The Project returns to some familiar haunts—Port Richmond, home of one of our favorites, Church Alley. But we’re actually not going to the Alley itself, but rather, a few blocks south. There we find our second ethnic parish, the Italian Mother of Divine Grace.
I wish I had gone back to Church Alley, because MDG is an absolute disaster. You see, the Project hired former intelligence officials from the Bush administration to help scout churches, and they came back recommending I add MDG to the list. Hey, they needed the work, I needed some intel. I thought it would pan out and….
Oh, alright, I’ll take the rap for this one myself. I screwed up. I thought I could find something here. Sure, the 1926 founding date is a little too late for my tastes, and the aerial images showed a church that was a little on the smaller side. But remember, St. Athanasius was founded two years later and wasn’t particularly impressive from the outside, and that one turned out to be one of our better finds. I’d hoped the same would happen here.
Instead, I got exactly what I feared: a smallish, late-model church that fails to impress on any front. It certainly doesn’t have the size we’ve come to expect, and there is absolutely no ornamentation of any kind. Zero. Zilch. It reminds me of the awful Our Mother of Consolation, only without the wooden ceiling beams. I had to stop by nearby St. Adalbert on my way home just to get this foul taste out of my mouth.
I made a terrible mistake.
Size Rating: 5 out of 10
Ornamentation Rating: 5 out of 10
Overall Design Rating: 5 out of 10 crosses
