History of St. Rita Catholic Church

St Rita Church as it is known today was founded in 1924 and originally operated out of storefronts on 8 mile rd. The original congregation consisted of about 12 to 30 people from around the neighborhood of what would become St Rita. By 1924 they had operated out of the auditorium of Lacey High School in Hazel Park MI (Later Demolished in the Early 60s, Lacey was the first High School built in Hazel Park). Later in the year of 1924 a small wooden church was built in the location of the future 1969 addition of the St Rita school, that would be built in 1926 as a elementary school. The original church was a smaller church that struggled to hold over 1000 people. In 1946 a addition was added to the school as the congregation continued to grow. This space was originally used as a temporary church to help relieve the overcrowding of the church. As originally planed the temporary church was turned into the Gymnasium/Auditorium combo the school is known for having today. Construction on the convent started in 1949, followed by in the early 50s work on the modern church. In 1954 the cornerstone was laid for the modern church known today. The original church had taken a back seat leading up to this period of St Rita. By 1946 the original church was used as no more then a parish hall, and was demolished shortly after the modern church opened in 1954. Between 1954 and 1956 the original church was demolished, for about just over a decade the land remained empty. In the post WWII era of Detroit St Rita grew to over 3,000 families unlike other Catholic parishes in the city, members of St. Rita welcomed integration and fought the block busting that divided neighborhoods all over Detroit. In 1969 the High School program was expanded, with a modern addition to the school, on the land of the original church, while the addition was meant to increase enrollment it turned out to become a financial burden on the congregation. In 1970 Michigan Law bared taxpayer money to private schools. John Dearden ordered parishes to examine their finances and close if it was a drain on their finances. While the school didn’t close in the first round of closures in 1971 a year later the High School program would close in 1972. Followed by the Elementary School Program in 1975. However Detroit Public Schools leased the space in 1979, which likely helped keep the parish above water as many sunk in the period of white flight from the city. Into the early 2000s the membership at the church declined to just 100 members by 2007, just 2 years earlier Detroit Public Schools had reverted its leased on the School in 2005. The writing was on the wall for St Rita and it was merged with St. Bartholomew in 2008, out of 2291 E Outer Dr. Detroit, MI 48234 Lasting until 2014. In 2009 New Providence Baptist Church, a megachurch of over 4,000 members on Plymouth Road in Detroit purchased the former St Rita Church and planned on using St. Rita as an outreach campus, hoping to grow it into a sustainable satellite church. In 2012 the church reopened under the new congregation after years of watch by a caretaker. While the church while successful in its original location, it struggled to attach the neighborhood around St Rita. The congregation only lasted a year, as thieves continued to break into the building to steal music instruments and strip out metal pipe and wiring, and by 2014 the church was vacant again. In 2015 the church was purchased by Promise Land Missionary Baptist Church, which had used the former St. Stanislaus Catholic Church in Poletown East. While Promise Land used the church to a successful degree the parish only lasted until 2024 when it closed as well. Since then it has been abandoned however still has active alarms in the building.