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Sounds good to me.

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Seems like as they continue to lose members, they’ll only double down and get worse.

It’s a beautiful church. Both of my grandparents’ burial masses were held there. But still, the Catholic Church has only itself to blame for not keeping up with the times. As the old generation of Bloomfielders dies off, the people moving into that neighborhood don’t want pedophile apologists and hard-line conservatives preaching their gospel of hate.

It needs 1M in improvements, to keep the doors open? That’s easily fixed: Sell some gold or icons or land or shopping malls or first editions or diamonds or whatever the church leadership invests in, hoards, or profits from. Earthly treasures aren’t equal to heavenly ones; they don’t need to be stored up and archived or saved or savored because that never ensures that living, breathing human beings are given the succor, care or assistance they truly need.

The church is the people, not the money, trappings, treasures, gold chasubles, red hats, silver crosses, or extravagant buildings. “Wherever three or more are gathered in His name, He is there”.

Somebody in charge literally needs a Jesus moment of their own, to figure out their true calling and motivation in life.

I posted mostly because the church is a historic landmark in Bloomfield and with it’s possible closure that means the future of the building is uncertain. I hope that whatever happens with it, it won’t be torn down.

I hope it does get torn down. It would be a nice ending to this chapter of "people are important, not places" and "Catholic churches are a reminder of childhood sexual abuse for those who suffered it."

If the church closes, it's someone else's problem to deal with, and I'm not keen on any amount of public money being spent on preserving a religious building.

Tear it down, move on.

Church condos coming soon ! Highly priced

Time to close both Immaculate Conception and St. Joseph’s and stop this madness. Cut your losses

Old churches have been transformed into other uses that don’t use public funds. Church Brew Works is a great example.

Immaculate Conception closed last spring.

Then it's incumbent upon the owners of the building to get it into a condition where it can sell to someone else who will use the property. Church Brew Works came about because someone purchased the building and poured money into it to turn it into what it is today. It didn't happen by accident.

If they're closing because they can't fund almost $2M in renovations, it's not likely that they're gonna throw on a fresh coat of paint before the For Sale sign goes up. So the responsible thing to do would be demolition, instead of letting it sit there, rot, and become an eyesore that Bloomfield needs to deal with.

The priest wanted to keep this church open when he closed "the Mac" (ICA), but the parishioners decided to appeal the closure to the Vatican (??), and now the parish has to keep the Mac from falling apart during a multi-year legal appeal process. The parishioners screwed themselves over by appealing the closure of the Mac - the property could have been sold to West Penn for enough to cover the costs of the St. Joseph renovations and repairs. It's a shame/loss for Bloomfield's Catholic community, but it could have been easily avoidable.

Have you ever looked at real estate for sale? There are plenty of buildings that are sold ‘As is’ all the time. Whoever buys the building then pays for the renovations to meet their needs. It would be foolish to demolish this church on a whim.

The last thing we need is seeing our taxpayer dollars prop this place up if it closes when we have more pressing matters such as decaying bridges, potholes, and schools that need funding

Churches are also a place of solidarity and community. Now and then. Especially in a place like Bloomfield where it was a brief reprieve from what was otherwise a dismal, corporate-industrial existence.

Personally though, I’d rather not see it torn down for aesthetic reasons. What tends to replace things like this are blocky, function-over-form buildings. Or perhaps a crumbling lot.

Repurpose the building into something the community of Bloomfield will enjoy and move on.

I actually read the link and don’t see any mention of public money being used to rehab it, no idea what that other person is talking about?

Is there any indication that West Penn would be interested? They already own a fair amount of vacant land that they could build on.

In their annual reports they've indicated they want more land surrounding the hospital. A lot of the vacant land that they own has projects in the works (new parking structure, etc)

Who even said anything about taxpayer dollars?

Where is this taxpayer money thing coming from. The article mentions they would be open to fundraising or donations.

Are you against “taxpayer dollars” going to student bake sales and car washes too, if that’s what you consider taxpayer dollars?

It's not just the parishioners they are moving right of, the Vatican now looks liberal in comparison.

The church has fallen a long way from its being on the right side of history during the civil rights area.

Also, protecting all those pedo priests for decades certainly drove away a lot of people.

I really hope this church doesn’t get turned into a parking lot.

