Here is where things get interesting. The attendance numbers are only in the 400s, which isn’t that great, but at least they’ve stayed relatively consistent over the past several years.
More vexing is the church’s condition, which is, umm, pretty bad. There’s a great deal of visible paint and water damage all over the place. This is probably the third worst church we’ve seen, damage-wise. It’s worse than Our Lady Help of Christians, but certainly better than Our Lady of Hope and Ascension of Our Lord. At least Sacred Heart isn’t taking it lying down. Scaffolding and various coverings are everywhere as the parish scrambles to repair the building. The entire right side of the church is even roped off, so you can only sit on the left.
But their efforts won’t be completely successful. In one of the sadder stories the Project has seen, their ceiling is so damaged that it can’t be repaired as is. A new ceiling, and a new paint job, is the only thing that will do. One priest, Father Dean, spoke to the Project at great length about the renovation, and how parishioners don’t understand that, when finished, the roof will essentially just be white. They even brought in a renowned church painter from Austria—whose sole occupation in life is church artwork—to examine their roof, and even he concluded it can’t be saved.
I feel a theorem coming on....
Church Project Theorem #24: Tabula Rasa
Literally translated as "Blank Slate," Tabula Rasa applies when a church undergoes a radical décor change. Sometimes that change is voluntary, as in the case of Our Mother of Good Counsel. Usually, however, it's involuntary, the result of needed repair or renovation work that robs a church of its natural beauty. That's the case here. It's called Tabula Rasa because the church actually becomes a blank slate, able to accept whatever new design is foisted upon it.
It's worthing noting that Tabula Rasa churches almost never make any effort to recreate their old schemes, given the cost and skill involved. They usually instead make half-hearted replacement attempts, or don't even bother at all. That's what makes this theorem perhaps the most devastating of all. We like to pretend that all damaged churches can be magically restored to their former glory. That's very frequently not the case. Sometimes these buildings are just too wounded.
We'll have to wait and see what Sacred Heart does. Their current scheme may not be that impressive, but the Project weeps every time a church loses piece of its architectural history. There’s nothing stopping them from trying to recreate or reimagine the current scheme once the repairs are done, but the repairs alone will cost a couple of million. Adding a fancy new paint scheme will certainly increase that exponentially.
Still, if Sacred Heart is strong enough to pull these repairs off, I don’t think we need to worry too much about their stability.
Emergency Rating: Gonna paint our wagon…!
