An electronic security device, its red light blinking out at banks of empty pews, has replaced the priest at the altar of the recently closed St. Liborius Catholic Church.
Stained glass windows that would cost $77,000 merely to caulk are covered with sheets of plastic. The boilers soon will be shut down, the water pipes drained. There have been several offers to buy the huge, century-old pipe organ.
Founded in 1856, St. Liborius, is being mothballed.
Once called the ”Cathedral of the North Side,” it faces an uncertain future shared by more than a dozen other historic churches in north St. Louis. Another church, Holy Guardian Angels, also closed recently when it merged with St. Vincent DePaul parish on the Near South Side.
A plan under consideration by the St. Louis archdiocese would create 11 new parishes from 27, most of them on the North Side. For those wrestling with the problem, that is the preferred way of putting it.
Put another way, as many as 16 churches might be closed.
It`s all a sign of the troubled times that have forced the archdiocese to consider closing other churches that once anchored many of the city`s ethnic neighborhoods.
Large inner city congregations have all but disappeared, leaving their mammoth Gothic and Romanesque churches behind as relics to a past that vanished with the flight to the suburbs. With the loss of parishioners came the inevitable ”collection plate blues.”
St. Louis isn`t unique. Similar ghosts, many of them rich in striking architectural detail, stand tall in almost every Rust Belt city in the country.
”The people just aren`t here anymore,” lamented Herman Zanitsch, 76, part-time custodian at St. Liborius. ”Everybody ran out to the country. It got to the point we were only getting 20 people for Sunday mass.”
Talk of closings and proposed mergers has proved an emotional, potentially divisive issue, and fears also have been voiced that
architecturally significant buildings might have a date with the wrecking ball.
Some, like St. Liborius, are on the National Register of Historic Places. Many preservationists regard the fate of Sacred Heart Church, a city landmark, as a grim example of what can happen.
The white-stone church with the copper, octagonal dome was closed by the archdiocese and sold to a real estate developer for $1. After several fires, it was finally leveled in 1986.
”We`re very concerned” about the proposed closings, said Carolyn Toft, executive director of the Landmarks Association of St. Louis Inc. ”I hope the architectural and cultural significance of each building will be carefully weighed.”
Father Robert Reiker, who is spearheading the archdiocese`s reorganization efforts, said St. Ann`s, with stained glass appraised at $500,000, marble walls and a vaulted ceiling, might be a good candidate for mothballing, but he wondered about the consequences of trying to save too many obsolete churches.
Two or three perhaps, but not 10 or more. Their windows and doors boarded or bricked up, these churches would be doomed, he said, to stand on their hilltops surrounded by vacant lots for years to come.
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”That would be a pretty depressing image for any neighborhood trying to make a comeback,” Reiker said.
The archdiocese has yet to decide whether the closed churches will be sold, torn down or preserved, he said.