Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2009 / Seminary chapel closed indefinitely while fire damage, costs assessed
Seminary chapel closed indefinitely while fire damage, costs assessed
by Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published February 20, 2009
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Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic
The fire burned a hole over the rear of the chapel's nave, on the right hand side when facing the altar. |
Detroit — Sacred Heart Major Seminary's main chapel won't be in use for the foreseeable future.
Rector/President Msgr. Jeffrey Monforton early this week said the seminary's insurance company was still assessing the extent of the damage caused by an electrical fire originating from a light fixture the night of Feb. 12. So far, he said he knows it will entail "serious costs" to repair not just the ceiling — which now has a hole a few feet wide near the rear of the chapel's nave — but smoke damage throughout the chapel, the pews, the floor, and even the Cardinal Edmund C. Szoka Library situated beneath the chapel.
Msgr. Monforton said he envisions some major work ahead.
"We're hoping to begin in the next couple of weeks," he said in a phone interview Tuesday.
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Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic
Archbishop Allen Vigneron (second from left) surveys the damage with (from left) dean of studies Fr. Todd Lajiness, the archbishop's secretary Msgr. John Kasza, and director of undergraduate seminarians Fr. Mark Hamilton |
He said he'd already been approached by seminary benefactors, generously offering their support.
"Right now, it's a wait-and-see," Msgr. Monforton said. "We have very kind people who have already asked us what they can do to help. … The benefactors will want to know just what is needed, and that's what I'm working for right now."
Already, in addition to the ceiling repairs, he knows the main chapel will need a thorough cleaning of the pews, walls, all wooden items, stained glass windows and even organ pipes, in order to fix the smoke damage. The wood floor also will need an extensive cleaning, and parts of it will need to be replaced. The pews, he added, will need to be stripped and re-stained.
Water also flooded through the damaged chapel floor into the library, where the carpet now needs to be replaced and hundreds of books need to be restacked.
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Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic
Hymnals, some soaked, were stacked near a side altar of the chapel. |
For worship space in the meantime, he said the seminary's auditorium will serve as a makeshift chapel for morning prayer, evening prayer and Masses that otherwise would have been in the main chapel. All events scheduled to have been in the auditorium have been cancelled as a result.
The seminary also has two smaller chapels that may be used for smaller liturgies. For major events — such as the transitional deacon ordination in May — arrangements have yet to be made.
Arrangements also were being made to establish a room in the seminary where people can pray in front of a tabernacle. Though the seminary chapel sustained significant damage, those at the seminary credit Divine Providence with saving the chapel from further damage.
Just before midnight on the Thursday night, two seminarians were in the chapel praying during monthly all-night Eucharistic Adoration — which in fact was supposed to have been held the previous week but, due to a scheduling mistake, was postponed.
Nate Harburg, a seminarian for the Diocese of Saginaw who is in his second year of theological studies, was one of the seminarians in the chapel for adoration .
"I noticed a rustling sound from the back of the chapel," Harburg said. "It reminded me of rats or small animals. I thought maybe they were in the ceiling back there."
After a few more minutes during which the sound persisted, he saw his fellow seminarian Brandon Oman run to the back of the chapel, look straight up for a few seconds, and then run out.
"Then I ran to the back of the chapel, looked up, and saw a small hole where the light had been," Harburg said. The sound he'd heard, he later realized, was the crackling of the fire.
As no smoke detectors were nearby in the attic above the chapel, no alarm was sounded until the seminarians alerted the guards on campus.
The seminarians and faculty were then evacuated from the building, and firefighters were on the scene in what Harburg guessed was less than 10 minutes.
After regaining entrance into the building, most of the seminarians spent the night helping clean the debris and expelling the water left from the fire hoses. It was challenging, as a number of leaks sprang in the library's ceiling beneath the seminary, Harburg said.
"It was pretty exciting, and great to see guys take initiative and lead each other, especially in the library," he said.
The next day, as Archbishop Allen Vigneron came to survey the damage, Msgr. Monforton had high praise for the faculty, staff and seminarians for their cooperation in minimizing the damage.
"It's a great disappointment, yet at the same time I'm very proud of the men and how they responded," Msgr. Monforton said.
The chapel was an original part of the seminary, which was built in the 1920s. Along with 85 seminarians, there are 343 lay students enrolled at the seminary this semester.
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