A Church Rises from the Ashes

The Remnant ^ | 5/31/22 | William Price

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St. Charles Borromeo, Cheboygan MI.

What happened to St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Cheboygan Michigan? According to newspaper accounts St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church had its corner stone laid in 1912. Over seven hundred huddled within the church nave and large choir loft for the very first Mass celebration in the Roman Rite. Another hundred or so were left outside, as standing room within the church’s vestibule was also filled. Every day for over fifty years St. Charles Borromeo Church celebrated its ancient Roman Catholic liturgy.

A “Better” Idea for St. Charles

Starting in the mid-sixties, this beautiful ten thousand square foot Cheboygan church suffered through many new “modifications”, a la Novus Ordo. First, its twenty-thousand-pound marble high altar was literally smashed into pieces. This stunning piece of stone art was then replaced with an uninspiring rectangular table. The modernizations continued with the demolition of the church’s side altars, eliminating the predella in the sanctuary, cutting out eight support columns from the nave, installing cheesy red carpet in the sanctuary, moving the tabernacle from its traditional place in the center of the church and scrapping the beautiful communion rails and pews.

These “improvements” likely added up to over a million dollars. For example, just eliminating eight of the building’s support columns required a complete reengineering of the church’s roof and a thirty-one-foot Gothic ceiling. A steel superstructure had to be installed in the attic before removing the building’s original weight bearing support columns. It’s obvious, this beautiful basilica style church was somehow deemed too traditional. St. Charles traditional architectural design accommodated ancient Catholic liturgical worship traditions, like kneeling at a communion rail to receive Holy Communion, genuflecting toward its beautiful high altar that featured our Lords real presence in the tabernacle. Just fifteen years after all these.......

[Bookshelf]

I believe God has blessed this sainted man, and may that blessing bring all success to his endeavors.