Monday, January 29, 2007

Pastor's green ideas could renew Gothic Revival church

Whitney Gould in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel talks with Rev. Mark McDonough, pastor of Calvary Presbyterian Church in downtown Milwaukee. It's an old and now very small congregation with an old church which he'd like to fit with solar panels, a roof garden, and solar tubes.
"We're not about maintaining museums; we're in the business of giving life. And it would be easier to open the doors to new members if I could pay the heat bill."

He can't open the figurative doors of evangelization because opening the physical doors would let the heat out. Some Catholic pastors might be able to match the equivocation and the rationalization, but not many could do it in so few words.

6 comments:

  1. This is unrelated but...I recently came across this this, which surprised me because I thought Milwaukee was a bastion of liberaldom.

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  2. TS--Abp Dolan is NOT a "liberal."

    He is conservative with his time in Milwaukee--that is, he's not here all that much.

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  3. Be nice if someone came up with a scorecard as to who's who among bishops, as far as assigning a liberal/conservative rating.

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  4. Anonymous9:10 PM

    http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=558572

    Why not just close all the Milwaukee City parishes and get it over with.

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  5. "...that is, he's not here all that much."

    It's only anecdotal, and I assume not unprecedented, but I do keep hearing reports of him visiting and contacting people who've had some personal tragedy. And that he's quick to respond substantively to a personal letter.

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  6. Or even to sassy but good-spirited emails. :)

    And, since he's celebrating and preaching at the early Sunday Mass at the Cathedral three Sundays out of four, and some of the times he misses it's because he's on the chrism trail at another parish in the diocese that morning, he can't be wandering away all that much, anyways

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