Seeking Salvation for a Closed Church

St. Albertus is a sacred place for Theresa Manning, the place where she prayed as a little girl, her son was baptized and her mother had her wedding and funeral.

But St. Albertus is a church no more. The Detroit diocese closed it in 1989 because of a shrinking congregation.

“I figured once they consecrated a church it would be there forever and ever . . . until it brought itself down,” Manning said inside the empty church, her voice ringing in the marble interior.

Rows of pews that could accommodate 1,200 sit empty before what used to be the altar. A vessel that held the relics of saints is barren. A faulty boiler leaves the church with a wintry chill. Gritty chunks of plaster have fallen from the spiraling Gothic ceiling.

So Manning and other former church members are trying to preserve the 112-year-old building. They gather weekly to work on boarding up windows in the school, cleaning and painting the church and rectory, and making sure the old boiler is running.

“This is my heritage. This is me. This is how I was brought up,” Manning said. “I cannot see something that was part of my heritage destroyed.”

St. Albertus is one of many religious buildings that went up during the U.S. population booms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when construction materials were cheap and abundant.

The result was a flowering of structures, often built to mimic some of the radiant churches of Europe. Many were bedecked with elegant sculpture, marble floors, fine paintings and brilliant stained glass.

“These are the creme de la creme of buildings, because people invested their souls into them and spared no expense,” said A. Robert Jaeger, co-director of Partners for Sacred Places, a Philadelphia preservation group.

But many of the buildings were left behind as people fled cities for the suburbs. In some cases, new faithful may revitalize an abandoned church or synagogue. Others are no better equipped than their predecessors to handle building upkeep.

“There are more treasures to maintain than there are people to maintain them,” said Katherine Clarkson, executive director of Preservation Wayne, a Detroit-area group. “We’ve gone from being a very tightly woven city to being a very thin muslin.”

Some aging church buildings are beyond repair.

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At Temple of the Good Samaritan in Detroit, a former pastor split the church in half, building a false ceiling to save heating costs. Marooned in the upstairs of the 1873 red-brick church is the top of its original sanctuary with vaulted ceilings, the original brass-pipe organ, ornamental light fixtures and stained-glass windows.

The 107-member Pentecostal congregation is saving money for a new building after struggling to maintain the former St. Paul German Evangelical Lutheran’s decaying roof and malfunctioning furnace. Twelve companies have refused to insure the building.

Returning the church to its previous form is out of the question, church members said. Their hope is that the city will purchase the property for new development.

“To maintain the building or to even bring it up to code . . . would be very costly for us,” said Pastor Jose Hernandez through an interpreter.

After St. Albertus closed, the nonprofit Detroit Landmarks bought the property from the diocese for less than $100 on behalf of the Polish American Historic Site Assn.

As Manning and her group work to preserve the building, there’s talk of converting the rectory into a hospice and using the church as a religious museum or as space for concerts or for the diocese. But for now, group members hold a monthly Mass, give tours, occasionally rent out the space and raise money to maintain the building.

“There is no steady, weekly income,” said Michael Krolewski, the association president. “I think we’re pretty steady now, but it’s a challenge on a daily basis.”

Whatever the fate of the 1885 building, Krolewski said he is certain it will never be a Catholic parish again. But Manning is less certain. “We can never say never,” she said.