When this church inevitably closes since it’s hard to raise $1.6 million for repairs from just the community, taxpayer dollars will come in to maintain the building to make sure it’s not a public hazard to pedestrians. The Catholic Church should just their loses, tear it down, and move on

So “out of your ass” is the answer then. Got it.

This perspective destroys our common history and gets us trendy disasters like Posvar Hall… or worse, a multistory single use parking garage.

If you walk down Liberty Ave, you can go drink beer and eat in a repurposed church. You don’t have to be Catholic to appreciate that the biggest, oldest, most artfully designed and constructed buildings in our neighborhoods have intrinsic value and might be worth preserving. Larimer and Garfield are both making efforts to use public and private means to repair and repurpose a church and a synagogue, for example.

There is also an old public school is Larimer that is being turned into housing. Not sure who is funding it.

Cause repurposing and retrofitting old buildings is fucking cool.

Agree my friend, agree.

Hopefully some shit comedian doesn't purchase it and paint a mural on it.

You sound triggered. You good?

I think that poster is referring to the other church, behind the bank, and using the money for the brick one on liberty. It's not really architecturally significant not even visually appealing, plus the school is gone. Obviously, they'd remove the important religious stuff.

Oh man, church brew works sucks so hard these days. Such a great idea and space, so run down and poorly executed

I think the old Immaculate Conception would make a really cool restaurant or event space. Again I would like this over a parking lot.

Turn into another brewery

The Catholic Church has really never been on the right side of history. It's been full of greed and is always self-serving, even if the Papacy presented otherwise.

The Civil Rights era was an anomaly.

All Catholic Churches in Pittsburgh were consolidated to create bigger parishes containing multiple churches beginning a few years ago

Yeah the American clergy is particularly conservative, both compared to their parishioners as well as compared to clergy members in a lot of other countries

No, they're mad that someone who bought property is exercising their right to use it in the way they want.

Converting churches into homeless housing would do more good than any church could do otherwise.

Good, tear it down and build affordable housing, then the church will be good for something other than kid-fucking.

I live in an area where there are three RC parishes within blocks of one another, each with a church and school building (only one of which is in use for one part of a regional RC elementary school). There used to be four parishes, but maybe 15 years ago or so, one that was already combined with a neighboring parish was finally closed and the church sold.

In 2020, a tornado came through and tore half of the roof off of one church and damaged the structure of one of the steeples. The church and (unused) school were the smallest of the three. I am a member of the parish, and have been since we moved here when I was a kid. I have a lot of memories there (most good; serving with a weird priest who we later found out was into young boys, not so much). I haven’t been able to figure out why we were keeping all of these churches and buildings. Well, tornado causes a massive amount of damage, ok, this will be the thing to push the diocese to do something.

They did something alright. They decided to spend millions of dollars to restore and repair the damage. You know, so the local parishioners can continue to be saddled with maintaining three large physical plants that all have large utility bills and maintenance needs. And then we get pestered every month or so with notices saying, “Look what we did for you! Now you need to donate more money to us because we lost members and things are expensive! And we need to maintain these buildings!”

Imagine what a couple of million dollars could have done for local folks in need? Imagine how much better the available income could support the physical buildings if there were fewer buildings?

After this massive waste of resources, I can’t help but see even more clearly that we’ve lost our way. We care more about buildings and things and prestige than we do about people. I know that has been an ongoing theme among church leadership for a long time, but when it makes it all the way down to the local parishes, it is really pretty sad.

I was going to say, look at all that parking in back, but it appears to belong to Pittsburgh Parking Authority, aside from the lot directly behind the church?

Wait somebody was actually mad about the Stanton Heights mural?

One of those Pedos is still a big shot in town - David Zubik. Makes me want to vomit. He is reprehensible scum.

Say what you want about the Roman Catholic Church, but please do not forget that this decision impacts real people.

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Why renovate the old building, when MAC is ADA, has air conditioning, and is in better shape?

Because it does t look “church-y” enough for some people.

The diocese closed St. Bart’s in Penn Hills because it needed too much repair, but on the webpage for its sale, the Diocese touts how good of condition it is all in. The tangled web of lies, where the truth is unknown. Don’t trust the Diocese PR people for the truth.

And didn’t St. Joseph’s sell the land behind it, because the Diocese/Parish couldn’t figure out how to make money on a parking lot in Bloomfield. Like WTF. And what did they do with the land, make it a paid parking lot.

Apparently there are others local to me closing, according to a community page.

I get that people may feel disappointed that it's happening, but so many people, even in my wife's church can't do simple mathematics.

