The pastor of Saint James the Less Church in Savannah deserves kudos for the wonderful renovation of its 1980’s very modern church building. I was the MC for Bishop Raymond Lessard who consecrated the new church in the late 1980’s. It was a typical design for a new church in the late 80’s.
The pastor (seen in the last photo speaking from the ambo) is Fr. Dan Firmin, also Vicar General for the Diocese of Savannah. He was one of my altar boys at the Church of the Most Holy Trinity in Augusta between 1991 and about 1998 or so. He studied to become a priest at the North American College in Rome. When I became pastor of St. Joseph Church in Macon in 2004, he was one of two newly ordained parochial vicars who were assigned with me to St. Joseph Church.
He is battling a very serious health issue and with the grace of God and the prayers of so many in his family and in the Church, he is doing amazingly, and I mean amazingly, well. Please say a prayer for his continuing healing. God bless him!
Here is the blah before:
The stunning after:
12 comments:
The organ pipes are gone. What happened to the organ? Is this yet another US Catholic church that doubles as a liturgical piano bar?
Those were faux pipes. At the original consecration in the late 80’s I could never figure why those were there for nothing more than decorative purposes. Maybe the hope was to place a pipe organ there but I can’t remember. They have an electronic organ and more than likely a sappy keyboard. Not sure though.
the fallacy is: "If we can make churches look, sound, and smell like the 40's - that could be the 1940's the 1840's, the 1740's, or the 1640's - we will recreate the Catholic ethos/zeitgeist of the 40's."
Good luck with that.
Very nicely done and I am thrilled there are prie-dieus there for the Faithful to receive Holy Communion on their knees!
GASP! Father Kavanaugh is right again. However, anyone with an ounce of visual ability can easily tell that this church builidng looks NOTHING like any church building from the 1940's. The whole circular slightly elevated sanctuary with no communion rail reeks of post vatican II lay "inclusiveness". "Let's keep those lay folks busy!" Yeah, it's brighter than the previous airport terminal, and has a bit more religious art, but it screams "status quo" at anyone who looks at it critically.
Given the nature of the building, it is a successful putting lipstick on a pig. 🐷
People in glass houses should not throw stones! Your church is pretty bland and non descript
Jerome - The design of the building is entirely contemporary, as you note. And while it looks nothing like churches built in the 1940's - and there's no reason churches built today SHOULD look like churches built in the 1940's - it had a great unity of design. Also, it functioned very well for the celebration of the liturgies. Alas, it was built with almost ZEO storage space. (I was assigned there when the construction had just begun. The slab had been poured, but that was it.)
Yes, the design reflects the ecclesiology of the modern era which is, in my opinion, more biblical and, necessarily, more inclusive. That is, in the modern era, a good thing. Pretending we live in another time and/or place and building for that foreign time/place is an error.
Poor, sad FRMJK, stuck in his Calvinistic 1980’s, the heyday of his priesthood. Wake-up call!! You’r an oldster, as 1980’s dinosaur, for the love of God, the 1940’s was better than the 1980’s. The Romanesque/Gothic revival in church architecture in the late 1800’s gave us several beautiful churches, like our Cathedral, St. Joseph in Macon, Most Holy Trinity in Augusta and a few others in the Diocese of Savannah, to include the now defunct Sacred Heart Church in Augusta. For the love of God and all that is holy, FRMJK, this is 2025 NOT 1980!
What will save you from yourself in your upcoming retirement. When you think the 80’s is better than 2025, you know it is time!
The Doubleknit Dinosaur has emerged, so passe, so yesterday. Personally, I prefer the ethereal, the timeless, the transcendent.
Yet I bet most Catholic Masses today are less Biblical than they were before Vatican Disaster II - the Propers are hardly ever done, with cheesy hymns as a substitute for the Propers!
Fr. AJM,
Indeed!
Nick
St James the less Catholic Church, LOL!
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