Posted on 03/30/2014 2:23:10 AM PDT by markomalley
A spectacular Roman Catholic church in Syracuse, NY is about to become the Mosque of Jesus, Son of Mary.
Holy Trinity Church, established in 1891, is a stunning piece of Gothic-style architecture with glorious stained glass windows depicting the life of Christ. It was closed in 2010 when the Catholic diocese there blamed a declining number of priests and a population shift from the cities to the suburbs.
St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church took over ownership of the building, and it was registered with the Syracuse Landmark Preservation Board. In 2012, St. John’s petitioned the preservation board to sell the church to a parish in Baton Rouge, LA. The parish wanted most of the building's contents and its striking stained glass windows. The board turned down the request in favor of keeping the building intact instead of giving another Christian parish the opportunity to use the relics in the type of worship they were intended for.
Fast forward to December 2012 when the Catholic diocese sold the building to the Northside Learning Center, who subsequently leased it to an Islamic society.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I agree. The “value” of this building is a separate issue from whether it’s advisable to establish mosques.
We wouldn’t have the mosques growing up in Random Northern City if the Catholics who built the old churches had stayed there and had children and grandchildren who stayed. They didn’t. A lot of them gave up having children. Others moved South. It’s a whole different environment now.
Completely agree with you. My childhood parish was built at the turn of the 20th century by Irish immigrants, and it is one of the most beautiful churches I have ever seen outside of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Those early parishioners gave every extra dollar they had to help construct the church. I wish that some wealthy Christian benefactor would step forward and save this church from submission.
If I could, I would.
What are the real consequences if we fail Christ and allow islam to take the world.
Liberal Protestant and Catholic Christians want to call on Allah for ecumenical reasons - but Islam is not another protestant division in the body of Christ.
What a beautiful church.
The bishops in NJ decided to NEVER sell a church for that reason and for the usual reason where fundamentalists buy the church and then convert many of the current parishioners to their faith.
Unfortunately, many of the closed parish schools are now rented out to Muslims operating charter and private schools. It’s the sign of the times.
The Catholic Church should have sold it only with very restrictive covenants to prevent a profane use like a tavern or another obviously inappropriate use like this.
I hate this too but if people don’t go to church in the first place this happens.
Important stuff like muslims turning our churches into mosques.
I was thinking important stuff like focusing on our own souls and carrying the Word to those who might not yet have accepted Christ as their Savior.
That is the only constant we can count on - carrying the Word. All else is here to stay and will get worse - God has told us how it will be before He returns to set things right. If you believe in Him and the Word of the Bible, then you can't believe that we can turn the transition to a global cesspool around or that anything else is really that important.
And yet some have been saved by hearing and believing the Word. Do you believe the Bible and that the world will decline into a cesspool and more and more will hate us because we love Him?
If you do, how can you allow such to turn your crank?
Jesus’s message is NOT going to be preached in this mosque. the naming is merely a lie on the part of the moslems.
No one believes that His name will be preached here. We all know that the name is a ruse to garner support or reduce opposition. So what? It's being done and agree or disagree, getting hung up on the meme that they're telling lies has no utility. Jesus told us to, "Resist not evil". He didn't mean we were to succumb to Satan's whispers that evil deeds are OK, He meant that evil will attack us on a personal level and even that we will be hated because we love Him. He is the final solution to the evil that flourishes and that will grow exponentially as we approach His return. Our job is not to get hung up on trying to squash evil - He made it clear that evil will prevail on the earth and we couldn't stop it. We resist on the personal level by not committing evil acts that harm us and others spiritually. When we try to take active measures against evil as it abounds around us, we get distracted from the task of loving Him and carrying His Word. Satan wins - for the nonce, but Satan has already lost the real battle and has been relegated to eternal suffering even though we suffer the Evil One's desecration of our sensibilities in this finite realm called "Time".I can hate Muslims or I can be prepared to witness to them - what is the proper venue? I remember a story about a guy called Jonah - God told him to witness/minister to a really evil place called Ninevah. He made his human decision to go in the other direction because he knew in his human heart that those people were so evil that they deserved to burn in Hell and he would take no part in the possibility that some of them might be saved. To say the least, God had other ideas. I find that it easier for us to be Jonah than it is to do what God wants because we can grasp the evil on a personal level and cannot truly fell the Love that God has and His desire that we do everything we can to let others know of His love. IOW, we let our own personal ability to hate outweigh His message of Love.
I'm no one to claim the right to preach, I only put this type information/argument out there because, when I truly settle in to try to get a handle on Who and What God is, I see my own fallibility. Just as Paul lamented that he did that which he would not do, and did not do that he would do, we are all similarly poor in spirit and need to recognize that in ourselves that we not consider ourselves as the Pharisees consider themselves.
Have you ever been to the dedication of a church? If you had, I doubt that you would have said that it is just a building.
The Holy Spirit is called down on the four pillars of the church through a Sign of the Cross made on the pillar with Holy Chrism. Our church was dedicated three months ago and we can still see those marks.
Also the altar is thorough washed by the Archbishop in the oil of Holy Chrism, so much that it runs over onto the floor. The all the oil is cleaned up from around the altar and the altar is vested for the Mass.
There are many other examples of how a church dedicated as Catholic will always remain Catholic through the Holy Spirit.
Question - if it was dedicated and will remain so from the Holy Spirit, what would the ramifications be for those that put it to other purposes? The Holy Spirit, as one of the three facets of God, would seem to be inviolable to me and those who tried to desecrate it or blaspheme the Holy Spirit (the one truly unforgivable sin) would be getting their eventual comeuppance from He Himself.
Since I strayed from Catholicism at an early age, and choose to lean on the Bible, I understand my perceptions are different from devout Catholics (not being trite, but some of my best friends are Catholics).
I continue to appreciate your own personal patience with me when I raise my own questions and try to add maturity and depth to my points of view/system of beliefs as a Christian who doesn't put so much weight on religiosity as on the Word in the Bible itself.
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