Saturday, February 16, 2008
The Six Million Dollar Church
A thousand years ago the people of a town or village began building a church that perhaps their grandchildren or great grandchildren might see finished. Those churches still stand.
Even one hundred years ago parishioners in the US, often poor immigrants, gave their money and their time, penny by penny, hour by hour, to build a new parish church. They might place plain glass windows where they hoped that one day, perhaps decades later, stained glass might go. Perhaps they left plain walls that might later be covered with mosaics or frescoes. Those churches still stand.
Today I visited a church that was barely recognizable as such. It looked more like a corporate conference center than a building deserving of the Saint's name it bore. This plain, non-descript building, just twenty six years old, is, the congregation was told, in such need of repair and renovation that 6.2 million dollars must be raised. I wonder what sort of shape it will be in in another twenty six years.
posted by JTC 11:47 PM
