The Parish and Its Leaders (continued)

In 1901 a native son came home to be associate pastor. Father Emmanuel Francis Callahan had been one of Father Marron's students. Father Callahan took up Father Marron's missionary cause to bring the Church to so many who lived far from Knoxville. Father Callahan and his horse Rebel became well known to many people in communities and in isolated areas throughout East Tennessee. His efforts bore fruit. Virtually every parish established in the early part of the 20th century in small towns of East Tennessee was the work of Father Callahan. He even used his personal inheritance to build churches. Besides being a zealous missionary, Father Callahan was a good preacher and storyteller, a poet and an accomplished writer of short stories.

It was during the tenure of Father Francis Grady that Knoxville Catholic High School was opened in 1932. Another native son, Father Francis Shea, became pastor in 1956. In 1967 he was made a Monsignor and in 1970 he was called to be Bishop of Evansville, Indiana.

By the mid-1950's Immaculate Conception had become an inner-city church with all its associated problems; with dwindling numbers, it seemed close to being closed. In 1973 the Paulist Fathers were invited to Knoxville to serve the University of Tennessee Catholic community and Immaculate Conception Church. Under the Paulist Fathers reign Immaculate Conception became a thriving multi-cultural, multi-faceted Catholic community, a vibrant part of the Diocese of Knoxville