Posted on 04/05/2014 8:03:55 PM PDT by hiho hiho
For more than a century, San Francisco Catholics were baptized, married and mourned at Sacred Heart Church on Fillmore Street.
Now the elegant, Romanesque-style building - with its Tuscan columns and towering campanile - is home to a different kind of rite: one involving KC and the Sunshine Band and short-shorts with American flag patterns.
Sacred Heart, once a pillar of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, is now a disco roller rink. Under the glow of the Virgin Mary etched in stained glass, skaters in furry, flashy regalia swoop and glide to the joyous beat of 1970s dance tunes.
"We're a different kind of holy roller," said David Miles Jr., 58, who is leading the operation. "I mess with a lot of people, but I don't mess with God. I feel truly blessed to have this."
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Al-Kassab noted another similarity between skating and religion:
"Both are filled with the fallen," she said.
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"But in skating," he said, "it's a whole lot easier to get back up."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Holy rollers....???
Unnnng
You can’t get to heaven on roller skates.
Well, it’s an improvement over the one that was turned into a mosque...
How about roller blades? I was quite the adherent back in the 90’s but then it died. Must’ve been a heretical movement :-)
It’s part of a sad trend, of churches closing due to declining attendance, or people moving out of the neighborhoods these old churches are located in.
ping
Ping!
It’s part of a sad trend, of churches closing due to declining attendance, or people moving out of the neighborhoods these old churches are located in.
The bright side is that new churches are springing up in new neighborhoods!!! The pity is that the old architecture is being lost~
Better than becoming a mosque.
Better than a mosgue
Did the article say if the new owners had to pay for the $8 million seismic renovation work that was originally required? Somehow I can’t see a skating rink operation coming up with $8 million just to bring it up to code much less all the work clearly needed for the roof and other repairs.
in western Pennsylvania, there is a brick building that is used as a restaurant on a hill next to I-70. I looks very much like a church. however, I’ve never pulled off to investigate.
There is an old wooden Grange Hall in central Ohio that is now a church.
The Holy Roller church that was built next to the house I grew up in in rural Indiana is now a private home. It was a concrete block building that was open. And an outhouse in the back, because there was no plumbing.
Roger that!
Heh. Old song reference.
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