To you out of state readers, St. Raphael's was
burnt down(arson) in 2005 by
this guy. Father Z posted a nice
photo of a painting depicting firefighters in the Cathedral wreckage.
I think even when a church needs additional space in the sanctuary, that there is no need to throw out the baby with the bath water. It's like there was this effort to make sure that no church would ever again look like those old outdated ethnic parishes. I would have loved to see someone adapt the ethnic parish look and feel but be innovative enough to extend it's look to meet the modern need. I mean, what's with the UFO lights? I feel like the
La Crosse Cathedral had a similar situation. We needed to extend the space and did make a grand, large church, but lost something in the translation.