If a church doesn't bring in more than it costs to run, it will close eventually. My wife's church will probably close in 5 years just from the math of revenue/expenses.

The MAC has a school attached to it, and the boiler for the church is in the school so they can't just sell off the school. Instead they have to maintain a lot more space at the MAC than they would at St. Joseph's. I watched the priest's hour long presentation this week on it, and he said the cost of renovations to both buildings were comparable (but I suspect they thought they could get more money for the MAC due to it's size and location)

I hope all the churches shut down. Tired of my tax dollars going to help these pedophile circuses . They used ppp loans to payoff kids who got raped by priest. DISGUSTING

Those seem like contradictory statements. Other christian demonations are waaaaaaay more conservative than Catholics in everything except abortion really.

altar boys included?

Big surprise... people realizing the thing they supported for decades is nothing more than a haven for pedos... and then they wonder why their membership has shrank. Use the money to actually HELP people, you don't need an ornate building for that.

I just don’t trust them. They had a priest at st. Barts who’s now a bishop, fleece old people for statues and more statues instead of fixing the property, which the diocese then said, oh it’s in such disrepair. But the $10,000’s in statues were ok instead. Those old people thought they were donating to something g that would comfort people for the ages, and they were just fleeced.

A separate boiler would still cost less than the “renovations” of the old building.

Yes.

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same with the vacant bank across the street.

How I love to see this. Hey Catholics. Where is your fucking shame?

Curious why you think the Mac is worth more? The lot sizes are comparable, but St Joe's is on the main drag. I think for most uses, both sites would need to be demolished. St Joe's could maybe saved with the right buyer (ala Churchberw).

How’s that?

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But not many of them, because there aren't enough to keep the church open.

Wow

I thought the lot would be bigger for the MAC since it includes the school, the rectory, and the parking lot, but St. Joseph sold the parking lot behind it years ago and is just the church itself.

Episcopalians and Lutherans exists. Very similar services and creeds, but a lot more liberal.

Guarantee that the church in Morningside will be the next in the city to close. They’re already combined with Sacred Heart.

We could use a new distillery since the wiggle sale...

Who do you expect will buy the building, and have the million dollars in capital for it's repairs? New restaurants don't tend to have that kind of money to spare after their other startup costs.

It'd be one thing if the building was in good condition and closed due to lack of attendance alone, but being realistic here, it's going to sit vacant until a developer buys it to tear it down.

I like old architecture but not so much schiesters that will transfer child rapists. Let religion die. Let's get more businesses paying Allegheny County taxes to make up for nonprofits.

Church Breworks is sucking, let's inject capitalism.

The same church that helped Nazi escape criminal charges?

Bet it's going to be a gym

The God Squad

Correct me if I’m wrong, but churches were usually designed with beauty, acoustics, and religious function in mind, not sustainability, insulation, and housing operations. I’m sure they could be adapted into housing, but that’s be some pretty expensive grounds to upkeep.

Open floor plans are all the rage these days. And anyway I'd take bad a beautiful designed building with good acoustics over sleeping on the street any day of the week.

God’s Quads

Lol damn you're miserable

Have you looked up all the churches that have been repurposed in the Pittsburgh area? Church Brew Works, This is Red, The Dragon’s Den, Mary’s Vine and Matthew’s Lofts are all churches that have been transformed into business or living spaces. I highly doubt all of those buildings were sold in pristine condition without renovations.

I just hope it gets used for something good. There are so many beautiful church buildings in the city, and many of them don’t have historical status yet, so I’m afraid they’ll be left to rot and turned into a parking lot or something. St George in Allentown and St Canice in Knoxville are good examples of beautiful buildings that have been sitting there. I’ve been hoping St Canice and the old Catholic school across from it could be turned into apartments and community space for years.

There are several churches in the area that have been turned into housing, restaurants, of concert venues in the city and the area. Don’t know about the cost, but it’s definitely doable. There’s a lot of space to work with

Hell they could also reach out to the other thriving church communities in pgh who do local fellowship and have helped rebuild churches and homes in the past but i dont think they ever would. Too much of a hatred for liberal protestants

they already got impacted.

There was an interesting presentation (virtual) by Preservation Pennsylvania about the MAC's architecture last weekend. Hope they can reuse the building (fix the roof, etc.) no matter the fate of it.

All these down votes from shameless Catholics. Disgusting