City church wants to cover up symbols

But officials cite historic significance, past trouble

DAINA KLIMANIS The York Dispatch

Friday, August 05, 2005 - A traditional Catholic church seeking to remove Jewish and Masonic symbols from the exterior of its 99-year-old building in downtown York is set to spar with city officials upset at the way the church has responded to historic preservation requirements in the past.

Members of Saints Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Mission want to remove some non-Catholic symbols from the 1906 domed building at 129 S. Beaver St. it bought last year.

In an application to the city's Historic Architectural Review Board, the church requested permission to cover a concrete Star of David on the building's front with a brass plaque and crucifix, to replace a stained glass window containing the Masonic compass, and to put a brass plaque bearing the church's name over an older datestone.

"We're a Catholic church, and the outside of the church has to reflect that fact," said Dr. David Drew, the church's lay president.

Because the church is in the city's historic district, exterior changes must go to the architectural review board and be approved by the city council.

Those bodies previously gave the church permission to cover a secondary Protestant datestone with a brass plaque -- but only if it removed concrete covering it, which the church put on without permission.

Concrete still in place: That concrete is still there, which has city officials upset.

"If they're not even going to abide by the rulings of HARB, why should we even hear another case?" city council member Joe Musso asked at Tuesday's council meeting.

Drew, who was not at the meeting but was reached later, said the church left the concrete in place because the review board ordered that as a prerequisite for covering that date stone with a plaque -- which the church never did. He said he did not think the church was in violation of city orders.

Council president Cameron Texter said the city would look into pursuing civil penalty against the church for not removing the
concrete, which was never approved by the city.

"They don't want to respect the process or anything like that," Texter said after the meeting. "They knew the historic rules were in place."

HARB is scheduled to hear the church's cause Aug. 17. In Wednesday's HARB meeting, members discussed whether they could turn down one application based on a previous application, but did not reach a conclusion.

Tried masking symbol: Of the proposed changes, only altering the stained glass windows would be irreversible, Drew said. The church has already tried to mask the Masonic compass in one of the sanctuary's windows, but the image is still visible through the black paint.

"These symbols, they aren't random things," Drew said. "They symbolize a certain doctrine, a certain moral system, a certain ideology, and they're not Catholic, and it's ridiculous to say the building has to reflect that reality when that's not what the building is being used for any more. ... If the city wants, it can put a historical marker out in front of the building saying what it used to be, but there's no reason we have to be a part of that."

After years of holding Masses in a hotel, the congregation bought the building in January 2004. Church members were attracted to what Drew called the "beautiful building" because of the price, about $130,000, and because the sanctuary structure allowed for Traditional Catholic worship, in which a priest faces the altar with his back to the congregation.

The problem was that the building needed a lot of work. Not only was the roof bad, but rafters had rotted away, and one corner of the sanctuary was on the verge of collapsing, Drew said.

"You could see through the bricks, the mortar was so bad," Drew said.

Many repairs made: In a year and a half, the congregation put on a new roof and completely redid the inside. Drew estimated the church has already paid $50,000 for repairs, putting in perhaps $150,000 worth of their own labor.

The church is fixing the brick and has undertaken a $20,000 project to restore the building's unstable north tower.

The church has gained praise from neighbors for fixing a building they say was dragging down the appearance of a block where many historic buildings have been meticulously restored.

"We finally have someone committed to restoring it to its former glory," said Leslie Webb, a historic preservationist who lives a few doors away.

But those same people treasure the building's historic features. Webb said making changes would insult neighbors who had lived there for decades.

"That's why we're here -- it's a historic neighborhood," Webb said. "We don't want to be in the suburbs."

Frequent conflicts with HARB: Renovation efforts have put the church in frequent conflict with the architectural review board, which ordered it to remove vinyl siding the church put up and denied it permission to take down the church's damaged north tower because it did not have plans to restore it.

Drew said the church would have eventually rebuilt the tower and only put up siding on one narrow wall as a temporary fix to serious leaking. But the church can only do so much with a congregation of about 25 families, many of whom had what he called "limited means," Drew said.

"The city wanted us to go on their schedule," Drew said.

Then there was the matter of the secondary date stone, which was installed in the 1970s by the Holy Chapel Church of God. Now the church wants to cover the primary date stone as well. That one bears the name of Adas Israel Synagogue, the building's second occupant.

Drew said Adas Israel altered the stone installed by Temple Beth Israel in 1906.

Drew said the city has unfairly criticized an organization trying to restore a historic church when the city council was unwilling to help. He said he tried to enlist the council's help to move a high-voltage electric transformer near the tower to allow for repairs, but got no response.

"Historically, the city's done nothing to maintain this building, really," Drew said. "If we hadn't bought it and started repairing it, this thing would have fallen down right now."

-- Reach Daina Klimanis at 505-5439 or dklimanis@yorkdispatch.com .

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