Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2012/02/05
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]When Kathy and I met, we were parishioners at Grace Episcopal Church on Canal Street in New Orleans. We married there, Adam was baptized there. I went on the Mariel boat-lift mission to Cuba from there. Grace was closed last month. Kathy and I met our friend Kathy at Mandina's yesterday for lunch before David's funeral. We then walked next door to Grace to reminiscence. Two pictures here: http://sonc.com/look/?p=1698 * Grace Episcopal Church on Canal Street will close next month* Published: Monday, December 12, 2011, 6:30 PM Updated: Monday, December 12, 2011, 6:58 PM By Bruce Nolan, The Times-Picayune Grace Episcopal Church, a fixture on Canal Street in Mid-City for nearly 60 years, will close next month, Episcopal Bishop Morris Thompson said Monday. The Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana hopes the closure is not permanent. It may be able to reopen the church in a year or so after rethinking its mission and gathering new resources, Thompson said. Thompson said he informed Grace?s small congregation of his decision Dec. 4. He said there were fewer 15 people in the pews at one of the two services that morning. A final ?service of suspension? will be Jan. 5, he said. Like other mainline Protestant congregations around Mid-City, Grace was in gradual decline when Hurricane Katrina delivered a hammer blow to the building and its little congregation. At its peak in the 1950s the congregation numbered more than 1,000, said Betty Zachary, a lifelong member and volunteer who keeps the church going today. Zachary said the congregation is financially stable. It owes no debt and enjoys steady rental income by leasing its fellowship hall to several contractors building the nearby Veterans Administration hospital. A number of neighborhood and civic groups, like the Mid-City Neighborhood Association, regularly meet at the church. ?Every night this week we have somebody using the church,? she said. But Thompson said the congregation?s troubles were not primarily financial. With so few members they are unable to sustain the array of spiritual ministries to each other and the community expected of a church, Thompson said. ?Now they?re afraid of losing the building, and they?re doing all they can to save it, but not focusing on mission. They?ve forgot who they are,? he said. But Zachary said the congregation?s attempts to rejuvenate itself have been hampered by the lack of a full-time rector, which they have lacked since the summer of 2008. A recent partnership with St. Anna?s Episcopal Church near the French Quarter did not provide a solution, Thompson and Zachary said. Grace Episcopal holds the status of a ?mission station,? two levels below a fully functioning congregation, Thompson said. Two Sunday services in English and Spanish are led by a priest supplied by the diocese. The congregation dates from 1886. It moved into its current home, at the corner of Canal and South Telemachus streets, in 1954. The church contains two notable murals depicting the Last Supper and the Ascension of Jesus by John McCrady and Alan Flattmann. In 2010 the New Orleans Historic District Landmark Commission designated the building a city landmark, largely on the strength of its design by August Perez. In 1980 two priests from the Grace congregation, the Revs. Joe Doss and Leo Frade, acquired a war surplus submarine tender, renamed it the God?s Mercy and steamed to Cuba, where they picked up 437 refugees desperate to come to the United States. The mission came at the end of the famous Mariel boatlift, a few weeks in which Fidel Castro opened the window to mass emigration from Cuba. Toward the end of the boatlift, the Carter administration closed U.S. ports to the refugees. Doss and Frade were both arrested by federal authorities, but were eventually acquitted. ??????? -- Regards, Sonny http://sonc.com/look/ Natchitoches, Louisiana USA