The late Peter Knox, and his wife restored the building basically as it was, although the pews are removed for flexibility in usage. But it could easily host the celebration of the Mass tomorrow if we were so inclined. The color scheme is not to my liking. This church was built by the same Jesuit brother who built St.Joseph here in Macon, Sacred Heart in Tampa and the hurricane destroyed Sacred Heart in Galveston, Texas. The destroyed one in Texas was an exact duplicate of the one in Augusta.
Sacred Heart, Galveston:
Sacred Heart Church, Augusta
Dr. William Toole belongs to St. Paul Episcopal Church in Augusta, but has had a very cordial working relationship with The Church of the Most Holy Trinity in Augusta and would fill in for us as organist and music director when we were in need. He also traveled with our choir to Italy in 1999 and assisted our then music director and organist, Mr. John Cargile by directing the choir for us. Dr. Toole has been very kind to me over the years.
Press this link to the Augusta Chronicle and view the video and read the story:
Sacred Heart Cultural Center
3 comments:
I was a member of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Athens in 1970, but did not know about Sacred Heart Church in Augusta. Can you tell us why such a beautiful church was closed?
Unfortunately, downtown Augusta had three Catholic Churches in close proximity to one another, only six blocks away from one another. By 1970 there were two forces working in Augusta to bring Sacred Heart to an unfortunate demise. First Catholics had moved out of the downtown area to the suburbs. This had been going on since 1916 due to the Savannah River flooding downtown until the levy was built and a major, major fire in 1916 that destroyed a good number of homes and businesses. By 1970, Sacred Heart, completed in 1900 had about 500 families; The Church of the Most Holy Trinity had 80 families (the oldest but most sound structure) and Immaculate Conception Church, an all black parish had about 350 families. The bishop wanted to consoldate parishes. Immaculate Conception was too small. Sacred Heart unfortunately had a nasty history of not being too friendly to black Catholics who wanted to worship there in the 1950's and 60's. So Most Holy Trinity dating to 1863, but the parish to 1810 and thus the most historic was chosen. Sacred Heart, becasue of its design and location was beloved by all white Augustans, both Protestant and Catholic and was viewed as the symbol of Catholicism in Augusta. While I love Most Holy Trinity and its grand architecture, I would have closed it instead of Sacred Heart and try to heal any wounds of residue racism that existed between the blacks and Sacred Heart parishioners--many Sacred Heart parishioners left the Church when it was closed, but a good number came to Most Holy Trinity and were the backbone of helping to make Most Holy Trinity a very positive, multi-cultural, mixed race parish.
I live just across the river in Aiken and drive by the "cathedral" often. I have attended events there and I felt very awkward...it is a beautiful sanctuary and one can't help marveling in the sense of God's presence. It just doesn't feel right to be there for a party, drink in hand and a band playing from the altar. I missed this performance as I was with my parents in NJ, celebrating their 56 years of marriage.
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