Seven parishes were asked to come together to form a pastorate as a part of Bishop DeGrood's Set Ablaze plan for the Diocese of Sioux Falls. Those parishes were, Blessed Sacrament, Florence; Holy Name of Jesus, Watertown;  Holy Rosary, Kranzburg; Immaculate Conception, Watertown; Saint Henry, Henry; St. Mary, Bryant and St. Michael, Clark.

About Our Logo 

  • The "A" and "M" featured in our logo represent our pastorate name Ave Maria which is Latin for Hail Mary. 
  • The colors gold and blue. The gold was chosen to signify Mary's crown as she is queen of Heaven and Earth. The blue hues of the logo were chosen as Mary is often depicted in hues of blue.
  • The seven stars represent the geographic locations of our seven parishes. Beginning at the top with St. Mary's in Bryant, St. Michael's in Clark, and Blessed Sacrament in Florence. The middle star is St. Henry's in Henry. The two stars next to each other are the two parishes in Watertown, Holy Name of Jesus and Immaculate Conception. The star located at the bottom represents Holy Rosary in Kranzburg. 
  • The waves were chosen to represent the waters found in our pastorate, but also signify that Mary is with us here, on the waters and through the waves.


There is also a hidden meaning shown in our logo. If our logo was rotated and was shown as it appears on the map, west to east, it would face towards the east as Mary does. Christians have always believed that Christ would be coming again at the end of time from the east with the sun as it rises. Above all Mary has the hope for the future and is awaiting the coming again of Christ. 

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May the Blessed Virgin Mary intercede for our pastorate! 

Set Ablaze Pastoral Plan

The Set Ablaze Pastoral Planning Process began in August of 2022 when Bishop DeGrood revealed to the priests that he was called by God to have our parishes come together and build a ten year plan for the future of our diocese. His hope is that it will help create, "Lifelong Catholic Missionary Disciples Through God's Love." We have been in a pattern of continual decline in the church. As a whole, all churches are struggling Catholic and non-Catholic. Bishop DeGrood believes God is asking us to disrupt this trend by making some radical changes, knowing full well that the changes will be hard, especially reducing Sunday Masses. Though it is easy to get focused on not having as many Masses, our main focus needs to be, how are we living out our faith. If we continue to live the faith as we have been, we will continue to decline and have a smaller church with fewer priests. Many aspects of our future plan is to focus on the family and encouraging families to live the faith while raising their children in the faith. As you read over the plan below, I encourage you to ask yourself, "what is God asking of me?" Is it only to maintain what was or is it to "go out into the deep, into the unknown." How have I been, and will I be a "Lifelong Catholic Missionary Disciple Through God's Love?" Let us each talk to God about this and respond generously for the future of the church.
Below you will find a link to the Set Ablaze Diocesan Handbook which were the parameters on what can and cannot be done when building our plan for the future. We were also given a limitation of Masses that could be celebrated in a given pastorate. This number was given to us by "Partner's Edge" a company that helps dioceses plan for the future. Our recommendation given by Partner's Edge was to go from eleven Masses to seven Masses in our Pastorate. We appealed this recommendation in December of 2023 by requesting nine Masses. Our appeal was based on seating capacity in our Watertown churches. However, in the judgement of our bishop and his team we were granted eight Masses for our Pastorate. Given our limited number of Masses, Fr. Haggerty, as pastor, decided to no longer have Sunday Mass at St. Mary's in Bryant and St. Henry in Henry and to remove one Saturday night Mass from Watertown. This decision was made after much consultation with the priests of the Pastorate, the Set Ablaze Pastoral Planning Committee, our town hall meetings, and comment boxes, etc.