Its distant cousin, shown at left from Google street view, is the Historic Sacred Heart Chapel in Covina, CA, currently a wedding venue, formerly a Catholic church, which, based on remarks on the Facebook page of the Our Lady of Grace OSCP group-in-formation, that group is somehow saving up to purchase. My interest was piqued when I mentioned it in yesterday's post.
The first question that occurred to me was how a group of two dozen or so (I'm sure they'll immediately scream, "WRONG!! We had 38 on Christmas!!") can possibly come up with the money to buy this property. The address listed on the web site linked above is 126 S 5th Ave, Covina, but this appears to be the adjoining property that must have been a rectory at some point. It's apparently still of a piece with the chapel. Possibly it's where the business maintains its office, and perhaps also the owner's residence.
Whether it would sell with the chapel is an open question, but Zillow gives its value as $1,102,070. This would at least place a range for market value of the property, in whole or part, of seven figures. I asked in yesterday's post if they intend to come up with this kind of money via desultory $20 checks. But according to my regular correspondent, they're already undertaking renovations, so they must be serious.
My regular correspondent does put this in the context of other Bartus projects:
This is the same man who blueskyed a Rosary Chapel of Our Lady of Walsingham or some such at the Santiago Retreat Center, where his protégé Fr Baaten is the Chaplain. Twelve Guardians putting up some hefty sum for a perpetual endowment---the details elude me but I'll look them up. Also a K-12 school, for which they were seeking a Director. Now he can barely find Blessed John Henry Newman Irvine on a map. He has been fortunate in finding a sugar daddy for the Holy Martyrs refit but as you say this is a rental, no more permanent than BJHN's tenancy at the Queen of Life Chapel.But let's put the best possible face on this and assume Fr Bartus has found another angel to front up very serious money for this building. The information on the web site says it dates from 1911. As someone who was briefly a parish treasurer, I shudder. How long until it needs a new roof, new HVAC, paint and gutters? What do utilities and insurance run per month? New organ? Currently Fr Jack Barker, retired from the Diocese of San Bernardino, is serving as priest, so his medical costs and living expenses are on someone else's dime, and he's probably just getting a three-digit honorarium each week. But that won't last forever.
And this is for how many people? As of 2011, parish expenses for a similar building, St Mary of the Angels Hollywood, were $1620 for utilities, $2300 for insurance, $1200 for cleaning, $100 for a groundskeeper, and $850 as a reserve for plumbing and other emergencies. My calculator says this comes to $6070; let's round it off to $6000. (Don't need cleaning, you say? What about coffee hour?) And that reminds me I've left out pest control, termite control, and trash collection. I betcha the place already has termites and rats.
If there are two dozen pledging entities, each will need to pledge $250 per month to cover this sort of expense. We can quibble about the exact amounts in each category, but you're still talking in the mid four figures per month no matter what. $250 a month would put a pledging family at the very top tier of just about any parish. (But I can't get around the feeling that the sort of millennials Fr Bartus attracts are pretty cheap.) Whoops! I didn't mention a music program at all, did I?
My regular correspondent tells me Bp Lopes has already visited here, so he must be in the loop, and I've got to assume this is all OK with him. But this just confirms once again that he simply doesn't have a staff in Houston that's anywhere equivalent to what a normal diocesan chancery has, and it's clearly a continuing problem.
If there's an angel behind this -- willing to front seven figures to purchase the property, six more to renovate it, and then an ongoing five figures each year just to keep the lights on, the floor swept, and the lawn mowed, what's the motive for this kind of boutique effort? Vanity? Spite? ("I'll show that bishop, I will!") Are you sure there's no better use for that money?
But I still can't get over what an ugly building this is.
