The Archdiocese of Las Vegas released a new documentary on YouTube, 250 Years of Faith in Nevada: A Journey of Hope, tracing the rise of the Church in the state on the 30th anniversary of the diocese’s founding.
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Rosy with her daughter, Abby, on the day of Abby’s Confirmation at St. Viator.
Viatorians enter this history when the bishop invited us to minister there in the 1950s. Viatorians founded Bishop Gorman High School, now an archdiocesan school, and St. Viator Catholic Community. In the documentary, longtime St. Viator parishioner and staff member Associate Rosy Hartz offered her Viatorian witness. Rosy is Coordinator of Youth Ministry and Faith Formation for St. Viator, having worked there for almost 25 years. “I didn’t know I was going to spend my 20s, 30s, and now I’m 44 years old, still working at St. Viator. I didn’t know I would love it this much,” Rosy said in the video. “My kids have grown up here, gotten their Sacraments. I got married here. I think this is my happy place.”
Viatorians built the Shrine of the Guardian Angels, now the cathedral for the Archdiocese of Las Vegas, and founded St. Thomas More Catholic Community in Henderson in the 1980s. As the population boomed and new parishes were needed, the Viatorians worked with the diocese and the local community to start a parish in the Green Valley area, with Fr. Tom Long, CSV, as founding pastor. The documentary features the construction sign with Fr. Long’s name on it, as one segment notes how new parishes were built on frontiers that were quickly surrounded by development.
STM Founding Pastor Fr. Long stands in the community center, setup for Mass, celebrated there (and previously a school gym and mortuary chapel) for several years until their church construction was completed.
“It was raw desert out there. At first, you think, ‘yeah, sure…,’” Fr. Long said of the initial survey of the plot on Viatorian Voices Episode 38. “Now it’s heavily populated. Back then, there was nothing there. We started with 34 families; after nine years, we had 1,300. Now they’re well into the thousands.”
In 2019, the Viatorians transferred St. Thomas More to the archdiocese and opened Cristo Rey St. Viator College Prep in North Las Vegas, which we continue administering today. The Viatorian commitment to teaching the faith and prioritizing people who society tries to account of little importance continues at CRSV and St. Viator, as well as through associates that minister at our legacy institutions.
This charism informed the local response to tragic shootings at a Las Vegas concert in 2017 and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in 2023. “I remember knowing we needed to do something. The young adults at St. Viator planned a Taizé service that we opened to everybody,” Rosy said in the video, recalling the 2017 response. “In the sadness of what had happened in our city, I saw our archdiocese come alive in the way we were able to pray together. We offered a safe space. It was a hard time but a beautiful time to come together as Catholics.”
CRSV Founding President Fr. Tom von Behren, CSV, greets students during the opening days of the school in 2019.
As the archdiocese celebrates its history with this informative new documentary, the Viatorians are proud to be part of the vitality in Church life there today. “I hope our future in our archdiocese continues to be inviting to young people and inviting to laity. And I think we’re going to see vocations continue to grow because of people’s willingness to say yes, to truly hear God’s call,” Rosy said. “We have space to rest in God’s word through dynamic liturgies and to be able to come back and say yes to serving the archdiocese in whatever way we can.”