The Parish: 1970-1980
The 1970s were eventful and fruitful.  Many ancillary services, like nursery and daycare, sports boosters, and arts and crafts were provided and a pre-school Sunday School was established.  The parish also organized a continuing program of preparation for the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults
(RCIA).

In 1970, the Pulaski Heights Kiwanis Club installed new playground equipment for the parish school.  The parish asphalted the play area and covered the baseball field with Bermuda grass.  The refurbished playground was dedicated on September 8 by His Excellency, Auxiliary Bishop Lawrence P. Graves, who blessed and erected a plaque naming the playground for Monsignor Allen.

On September 6, 1970, Bishop Fletcher solemnly blessed the new church and laid the cornerstone in the front wall to the left of the main entrance.  Forty priests and a host of laity attended the ceremony. 

Built immediately north of the new church and joined to it by a covered walk was a much needed 6.800 square-foot rectory and office building, It replace the rented, one-family residence at 914 North Harrison Street where the parish priests had lived for 17 years.

In 1972, the east wing of the original church was converted into a school library to free up classroom space in the school.  The nave of the church became a cafeteria, and kitchen facilities were installed in the form sacristy.

By 1973, Holy Souls School had grown to 20 classrooms and had an enrollment of 448 students, making it the largest parochial school in the diocese.

Bishop McDonald appointed Monsignor Allen to be his Vicar General while still retaining his pastorate.

After the United States withdrew its military forces from Vietnam in 1975, an influx of Asian refugees began in Holy souls parish, as in other parishes of the diocese.  Concomitantly, there was an increase in the number of Polish refugees and Hispanics, and the parish organized an effective corps of volunteers to collaborate with a Refugee Resettlement Program instituted for the diocese by bishop McDonald.  Parishioners helped settle refugee families from Vietnam and Laos and many refugees from Poland.  The newcomers were housed and fed by the parish, and jobs were found for the family breadwinners.  At the same time, other volunteers taught the new parishioners to speak English.

Meanwhile, the Francis A. Allen School for Exceptional Children had been drawing increasing financial support from the community, and late in 1974, construction was begun on a new school building at 814 North Tyler Street.  The project cost $100,000.

In May 1975, on the recommendation of Bishop McDonald, Pope Paul VI conferred a singular honor on a Holy Souls parishioner.   William W. O'Donnell was appointed a Knight of St. Gregory the Great in recognition of 20 years service as managing editor of The Guardian, the diocesan weekly (now Arkansas Catholic).  Mr. O'Donnell, his wife Eleanor, and their six children had been parishioners since 1954 when they moved to Arkansas from Rhode Island.  (He retired from The Guardian in 1986 after more than 31 years of service.)

In 1976, the national bicentennial year, students staged a pageant, "Arkansas, My Arkansas," written and directed by Pauline Jegley and Holy Souls teachers, in Robinson Auditorium.  all the school's students were included in the cast.  A tree planted on the parish grounds commemorates this celebration.