The Gazette sat down with members of Morinville’s St. Jean Baptiste Church parish last week for an update on the church’s restoration efforts.
Morinville’s 114-year-old downtown church burned to the ground June 30 in what RCMP deemed a suspicious fire. Since then, many area residents have wondered when, or if, this historic town landmark would be rebuilt.
The parish had to wait for fire investigators to finish their work before they could start the cleanup efforts, said parish council chair Noreen Radford. (Morinville town council received the investigator’s report Sept. 16 but has not released it, as the fire is still under RCMP investigation.) After that came more delays for insurance claims and town permits.
Cleanup efforts started on Oct. 22 and should be wrapped up by the end of this month, Father Trini Pinca said. Crews plan to remove all debris and concrete from the site, leaving a patch of bare ground.
Reconstruction begins
Radford said the parish appointed a building committee Nov. 4 to begin designing a replacement for the St. Jean Baptiste Church.
“It seems to me very prevalent that people still want the bells to ring in the steeple,” she said, but beyond that they haven’t made any detailed plans yet.
“The steeple and the bells, that’s a community icon.”
Crews have also recovered all four of the church’s bells. Pinca said the parish has yet to determine what to do with them — the bells could be recast if the parish could find anyone with the skill to do so, or they could be turned into public art.
Fundraising committee member Gerry Gaetz said crews had retrieved many other artifacts from the church, including memorial plaques, the front doors, and the golden Sacred Heart of Jesus statue that stood in an alcove above said doors.
“It’s headless!” he said of the statue, with a chuckle.
“I don’t know if they’ve recovered the head or not.”
Also salvaged were some 8,000 bricks and 12 pallets of brick fragments. Around 30 volunteers — ranging from eight to nearly 90 years old — scrubbed and sorted all of them on Oct. 26 and 27.
“It was very therapeutic for everybody,” Gaetz said, as it gave parishioners a way to help out.
Gaetz said the parish will be selling these bricks later this month to raise funds for the church’s reconstruction. Plans are still being finalized, but he said a complete brick would likely go for $100, while a chunk would cost less. Other fundraisers, such as a possible history book, are also in the works.
Gaetz said the parish doesn’t have a specific fundraising goal in mind yet, but knows it has to raise a mighty sum — church buildings can cost tens of millions of dollars. As of Oct. 24, the parish had collected some $54,133.
Gaetz estimated it would be at least three years before the parish could open the doors of its new church, although Radford hopes it can happen in two. In the meantime, church parishioners will continue to meet at Morinville Community High School, with masses as big as they can get under current COVID-19 health restrictions.
“Hope is still in the air that from the ashes there will be a church,” Radford said.
“The bells will ring again.”
Check www.sjbp.ca later this month for details on the upcoming brick fundraiser.
