Rebuilding of Church Is a Test of Patience

The faithful come early, mostly alone, trudging across an unlighted parking lot as the dawn drains darkness from the sky. They move purposefully toward double doors in the center of a large white tent and then slip inside, blessing themselves and mumbling greetings as they drift to one of the 800 empty wooden seats.

There will be about 30 worshipers in all by the time the daily 6:30 a.m. Mass begins at Fullerton’s St. Philip Benizi Church. Unlike the throngs who pack the tent-church on Sundays, most of these worshipers come every morning, a display of devotion and piety that they shrug off as an inherent part of belief. “God gives you 24 hours a day,” parishioner Carlito Alvarado, 57, said. “To give 30 minutes seems reasonable.”

And to pray in a tent seems reasonable too.

Fifteen months after a suspected arson gutted the church sanctuary, the members of this 43-year-old parish have progressed from homelessness to a state of settled impermanence.

The remains of the old building were not torn down until last month, the empty space yet another fresh reminder of the pain of loss. Plans to rebuild have evolved at an equally deliberate pace, slowed by conflicting visions of what and where the new church should be, two hip-replacement surgeries for the parish priest and the broader distractions that have weighed on the rest of the nation since Sept. 11.

Still, on this long national weekend of thanks, only two months after a national day of mourning, the faithful of St. Philip Benizi believe they have a lot to be thankful for.

Yes, the sanctuary is gone. Yes, they conduct their sacred Masses behind cloth walls that pulsate in the breeze and on a concrete floor that tortures aging knees. But these are just temporary things, fickle and physical, not the stuff of the soul itself.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Gracy Krajacic, wrapped in a purple sweater against the early-morning chill. “The structure doesn’t matter. The church is within.”

Krajacic talked for a few minutes about the nourishment she receives from the morning Mass, how it gives her “the inner strength to contend with the difficulties we face” in the secular day.

Yes, she agreed, there is a lot to be thankful for this week. Family. Faith. “And,” she said, “the fact that we’re going forward to build a new church.”

‘Anything Bad Can Turn to Good Eventually’

The flames that destroyed St. Philip Benizi’s sanctuary began near the altar the afternoon of Aug. 17, 2000. The fire was small when discovered at 2:21 p.m. but by the time firefighters put it out an hour later, the building was a roofless skeleton of blackened brick walls and charred wooden beams.

It was the second arson at the church complex in three months. The first was the act of a couple of elementary school-age youngsters who torched a church classroom, causing $7,500 damage. The youths, who were arrested and prosecuted in the Juvenile Court system, also set fire to a nearby church, Fullerton Det. Mike Montgomery said.

But the cause of St. Philip Benizi’s second, more devastating fire remains a mystery.

“It’s a case that’s been closed for the most part for lack of leads,” Montgomery said this week. “It was of suspicious nature, and they listed it as arson. . . . Whether it was intentional or accidental is unknown, but it was a man-made fire.”

Oddly, there is little talk of frustration among parishioners, or demands for retribution. Many would like the fire-starter caught and punished. But others try not to give much thought to whoever was to blame.

“People have been very hopeful, in the belief that anything bad can turn to good eventually,” said Tim Kremen, an assistant pastor and one of four Servite brothers at St. Philip Benizi. “It’s just one of those things that happens that can’t be undone.”

Krajacic, given to quick and broad smiles, doesn’t see the sense in dwelling on guilt and justice.

“You have to stay above it,” she said as she greeted a passing parishioner with a smile. “You have to stay above the technicalities and difficulties of the day and stay focused on progress.”

Size of Sanctuary Isn’t in Dispute but Site Is

Everyone agrees the new sanctuary should be bigger than the old one. It’s the other details that haven’t quite gelled.

In the months after the fire, a number of families drifted away from the parish, unwilling to put up with the discomfort of worshiping in a tent. But a proposed 1,250-unit housing development on the former Hughes site less than a mile north of the church would mean an infusion of up to 300 new families into the 2,100-family parish, Kremen said.

The old sanctuary--and the tent--could seat 800; the new sanctuary will seat 1,200. But where those seats will be is a tougher call. The original sanctuary was on the eastern edge of the church property. Diocesan officials want the sanctuary built at the southwestern edge, near Gilbert Street. Parish leaders want it on a third spot, where the rectory currently stands.

In the end, Kremen said, the new sanctuary will probably be built right where it used to be, just larger and modernized.

The bigger issue is money.

Cost estimates for the building, yet to be designed, run about $7 million, Kremen said. An insurance settlement for the destroyed building totals about $1.7 million. A second settlement covering the lost contents is still being negotiated, he said.

The parish has raised some money through carnivals and other fund-raisers, but it amounts to pennies compared with the dollars needed. Church officials hope most of the money they need, maybe as much as $5 million, will come from the Diocese of Orange. But those decisions are still months away, Kremen said.

Eventually, these trying times for the parish will fade into a dusty memory, a scrapbook of pictures tracking the progression from sanctuary to fire to tent to new sanctuary. For now, though, the pain of loss and the test of faith remain fresh.

“It was like losing a part of your life,” said Alvarado, who has raised his family within the church for two decades. “Most of the major events of our lives involved the church.”

A Parable About the Price of Personal Faith

The 30 worshipers are seated now. A woman walks to a lectern at the front of the tent, where spotlights dangling from steel roof beams illuminate the altar.

The woman begins reading slowly from the Catholic Bible. It’s a story about Eleazar, an elderly scribe in the days before the birth of Christ who goes to his death rather than disobey the word of his God. The passage is a parable about the price of personal faith.

As the woman’s voice fades with the reading’s last words, she steps away from the lectern while Kremen takes his own place near the altar.

The priest talks about how easily children pick up adult mannerisms, from bad language to bad habits, and about the Eleazar’s lesson about the depths of faith. His words wrestle with the roar of traffic from outside the cloth walls but he forges ahead, winning the battle by a few decibels. We all learn from others, he said, even as we teach others by our own deeds. That is why we must lead lives of goodness, so that we may teach goodness.

It’s a short Mass, lasting about 30 minutes, and when it ends the faithful gather their belongings and filter out the door into the day, where the low morning sun bathes the front of the tent in gold light.

For Krajacic, this day--like all others--is a day to hope, and from hope, she believes, will come good because goodness is desired. Just as the new sanctuary will be built simply because the parishioners have faith that it will be so.

All they need do, she said, is to stay above those “technicalities” that mark routine life. And to realize, as on this sun-drenched morning, that there is a lot for which to give thanks.