When I was growing up in Greentree and Carnegie, there were quite a few Catholic churches. I played the organ all through High School at Saint Joseph's...an old German parish with the school on the first floor, and the church on the second. It had the big white Gothic altars, beautiful stained glass, great old pipe organ...they tore it down about 15 years ago. Holy Souls was Italian, and I remember watching them light the hundreds of red vigil candles that surrounded the windows on Christmas Eve...they tore it down about 25 years ago and built a modern church on the site then closed it a few years ago after the flood in Carnegie.
Saint Lukes was Irish I think, a pretty old church that was "remodeled" in the sixties, and became an unusually ugly "worship site". It sustained a major damage in the flood and was closed. Immaculate Conception was a relatively modern building also, and it eventually just seemed to disappear and closed.
That left Carnegie with Saint Ignatius...actually a pretty church with lots of statues and beautiful stained glass. They're closing it now.
The new church is actually the old St Luke's building, but the project involved making the front of the church the back and the back the front. Big..strange..switch a roo. The project cost around seven million dollars. The new space isn't ugly. It's not one of those spaces that you walk into and sense a Sacred Place. Its bright, clean, carpeted ( bad for music ) and plain.
I'm a real snob when it comes to churches. I love those places where something seems to happen when you first walk in the door. I like to light a candle for my deceased loved ones, see the light through the stained glass, and be inspired by the statues of those familiar saints. I can appreciate nice meeting halls and auditoriums, but I loved the "uncommon" experience of going to church....those gorgeous places where the sights and the sounds and even the language was "uncommon". I've gotten accustomed to pianos and nice comfy seats and good sound systems, but I can get that in a lecture hall. I miss so much in these new "worship sites" with new names and new changes.
I wish they'd have asked me to design a seven million dollar CHURCH. sigh
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