A local [New Jersey] church along with the help of Verizon Wireless may take cell phone tower development to a new and technologically divine level.
You’ve likely seen them erected somewhere along the side of the road or hidden with a grouping of trees, but it’s hard to miss those tall cell phone towers, usually identifiable by their triangle-shaped platforms, planted among our communities. And it’s definitely not often that a town is forced to balance its respect for a religious symbol against a cell phone company’s reliability, but that’s exactly what’s happening in Pequannock Township.
[url=http://www.stvc.org] St. Vincent’s Cathedral[/url] in Bedford, Texas, Diocese of Ft. Worth, has a wonderful new bell tower thanks to Verizon Wireless. It blends into the design of the church and no one would suspect it is a microwave tower except by it’s triangular design.
I would hope that this does come about for that church. Churches tend to be in places that make for good radio towers. They have usage schedules which allow for scheduled work on the radio equipment during the daylight on weekdays. Another factor is that they are often the only property in residential area, where structures can be built that hide the radio equipment. Schools also in some cases have these advantages.
The biggest problem will be that they will not be able to put in cell phone block transmitters to keep cell phones from ringing during the service.
Tallahassee’s Star Metro bus system is trying to set up a ‘park and ride’ system, and are in talks with local churches about using their parking lots, since they are not in use during the work-week.
Sounds like a win-win situation, as long as the ACLU doesn’t step in against it.
Our own parish has had such a tower for several years. I was not in the parish when the deal was made to allow the local communications company to build it, but the tower itself is tasteful, complements the architecture and the church grounds, and truly “lifts high the cross”.
Now all they need to do is get approval from every atheist bunch that demands that religious symbols never appear in public.
I can think of a couple of churches that have done that, at least one Episcopal church in Dallas and the cathedral in Bedford (as mentioned by #1). Perhaps we Texans are just ahead of the times? 😀