Founded in 1951

St. Luke’s offers a wide variety of ministries and programs for your entire family, including a school, preschool, youth group, summer camp, etc.

St. Luke Church is a large, multi-cultural parish with a vibrancy and richness of Spirit that is a mirror of the Stockton community at large.  There is a large Vietnamese Community, with a mission church in North Stockton, The Mary Help of Christians Center.  There is a large, active Filipino Community, Hispanic Community, Lao Community, as well as a mosaic of other ethnic communities who worship  here. 

St. Luke’s Parish was first born in the basement of the Bill Wright home on an 8 acre onion patch. The first Mass was offered by Father O.C. Moriarty, our founding pastor, on November 11, 1951. The land was purchased for $24,000 and construction of a temporary church began in early January 1952 with the first three Masses offered on Easter Sunday, April 13 of that year, in the new church. Construction of the Social Hall was completed March 15, 1953 and the following year on April 15, 1954 the Rectory was completed.

A need for a school was seen, so in 1961 the 10,000 square foot school building was constructed. Its doors opened in September of that year with four grades and a faculty of Franciscan Sisters. Every year a grade was added until all eight grades were included.

In January 1965, our present, unique church-in-the-round was completed with a capacity of 850 worshippers.

The Family Life Center and the gym, or Prendergast Center (named after our second pastor, Fr. Frank Prendergast), were completed and dedicated April 19, 1981. The newest building on the church grounds is the Father Aloys Conrad Gruber (former Pastor of St. Luke's) kindergarten classroom erected in 1988. The Family Life Center has since been re-purposed and is now the Parish Office.