SHV No More

This "Church Sunday" at Newark USA I follow up on a series of posts about the great stone church in my neighborhood, Sacred Heart of Vailsburg. Despite efforts by the depleted Catholic congregation to save the church, the Archdiocese was intent on closing it down, and did so July 1st of 2010.

I then heard that the stained-glass windows, statues, and other things from the church were being moved out. I feared that that signaled possible demolition of the building once it had been looted. Some former parishioner mentioned to me during a small action outside the church before it closed, that the copper in the massive roofs had to be worth a lot of money.

This foto shows the most salient feature of this church, after the two uneven towers: a high relief above the main portal. This used to be lited at nite, regularly. I have seen it lited on occasion long after the Catholic Archdiocese closed out the Sacred Heart congregation, but not regularly.

Only recently, I noticed a banner on the front of the church, but it was too dark for me to see from the avenue, and too cold to park and look closer to see what it said. One nite I did stop and took some pictures, but they didn't turn out well due to poor lite. Then today I walked over in late afternoon and took pictures in better lite.

Jeffrey Bennett of the Newarkology website updated his South Orange Avenue page to incorporate the new information:

In Sacred Heart's heyday 1500 worshippers would come for mass, but by the 2010s that number had dwindled to 150 and the congregation could not afford things like a $1,000,000 expense to water-proof the facade. In July 2010 Sacred Heart dissolved and the building was leased to a Baptist congregation called the "Positive Proof Deliverance Church," headed by Bishop Frank Garris.

That paragraph contains a link to an article from the South Orange Patch last June about the dispersion of various artifacts from the church that concerned me. Tho the building is only five blocks from my house, I usually drive away from it rather than past it and in any event keep my eyes on the road, so didn't notice the banner until a couple of weeks ago when I had to slow for a red lite.

Sacred Heart was started three years before my house was built, and dedicated in 1929 by Fulton J. Sheen, later the Bishop Sheen of 1950s television fame.

The Internet shows the prior location of Positive Proof Deliverance Church as 186 West Market Street, Newark, NJ 07103, and says it's a Pentecostal church. I didn't think Pentecostals had any bishops, and I was pretty sure Baptists did not have bishops. An Internet search today reveals that one Baptist church did consecrate a bishop in 2007, the first in the denomination's entire history, then 105 years. I didn't find a website under the church's own domain name. Then I thought to do a search on "Bishop Frank Garris", whereupon I did find a website.

In any case, I now know why there was scaffolding on parts of the church, and why new copper flashing had been placed on the towers: to make the building fit for occupancy by another church.

I think these frosted-glass windows were once stained-glass. Protestant churches aren't as keen on stained glass as are Catholic churches, so Positive Proof may have been happy the stained-glass windows were sent elsewhere.

The building is at the corner of South Orange Avenue and San(d)ford Avenue. (The medial-D of Sandford is used on street signs south of South Orange Avenue, but not necessarily north of it. And the roadway becomes Sanford Street when it passes into East Orange.) Sacred Heart of Vailsburg used a Sanford Avenue address (481 Sanford Avenue, Newark 07106). Positive Proof's website uses an SOA address: 1046-1058 South Orange Avenue, Newark, NJ 07103. The zip code is wrong, a carryover from their former address on West Market Street. They were able to keep the same fone number, given that the old and new locations are less than 3 miles apart: (973) 624-3500. I don't know if Positive Proof has bought or leased, nor if it took over the entire three-building complex from South Orange Avenue to Fortuna Street or only the church building.

As a nominal Catholic culturally (atheist religiously), I would have liked to see SHV remain within the universal church. But I'd much rather have that magnificent building, largest parish church in the Nation when it was built, in use than vacant. So, better Protestants than nobody at that key intersection of this area's two most important thorofares, the heart of Vailsburg. Let's hope they keep the neighborhood vital in bringing renewed life to this historic building.