Mar 22, 2010

Plans to wreckovate beautiful, traditional St. Charles Borromeo Church in North Hollywood

Today's (March 22) online California Catholic Daily reports that another of Cardinal Roger Mahony's wreckovations of traditional Catholic churches in the Archdiocese of L.A. is afoot.

The target of the jack-hammering this time is a real treasure: Beautiful, venerable St. Charles Borromeo Church in North Hollywood.

The parishioners protested another plan in 2002 and preserved the church until now.

The St. Charles Borromeo Preservation Guild (click on this post's title), which is trying to preserve the church's priceless interior, says the wreckovation plan is to "remodel" the interior and demolish most of the altar rail.

The Guild says:

"We are St. Charles parishioners who love our church and the parish. We want to preserve and retain the following: the current configuration of the sanctuary, including the baldacchino and crucifix; keeping the altar within the sanctuary as it is at present; the altar rail; the forward facing orientation of all pews; kneelers for the pews; private confessionals; the choir loft; the stained glass windows; the baptismal font; all side altars and statues; and the stations of the cross. We further seek restoration of the Blessed Sacrament to its place of honor in the tabernacle behind the altar."

To fight the mayhem, the Guild has a "What you can do" page.

By the way, see the following informative article about what the Holy See said (and did) in 2001 about the notorious Archbishop Rembert Weakland's plot to wreckovate Milwaukee's cathedral:
http://www.catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=20489

Two books you can look for are:

Ugly as Sin: Why They Changed Our Churches from Sacred Places to Meeting Spaces -- and How We Can Change Them Back Again, by Michael S. Rose

The Renovation Manipulation: Church Counter Renovation Handbook, by Michael S. Rose

On a related note, have you heard about the liberals closing the, I believe, five beautiful traditional churches in Clinton, Iowa, some time ago? They have bulldozed one or more by now and are planning to keep one of the churches -- as a museum of Catholicism.

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