History
St. Clotilde
The Church of St. Clotilde in Green Valley was incorporated November 14, 1912, as a new parish of the Diocese of Saint Paul. Archbishop John Ireland chose the name St. Clotilde for the parish, appropriate because the saint was responsible for much of the growth of Catholicism in France, and the original 29 members of the new parish were predominately French.
Although St. Clotilde Parish was incorporated, it lacked a mass site until April 29, 1913, when the First Presbyterian Church was purchased. Even before the first mass at this site in the fall of 1913, the faith community was set to enlarge it. The first resident pastor was Fr. George VanderVelden.
A social center, the Hall of the Valley, was built in 1928. In 1946 the original church was abandoned and mass was held in the Parish Hall until 1956, when the present day church was built. The first mass was sung by Fr. Richard Zwicky on March 25, 1956, and the dedication of the church took place on June 4 of that year. In 1989 the parish rectory was auctioned off because a priest was no longer in residence there. Air conditioning was installed in the church in the spring of 1992.
In 1993 Bishop Raymond A. Lucker called a parish planning meeting to discuss the impact of the clergy shortage, and in February 1994, a cluster meeting for the parishes of St. Clotilde and St. Mary in Cottonwood was held. In July 2003, work was begun with Marshall, Green Valley, and Cottonwood to form the Bread of Life Area Faith Community.