Jeg har nettopp fått en e-post fra sognepresten i Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church, i Greenville, South Carolina, Fr Longenecker (vi har noe felles, siden vi begge er gifte katolske prester) – han nevner på sin blogg den nye kirken de planlegegr å bygge. Her er tre bilder av den:
Menigheten skriver på sine nettsider om byggeprosessen, bl.a.:
The building we now use for worship at Our Lady of the Rosary parish was built over fifty years as a temporary measure. The Butler building was going to be used as a church for a short time until a church could be built. Then it was going to become the school gym. In the 1970s a gym and middle school were built for the school and the Butler building continued to be used for worship. Over the years it was expanded and renovated several times.
In the early 2000s Fr. Charles Day, who was pastor at the time, formed a building committee and began the project to build the new church. They got as far as the parking lots, then Fr. Day retired. Fr Dac Tran OFM was appointed as parish administrator and continued the work of the building committee.
The committee worked hard and selected an architectural firm. The architects visited the parish and consulted with the parishioners about the sort of church they would like to build. … The process got stalled however, because of Diocesan regulations and bureaucracy. Nevertheless, Fr Dac Tran and the committee made good progress and a basic floor plan and exterior sketch was produced by the architectural firm.In the summer of 2010 Fr. Dwight Longenecker took over as parish priest from Fr Tran. He met with the building committee and sensing that they were not totally happy with the current architect, began to explore the possibility of working with a young church designer in Charleston named Andrew Gould. During the first year of this process the diocese, under the leadership of the new Bishop Guglielmone, established a more workable and parish friendly building policy. …