St Joseph’s Catholic Community

St Joseph’s Community is a wonderful family. Fr Wayne Dawson has engaged the parishioners and he truly loves God and is a blessing to all of us. Our family is grateful for the wonderful staff at St Joseph’s and volunteers for their dedication to our faith and love of the church. All for One and One for All!

This is a friendly and welcoming Catholic community in Capitola. Their pastor is an intelligent polyglot from South Africa and seems to have made a good connection with the congregation. They also are very active in parish-​based social functions and charities.
The church is a modern-​style building, but tasteful and has large modern stained glass representations of the Holy Family. The tabernacle is in its own room right behind the Novus Ordo altar and throne.
The music is very popular with the congregation but is strictly for fans of contemporary hymns. This includes their so-​called «Traditional Music Mass». The music for the morning Sunday Masses all sound like 1970s soft rock love songs. The music for «Life Teen» Sunday evening Mass sounds more like 1980s soft rock love songs. I deduct a star because of this.

Father Matt Pennington is the man! He is the best story teller I know. He preaches of a loving God; that Jesus was a loving and accepting man who called people on their shit when they had to be; and that Catholics are a loving, truthful and helpful people! In his homilies we are trusted to be heart-​centered, open-​minded people who are on their way to God. If we don’t feel that way, we are skillfully shown our error and told to repent in a matter-​of-​fact way really hits home. Though Father Matt says his story of why he became a priest is not interesting, he was obviously called to this position that he fills sooooooo well. Do you think I will burn in the eternal fires of hell for swearing in this review? Hope not… Anyway… Go check him out! You can check the schedule on their site. Enjoy and God bless!

Very beautiful building. I was only at one of those «Life Teen» masses which are usually pretty Novus Ordo but it was packed with very friendly people. And they have perpetual adoration which is very hard to pull off so good for them.