When the parishioners of St. Mary's heard from the archdiocese that their church needed $10 million in repairs, they leapt at the chance to investigate lowering the estimate and to raise the money to pay. According to what I've seen in the media and heard from individual parishioners, the archdiocese forbade them.
Today I received "An exciting announcement from St. Patrick's Cathedral." It was a repeat announcement of a fundraising campaign with the evocative moniker "Renew the Living Voices." According to today's blurb,
However, Catholic New York ran an article about the 2014 return of the organ to the cathedral after it had been removed and renovated in 2012: Restored Cathedral Organ Will Soon Play Again. The 2012 renovation of the organ was also presented to the media by PBS in their feature Treasures of New York: St. Patrick's Cathedral. The segment about the organ restoration begins at 34:48. Work on the organ at other points in the Cathedral's history is described in the Cathedral's Wikipedia entry.
To which I can only ask:
- Is this necessary?
- If so, why?
- Why are they calling this the first major renovation since 1929 when what was performed in 2012 seems major enough to warrant a 2 year absence?
- Why is this a priority when they are laying off, selling real estate, paying for litigation and shepherding churches toward the real estate market?
- Did St. Mary's participate/benefit from the 2017 Renew & Rebuild campaign? If not, why?
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