Dear Friends,
With old buildings come past glory and, sometimes, present pain. At Cabrini, we have a beautiful old church to gather in each week. Many of the items in the church predate our present building built in 1908. The back altar, the statues, the oil painting of Mary, the bells, and the pipes of the organ come from Omaha’s first Cathedral, St. Philomena’s, which was located downtown near the present Embassy Suites. Those items date to the 1860’s. Our present church building is 110 years old and needs constant, tender care.
We recently completed extensive repair on the church roof to stop the leaks. We were able to do so with the help of a generous bequest from the Stoops estate. That estate gift also gave us our new sound system for the church. There is still more roofing work to be done and we are working with the roofing company to come up with a plan that will repair the remainder of the church roof over the next decade.
Another project has come to face us quicker than we expected – the repair or replacement of the church heating system. It is reaching the end of its life. To repair it so that it could function for another year could cost up $20,000. That expense for a temporary fix did not seem wise to the Pastoral Council, so they asked Alvine Engineering to evaluate the church system and recommend a solution.
Alvine Engineering recommended removing the boiler system and replacing it with a HVAC system. The initial costs for this installation would be high because of the need to install ductwork in the crawl space below the church, but over the long term, the costs to maintain the system would be much cheaper. The project was put out for bids and the parish accepted the bid of Mechanical Systems, Inc. The cost to replace the boiler and air conditioner is $194,000.
The parish does not have this amount of money on reserve and has asked the Archdiocese for a loan from its Deposit and Loan Fund. I will also be sending out a letter to all parishioners inviting you to make a one-time gift to the parish for the replacement of the heating system. Those one-time gifts will lower the amount of money the parish will have to borrow from the Deposit and Loan Fund.
Work on the new system will begin immediately, we hope to have it up and running by the time it gets cold. Most of the work will take place under the church and the vents will be in aisles and under the pews. We are not anticipating any challenges with having Masses and other activities in the church during the installation.
Thanks to the generosity of all our parishioners, we have been able to make many repairs to our buildings the past three years. The generosity of the Ignite the Faith drive of the Archdiocese has added a million dollars of repair work to the school as well. I wish I could say that the work is almost done, but all of you who have older homes know that as soon as one project is completed another one will show up.
Some of you may be wondering where the new front doors are. Zonkers woodworking is creating them. They made similar doors for the new Cloisters Retreat Center chapel. However, once those doors were hung in the sun they began to have problems with them. They had to be remade. Our doors are going through the same process. The hope is that they will be completed by the end of August.
Peace,
Fr. Damian