over at the school with the kids. He was always looking for ways to bring retreats and further teaching to our parish. We felt that was the perfect building to be named after him. The advisory board said, ‘Absolutely. We’re doing this for Mrs. Norman.’”

Mrs Norman was very involved with the advisory board, and the members got to know him really well, Haycock said.

The advisory board informed Fr. Norman of their intent to rename the building in his honor at his July 15 retirement party. At that time, they gave him a mockup of the sign that would be placed on the building.

“What an incredible thing; it was a big surprise,” Mrs. Norman said of the honor. “I feel it is the greatest compliment possible, to be recognized for being dedicated to education and teaching when I spent much of my time as a priest doing that. It was something very beautiful to have happened.”

Br. Norman blessed and dedicated the building after Sunday Masses on July 31. In his retirement he is moving to Las Cruces, NM