Needing to be saved
Mission church running out of time
Nicole Tavenner
A layer of mesh covers cracks in an historic mural inside the Mission Catholic Church in St. Ignatius.
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Cracks and chipping plaster are the result of age and repair work on a sinking wall, according to Father Andrew L. Maddock.
Nicole Tavenner
Restoration work is being done on the altar.
Nicole Tavenner
Frescoes inside the historic church date back to 1901.
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
Nicole Tavenner
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The sky is literally falling, and folks at the historic Mission Catholic Church are trying hard to keep it together.
“We just let the Lord know that we are in trouble,” Father Andrew L. Maddock said, adding that he hopes for some divine intervention to help fix the problem.
The murals inside the historic church with the blue sky background are cracking and in some places pieces have fallen out. Brother Joseph Carignano started painting the murals in 1901 and finished a few years later. The murals seemed fine for more than 100 years, but the problem actually began when the church was constructed. The wall behind the main altar on the east side of the church was missing something.
“Under that wall, there is no crib wall,” Maddock said explaining that without that brace the wall slowly sunk over the years, which caused another really big problem.
“The walls were imploding in on themselves,” he said. “The church was moving in on itself.”
The pressure caused the windows to distort.
“The windows ‘v-ed’ in on themselves,” he said. “I could see that a couple years ago. The glass wasn’t the problem. It was the wood.”
The windows were replaced in the last few years with new white oak frames.
“It’s the hardest wood so it will last, but it costs an arm and a leg,” he said.
Work was also done to try and fix that sinking east wall earlier this spring. It was lifted up and braced. Father Maddock described the support put on the beam like a hotdog bun.
“It’s a 16-foot long hotdog with a bun on it,” he said. “The bun is a particle board screwed on both sides of the beam. Now, it’s stable as far as we know.”
But after the wall was lifted, cracks began to appear on the inside of the walls. Hairline cracks might have already been present considering the age of the building and the height of the walls, but the cracks were noticeable after the shift.
“It shouldn’t have been done,” he said. “When it was moved back up, things started to really crack.”
The biggest crack is on the central mural.
“It’s where St. Ignatius is receiving the vision from Jesus,” he said.
Father Maddock called in the experts for immediate help. A group of mural restoration folks answered the call from EverGreene Architectural Arts with a home base in New York. They travel the country restoring historical sites. The crew came in and put a thin layer of mesh over the murals in places that were falling down. The mesh is designed to eventually dissolve.
“It’s like a Band-Aid,” said Terry VanderWell, director of restoration and project manager for EverGreene.
With the temporary fix in place, the crew started in on an assessment. VanderWell said they are ironing out the details concerning the budget for the cost of the project estimated to possibly be in the tens of thousands. He said portions of the murals have distended and created lumps, which will eventually fall out, and those sections need to be lifted out and put back into place.
“The cracks need to be carefully touched up so the image is restored,” he said. “We will touch up only the places where there was loss to the paint.”
The church is currently applying for grants and looking into funding sources to pay for the project so that restoration can begin. They also take donations at the church, and they set up a fundraising website at www.gofundme.com/stignatius-mission.
“Either we fix it or we don’t and it crumbles,” Father Maddock said.
