The Washington National Cathedral will need “tens of millions of dollars” over “numerous years” to repair extensive damage to the nation’s second-largest church following an Aug. 23 earthquake, church officials said Tuesday (Oct. 4).
The landmark church requires $25 million “just to get to June 2012, for the first phase of work and to resume worship and programming. We know it will ultimately be much more,” says Richard Weinberg, a spokesman for the cathedral.
Great! Hope the national church can come up with money given declining revenues and the increased expenses of all those lawsuits and all. Good luck!!
Just drop all the lawsuits. That would help.
That is dire. What if they don’t get the money?
What’s that sound?? The cracking and falling of a great and empty edifice.
#3, Dr. Seitz, yes, indeed; dire all around. From where will the money come? There’s an opportunity cost here which may also have dire consequences – tens of millions of dollars to fix the NC means that tens of millions of dollar are not being spent on mission (yes, I realize the argument of a one-to-one relationship is not solid, but I do think the principle holds).
Forgive me if I am being over cynical, but this statement seems fishy and opportunistic to me.
[blockquote]“tens of millions of dollars†over “numerous years†to repair extensive damage to the nation’s second-largest church following an Aug. 23 earthquake, church officials said Tuesday (Oct. 4).
The landmark church requires $25 million “just to get to June 2012, for the first phase of work and to resume worship and programming. We know it will ultimately be much more,â€[/blockquote]
We know the Cathedral was on seriously shaky footing financially prior to the earthquake, with many cutbacks.
Are needed repairs being exaggerated to generate funds that the Cathedral could not otherwise hope to raise? I’m sorry for my skepticism, but without a lot more detail and firmer numbers, and multiple verified damage assessments and specific cost estimates, I’d urge all to treat this very cautiously.
It’s the “National Cathedral”. I wonder if there’s some separation of church and state workaround. It’s all too easy for the Federal Government to print money and spend it these days. They might be able to get a federal grant under a “historical designation” or some such.
#6. You are wise to be skeptical here. I have no doubt that the kind of building we are speaking of is liable to very expensive repairs, but given the church-wide decline in TEC’s finances and demographic capacity to shoulder challenges–coupled with the essentially suicidal commitment to heterodoxy and a willful blindness to its obvious consequences in membership and mission–one should be wary of what is being folded in to any estimates for “building and programming.”
Another idea would be to reprogram money from Hillary Clinton’s State Department that is being used to rebuld mosques all around the world.
Capt Deacon Warren, I say reroute that source of funds to those affected by the flooding and tornadoes this year. The Nat Cath repairs should use Katherine’s idea.Drop the lawsuits against the faithful! Oh, and why not move out of 815 and pare down the top-heavy national TEC hierarchy?
[i]Drop the lawsuits against the faithful! [/i]
About as likely as
[i]reprogram money from Hillary Clinton’s State Department that is being used to rebuld mosques all around the world[/i]
re 4: Not to disturb the hyperbole or anything, but with the highest ASA in the church it’s hardly empty.
Whited sepulchres. Jesus told us to stay away from them.
#3 – With the Soper trust with about $50m just for the National Cathedral (and not to mention the Trinity Walls Street trust with about $1 billion), and that TEC has made it quite canonically clear that all of that property belongs to the national church, lock, stock and barrel, they don’t really need donations to fix the cathedral, and it may be hard for them to talk donors into giving them more. They may just have to pay for some of it themselves. Of course, they will cry penury whilst stripping funding from some small mission in order to keep doing whatever it is they really want to do with the endowments. (And yes, I am well aware of the structure of the trusts, just pointing out that TEC will ignore the Dennis canon when it feels like rattling a tin cup claiming some part of it is independently poor, and that the publicity of Schori’s litigation strategy will make that a lot harder in the future. It is now rather feels like the Vatican asking for some more paintings.)
Why don’t they just charge more as an entry fee to the tourists that make up their ASA? Whole thing is rather silly, since it’s primarily a tourist attraction, not a real church.
re 15: Just what do you think the admission charge is?
I hate to say this but it IS a real church. I have no more love for TEC than most who post here but I do love the National Cathedral if only for the beautiful symbolism MOST ( I realize some of the artwork is banal) of its artwork points to. Moreover, though it is a tourist attraction, it DOES speak to the Lord Jesus Christ in many of its decorations. And when I and other believers are there, it does reflect a holy presence. Some of God’s children worship there to this day.
This is not a problem. Since the Diocese of Washington is a pioneer in SSBs, redefining marriage, etc., the Dean and Chapter…including the new bishop, Ms Budde, can make the rounds of DC’s gay bars. Pass the plate. Perhaps the designer clothes, fancy drinks, gay-specialty cruises, and generally affluent DC lifestyle will miraculously turn into mortar and stone for the cathedral of a diocese that prides itself on affirming the gay lifestyle. This is not a problem….. we can count on them to support the cathedral of their redefined diocese. (Sarcasm off).
#15 – they do charge an entry fee to tourists, but cast it as a recommended donation, like at the Metropolitan Museum or a European cathedral, unless you are there for a service. I occasionally go for one reason or another (sometimes to show visitors the view from the towers – guess that won’t be happening for a while), but I quit paying it years ago, figuring I’d given TEC enough and it was no longer good stewardship.
I’m just waiting to start hearing them broadcast how poor they are and how they need more donations. And the Soper trust? Never heard of it. Must be in the left pocket. But the right pocket is empty and needs refilling.
I’m with you drjoan. Regardless of the hands into which it has fallen, the National Cathedral is a glorious edifice raised to the glory of our triune God.