Dedication
On Saturday, September 26, 2026, the Most Reverend Luis Rafael Zarama blessed and dedicated a new Faith Formation Education Building on the campus of St. Stanislaus Catholic Church in Castle Hayne, NC.
At the dedication, Rev. Steven DiMassimo, Pastor of St. Stanislaus, expressed his gratitude to the Bishop and to all the parishioners a we celebrate the latest addition to the parish campus.
“As our parish continues to grow and flourish, this new education building will play a vital role in meeting the faith formation and educational needs of our parishioners,” said Rev. Steven DiMassimo. “This much-needed addition to our parish campus represents an important investment in the spiritual growth of our community and was made possible through the extraordinary generosity, dedication, and prayers of so many. We are deeply grateful to all who contributed to bringing this vision to life and, above all, to our Lord for His abundant blessings.”
The Catholic community of St. Stanislaus is more than a century old. It began with three Polish immigrant families who arrived in 1907 to start vegetable farms. Those founding families and many of their descendants rest today in a small cemetery on the parish grounds. At first, Mass was celebrated in their homes by a priest who traveled from St. Mary in Wilmington. By 1916, with help from a development company and the Catholic Extension Society, the 18 families in the community acquired land and a church.
St. Stanislaus remained a mission of St. Mary until 1933, when it became a parish under the care (by 1935) of the Conventual Franciscan Friars of Immaculate Conception Province. Over the next three decades, the Franciscans and their Religious Sisters from Syracuse, NY, ministered to St. Stanislaus, bringing a rectory, parish hall, convent and school, and in 1951 an Army chapel from Camp Davis in Holly Ridge, which Bishop Vincent S. Waters dedicated as the new church.
The school closed in 1962, but Franciscan friars continued as pastors for many years. Meanwhile, Castle Hayne and St. Stanislaus, continued to grow as retirees and new businesses discovered the Wilmington area. By the mid-1990s, the old church building was clearly inadequate. The building couldn’t even be sold, so it was donated to the local fire department for a training exercise. In 1997, then-pastor Fr. Douglas Reed held two services: one as articles were removed from the church and another before the church was burned. Construction of a new church had already begun, and the building was dedicated by Bishop F. Joseph Gossman on December 13, 1998.