ARTICLES

Smoke Screens

East County Parishioners Fear Post-Fire Renovation

By Robert Kumpel

Parishioners at St. Louise de Marillac in Crest were attending their first post-fire Mass in the parking lot next to their fire-damaged church November 2nd when their pastor, Father Robert Irwin, told them that there would be an important meeting after Mass in the parish hall to discuss "the future of the parish."

Parishioners were told that Bishop Brom had visited the parish the previous Wednesday, October 29, with an entourage that included members of the diocesan construction committee. Brom reportedly "showed visible emotion" when he visited the parish, and an architect has already been hired by the diocese to rebuild the church.

More than one parishioner questioned why the bishop was so concerned with St. Louise's when the damage only consists of a few singed pews, a burnt roof, and a destroyed organ plus some surface damage. Generally speaking, the church structure remained intact. Although a inventory of the damage has not been completed, a parishioner with professional building experience estimated the structural damage at approximately $40,000.

After Irwin shared the bishop's concern for the parishioners' pain, he hit them with the next blow: since the church is "underinsured," the parish would only be covered for $100,000 damage, and each family in the parish would be expected to pledge $2,500 toward the rebuilding of the church over the next two years.

Ellen Cargrove (not her real name) who was present at the meeting: "The first thing I thought about the bishop was "You S.O.B.! After all these people have lost their homes, and five days after the fire you have the nerve to ask us to come up with this kind of money when they don't even have a home!' I don't blame Father Irwin. The bishop obviously made him ask for this. I mean, there are people in that parish and all over Crest who have absolutely nothing. They've lost everything. And he expects us to pay more? Father Irwin told us to get on the phone, write letters and ask anyone we could think of to help us meet the $2,500 obligation. There was a lady sitting next to me -- a lady with some money I might add -- who told me that she came to this parish because the church was traditional and she told me that if they planned on changing it they weren't going to get a penny from her."

Why would $40,000 damage necessitate raising hundreds of thousands of dollars? Another St. Louise parishioner, Alicia Miller (not her real name), says that the plans are not to repair but rebuild the parish. "Father Irwin's exact words were, 'I am committed to rebuilding this church.' He wants to take the existing rectory, a small building, and turn it into a sacristy with offices. Of course, that would entail the priest not living on parish grounds, so a home would have to be found elsewhere in the community for Father. And why would the sacristy be separate from the church? The church itself would be changed so that the organ would be moved from the back to the front and the pews would be removed and replaced with modular seating. Our pews are beautifully carved, solid and huge. A couple of them got singed, but not destroyed. All they would need is some re-finishing."

Besides the changes to the church, Irwin announced plans to build a "spiritual center" on parish grounds -- a puzzling proposal since St. Louise is such a small parish that only two Sunday Masses (and a Saturday vigil) are offered each weekend. "When Father Irwin mentioned a 'spiritual center,'" Miller recalls, "I was alarmed because it reminded me of what happened to the Latino parishioners at the Centro Guadalupano chapel in Pauma Valley last year. Bishop Brom closed that chapel, even though the parishioners had been going there for nearly thirty years and were perfectly happy with it, and forced them to start attending Mass at a new 'multi-purpose center' on the Pala Indian Reservation."

Miller also questions why an architect had already been hired before parishioners were even told about him. "The way the renovation process normally works is that they ask parishioners for input and pretend to listen to them even though they already have their own plans. But this time they're not even going through that usual perfunctory facade.

"Time and time again, this diocese has muscled parishes into accepting renovations they do not need or want under the guise of liturgical renewal. We'll have to watch every move closely. If it is a matter of simply repairing the church, the parishioners can do it by pooling their talents and resources. We just put a new septic system in a couple months ago, and we were having 'work parties' to complete other repairs before the fire happened."

Joel King, the diocese's full time architect, denies that the diocese plans to renovate the parish. "It's going to get repaired. We don't have any renovation plans as far as the fire repair goes. We went out with the bishop on Wednesday, the day after and hired a structural engineer to poke around the roof that week. We're getting his repair recommendation probably this week (the first week of November). We're also going to be talking to Catholic Mutual, our adjuster, about putting the church back together." When pressed about the spiritual center, King said,. "I don't know anything about that."

On November 10, Herrera called back this reporter. "We had a meeting yesterday with Father Irwin," he explained, "and they've changed the entire thing. Now they're just going to fix the damage to the church and get it back up to snuff. They're not going to move the organ or change the rectory or build a spiritual center -- that's all been scratched. They're going to make it just like it was. I think a bunch of people got on the horn and called the diocese and expressed their discontent and obviously, the bishop listened."

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