Saint Joseph Church, Macon:
Sacred Heart Church, Tampa:
Sacred Heart Church, (now cultural center) Augusta:
exterior of Sacred Heart, Augusta:
exterior of Sacred Heart in Galveston after a hurricane destroyed it in the early 20th century. It certainly looks like Augusta's Sacred Heart!
Bishop Lessard considered tearing down Augusta's Sacred Heart once it was closed in 1970. The outcry from everyone in Augusta, not just Catholics, was so loud, he simply sold it. The Knox Foundation, run by a Methodist family, purchased it, restored it and it is now a cultural center. But this would have been Augusta's Sacred Heart fate not by a hurricane but by a wrecking ball!
7 comments:
Tampa looks WAY taller tha the others. Is that an optical illusion? I've actually been there, but can't recall if it is really that high inside...
I have never been there, but I think it is taller, grander and sturdier. It’s transept is wider as there are additional side altars similar to our Cathedral.
Thank God Fr. Vosko wasn't around in those days!
Actually Sacred Heart of Augusta closed in 1971, July, The last regular Mass there was July 4 of all days! I actually went to a wedding there the Saturday after the last regular Mass, for a couple whose wedding date had been arranged there before the announced closure. Thanks to the Knox family for preserving it---a miracle it did not collapse after years of neglect before then! The migration of many Augustans to the Hill, especially after the fires and floods downtown during World War 1, eventually spelled the end of the parish, much as the rise of autos in the 1920s led to the demise of most streetcar systems in the US by World War 2.
I suppose Holy Trinity stayed open (instead of Sacred Heart) because the former was considered less costly to maintain and in better condition.
It would not have been so bitter to close Sacred Heart if Most Holy Trinity, aka, St. Patrick would have been closed. It was crazy to close Immaculate Conception Church but keep the elementary school at that location. Sacred Heart was Augusta’s Cathedral. Huge rectory and convent and school building. MHT had only the church building and a small ranch style house more like a double wide trailer which I had torn down. And that was it!
I'm from Tampa and yes it is a stunning church and for some odd reason was NOT wreckovated by the Jesuits, which they did to all of the churches after the Second Vatican Council, it is perfect for the TLM but they don't offer it there which is no surprise. However the Latin Mass does have a home base in Tampa not far from Sacred Heart its call Epiphany of Our Lord Church it is the stronghold of the Latin Mass in Tampa should anyone like to visit.
Curious as to when your picture of Sacred Heart, Augusta was taken. Car in background perhaps suggests a 1940s make? Unfortunately the Calhoun Expressway, which ends literally at footsteps of the old church, later was built in front of it, marring the view from across Greene Street. The Calhoun Expressway has to be one of the world's shortest expressways, at about two and a half miles long, and it seems like River Watch Parkway, built in the late 1980s, has diverted some traffic off of it.
And with regard to the bishop of Augusta (Savannah) at the time, Gerald Frey, I wonder if the reaction to the church closure had something to do with his being transferred to a diocese in Louisiana (LaFayette I think) less than a year and a half later. His 5 or so years as bishop was one of the shortest tenures as a bishop for that diocese.
Post a Comment