Berkshire religious items allow Mississippi parishioners to rebuild

Posted Wednesday, December 24, 2014 6:39 am

Photo Gallery | Berkshire religious items repurposed in Kiln, Miss.

NORTH ADAMS - When congregants at the Annunciation Catholic Church celebrate Christmas Mass in Kiln, Miss., on Thursday, the Berkshires will be there in spirit.

The church's stained glass windows once adorned St. Francis of Assisi in North Adams; its altar graced St. Thomas Aquinas in Adams; its pews once filled St. Mary the Morning Star in Pittsfield and its tabernacle was from Our Lady of Mount Carmel, also in Pittsfield.

It's a bittersweet story for many Catholics in the Berkshires who lost their beloved community churches through consolidation in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield in recent years.

But for the people of Annunciation parish, more than 1,400 miles away, it's a blessing.

Their original church building was heavily damaged in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina flattened communities all along the Gulf Coast, Kiln among them. The parish eventually was moved into a 1930s-era gymnasium, which it converted into a place of worship.

"It does look like a beautiful church now, and the people love it," said the Rev. John Noone, who led the Kiln parish through this transition. "[I] thank the people for their willingness to give up those very, very sacred things that have meant so much to them."

Preserving the artifacts, originally donated decades ago by Berkshire County patrons, is part of an effort to keep the items in places of worship even as churches in New England close, according to the Rev. Chris Malatesta, of Saint Agnes Catholic Church in Dalton. Malatesta, using a company that helps closing churches sell its items, oversaw the transfer from the Berkshires to the Deep South.

Article Continues After Advertisement

"We want to make sure these items actually go back into reuse in sacred space," Malatesta said. "I think that people sacrificed to build our churches, so there's a sadness that comes along with that we're not able to maintain those buildings. But people sacrificed themselves to provide those to our churches, so it's a way of honoring those people."

When a church closes, officials look for another in the region that might need pews, an altar or some other artifact, according to Malatesta. But with population — and church membership — declining throughout the New England region, it's not always possible to find a local partner.

"Our first priority was to try to get the items recirculated in the area that [a closure] happened," he said. "Then after that, we opened it up to the diocese in the region, then worked with the King Richard's Artifacts to expand the search a little bit."

Article Continues After These Ads

The company, which has offices across the country, specializes in the preservation and transfer of religious artifacts. "We don't simply reclaim 'items'; we restore liturgical works of art to their former glory, preserving them for future generations to enjoy," its website states. Items from Berkshire County were ultimately shipped out not only to Kiln, but other churches as well.

Some items can simply be wrapped and moved, but the bulkier items take a bit more engineering.

"In Pittsfield they had to develop a mechanism to be able to move those pews out of the church and get them into a moving truck," Malatesta said.

The stained glass windows brought to Kiln were made by Mayer & Co., of Munich, Germany, in the 19th century, and depict various scenes in the lives of Jesus and Mary, according to a pamphlet created by the Annunciation Church after is dedication in 2011. The 23-foot high altar, Gothic in architectural style, also is more than a century old.

Article Continues After Advertisement

"In a lot of cases it was family members who around here worked in the mills for very low wages but sacrificed and donated so the churches would look beautiful, and had a personal interest," said Justyna Carlson, a member of the North Adams Historical Society who procured a copy of the church's pamphlet when she heard about the transfer. A copy was posted to the North Adams Museum of History and Science.

Carlson was taken aback by the quality of photographs of the beautiful stained glass in the pamphlet, she said.

"It's nice to know how much they appreciate it," she said. "It's good to know that they are continuing on."

The artifacts, Malatesta hopes, will still "lead people to faith ... and if it can't happen in the original place, they can still provide the same intent."

For Noone, the story symbolizes the wide reach of the church.

"The Catholic Church is spread all over," he said, "and this is a great way of showing that."

Contact Adam Shanks at 413-344-3979.