Community
17 October, 2025
OLHC to celebrate 50 years
WARRNAMBOOL’S Our Lady Help of Christians church will celebrate its 50th birthday next month.
Parishioners are planning to celebrate the event with a special program of activities on Saturday, November 8.
Visitors will be able to enjoy afternoon tea from 2pm-4pm, along with the chance to check out the various history boards on display.
A mass with Bishop Bird is planned for 6pm that evening, with a visual display both before and after mass – and tea/coffee to follow.
Our Lady Help of Christians parish was first established in January, 1973.
According to records, it started from a ‘good base,’ already having a school and large block of land on which to build a church and a priest’s residence and office.
The then Father Downes was saying mass in the new wing of the school on Wednesday nights for that year and every Sunday from 1974, until the church opened the following year.
The then parish priest of the time wrote ‘In this international Women’s Year, we are dedicating a church to the model of all women and it is therefore fitting that the church should be dedicated to Our Lady Help of Christians.’
