March 21, 2017

Holyoke church temporarily closes worship space due to damage

REGIONAL
By Rebecca Drake

(Catholic Communications photo)

HOLYOKE – The sanctuary of Sacred Heart Church, here, the worship space for Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, has been temporarily closed since a large piece of decorative plaster fell from the wall on Ash Wednesday, March 1.

While the damage to the 140-year-old church is being analyzed and plans for repairs are being made, Masses are being held in the chapel adjacent to the church and in the parish gymnasium. In a March 16 letter to parishioners, Father Yerick Mendez, administrator of Our Lady of Guadalupe, wrote: “Diocesan building consultants, the bishop, the structural engineer, and I all agree that we should err on the side of caution when it comes to the safety of our people. The chapel on the Chestnut Street side of the church is safe and will remain open for daily Masses, Adoration, and other prayer services and functions as normal.” 

Funerals will be scheduled for Immaculate Conception Church on North Summer Street, which is yoked with Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish.

“Stations of the Cross devotions which were published in the bulletin as being in the ‘main church’ will be offered in the chapel instead,” Father Mendez wrote.

In his letter, Father Mendez also noted, “Any Mass too large for the chapel will be celebrated in the gym. The basketball court and stage area in the gym building on Chestnut Street will be set up as our worship space and will be used to house the larger Sunday Mass congregations.”

“I will be working with a group of volunteer parishioners to do everything possible to make the gym look dignified and function properly as a suitable place for the celebration of Holy Mass,” he wrote. “While the gym is being used as a temporary worship space it will be totally off limits for any other use. It will not be available for basketball or any other social activities but reserved solely for the celebration of Mass and any other liturgical or spiritual needs.”

Father Mendez stated that reserving the gymnasium for spiritual activities only during the sanctuary closure will help to ensure that the space remains sacred “in so far as is possible,” and will “avoid the need to repeatedly set up and take down all of the furnishings needed for Mass.”

Father Mendez also noted that the time needed for analysis and repair work has not been determined and wrote that “anything done will be a short term fix for safety and not one of aesthetics.”

According to diocesan spokesman Mark E. Dupont, this is yet another reminder of the challenges local parishes face in maintaining the beautiful but much older and larger structures.

“Any time you undertake even the most minor of repairs in these beautiful old churches, you face enormous expense, funds that many of our parishes simply don’t readily have,” he said.

Dupont reiterated Father Mendez’ statement that no time frame has been set on the current work but that an overall review of the structure is underway.

“We get a lot of unfair criticism for it, but we remain committed to making decisions based on safety first,” Dupont said.