Future of St. Joseph Church remains uncertain

LACONIA — In August 2019, community activists formed a circle around St. Joseph Church downtown to plead that it not be demolished. That December, after months of organizing, they learned they had succeeded: the proposed sale had been terminated and the demolition delayed.

Though nearly two years have passed since that temporary victory, the St. Joseph Church Preservation Society is still, in a way, standing in a circle around their beloved church.

The possibility that the building could be demolished and sold remains, and efforts to convince the Diocese of Manchester — head of the Catholic Church in New Hampshire and owner of the property — to allow the preservation society to take over financial and caretaking reins of the church have thus far stalled. 

As the financial task of restoring the church climbs and response from the diocese dwindles, the preservation society fears that time and their primary source of leverage, forceful public solidarity, are waning. 

“The diocese’s failure to respond to our group leaves the impression they are waiting for community support to fade,” Linda Normandin, preservation society president, wrote in a letter to the editor in early December. In the letter and following advertisements, Normandin urged the Laconia community to contact the diocese and urge cooperation with the preservation society. “While the diocese delays action, they continue to accrue financial debt, the building lacks maintenance, and expenses continue to burden the parish,” the letter continues.

“We've been interacting with the preservation society when we've had something to dialogue and talk about,” Father Marc Drouin of the St. Andre Bessette parish said in an interview. “It's not been a standoff, from my point of view.”

The preservation society hadn’t received many updates, he continued, because there weren’t any. 

“When we've had information to present, we present it, and if I don't have anything to present or share a dialogue or discuss with a group,” calling a meeting is unproductive, Drouin said. “The best thing with this uncertainty is that you can't share what you don't know.”

“There's a great opportunity before us to sit there and look at how we can make sure that the building is preserved in a way that's going to serve its dignity,” Drouin said of the future of St. Joseph. “It can't be anything contrary to the teachings of the faith. It can't be anything that would desecrate a sacred space. So those are the guidelines that we work with. And what's acceptable after that, I mean, that's where I would refer to” the diocese.

That uncertainty is what worries and frustrates the preservation society. 

“The society is prepared to take financial responsibility for this church,” said Mayor Andrew Hosmer, who has been involved with the group since its founding. “It’s been a quandary for us to wonder why our good-faith efforts to preserve [it] have been ignored.”

In early May 2019, Drouin told worshippers at St. Joseph Church that their church was to be demolished and the property sold off. The diocese, financially unable to resource two different churches within its Laconia parish of St. Andre Bessette, had announced intentions to centralize services in Laconia into Sacred Heart Church two years earlier and purchased an abutting building to accommodate the consolidation.

Their final service would be later that summer and the property would likely be sold by the fall, Drouin said at the time.

Heartbroken, the St. Joseph community rallied around their church, attempting to form a historic district to shield the building from demolition and to form a nonprofit organization to assume financial responsibility for the church. Though the historic district was not formed before the diocese submitted a demolition application, the preservation society was realized.

After two months of public outcry against the demolition and sale, the diocese made a two-pronged announcement. The purchaser had agreed to rescind their offer, meaning the church was, at least for the time being, saved. Furthermore, the three buildings on the property —  St. Joseph; the Busiel House, which had been used as the rectory; and the former Holy Trinity School — rather than being sold en masse would be divided in three properties and sold individually.

The announcement prompted a sigh of relief from Normandin and the preservation society. But the threat that the church could one day be sold, however, remained.

The preservation society set their sights on working with the diocese to cement the church’s security. 

In a July 2020 meeting with parish representatives, according to a letter they sent to Drouin in August, the preservation society asked that the demolition request be formally withdrawn, and that the parish connect them with Bishop Peter Libasci, who had directed the proposed demolition and sale, so they could work collaboratively with the diocese to maintain and preserve St. Joseph. Diocese representatives at the time said they had asked that the demolition request be delayed.

Drouin responded with an acknowledgement that the letter had been received. That there wasn’t further response and that the permit request was not withdrawn, Normandin said, conveyed to the society that the diocese was not engaging in good faith.

“Their comments in the paper kind of led you to believe that they would work to or wanted to save the church. But we didn't understand why you would still have the application on file if the true motive was to try to do all they could to preserve" it, Normandin said.

The preservation society sent another letter in May 2021 to Drouin and Libasci asking for permission to initiate fundraising efforts. In his response, Libasci wrote, “As this is the first notice I have received of the establishment of the society or its intentions, I am not prepared to respond at this time, and I do not authorize you to take any action with respect to St. Joseph Church.”

In March of this year, Drouin informed parishioners that St. Joseph would be closed for prayer because of a mold issue.

In April, motivated by the closure to try and re-engage, the preservation society sent Libasci a four-page letter to “concretely restate and clarify our objectives.” The letter outlines three potential paths forward that the Society was open to.

The first involved the diocese retaining full ownership of St. Joseph and overseeing its care, with the preservation society covering its financial costs for doing so. A second possible path would involve the diocese leasing the church to the society and entering a memorandum of understanding where responsibility for St. Joseph would be passed to them. The final option, which Normandin emphasized was offered only to create more options for the diocese, would be for the property to be sold to the society.

“We'd be happy to work on any of those to advance the preservation of the church,” Normandin said. 

Without a response, the society sent a reiterative letter in September, which also received no response.

On Dec. 9, after the society’s letters and ads, Drouin sent a letter to parishioners, which outlined what the parish had learned about the extent of mold damage and other deterioration in St. Joseph Church. The total cost of repairs, Drouin said, were newly estimated at approximately $1.5 million. 

Drouin said the society’s funds were insufficient to cover these costs and that sale of the property is not in alignment with the parish’s responsibilities. 

“We are grateful for the funds raised by the [preservation society] and truly appreciate their advocacy, as we all love the church,” Drouin’s letter continued. “The sacredness of our spaces is entrusted to us as a duty of stewardship to uphold; an incredibly important tradition. This stewardship has been left wanting.” 

Brody Hale, a lawyer whose St. Stephens Protomartyr Project works with laypeople to help prevent the loss of sacred spaces and ensure that canon law is followed in situations where those spaces are at risk, reached out to Normandin late in spring 2020 and has been assisting the society. 

“There is a way for [the society] to get what they want and for the parish to get what it needs,” Hale said in an interview.

In situations like this one, not only does canon law allow for sacred spaces to be passed to Catholic entities besides parishes — including “a canonically constituted group of lay people,” he said — it endorses it.

“If a parish is unwilling or unable to take care of a church” and there is a group of Catholics willing to take responsibility for it, Hale said, “The Holy See makes clear that the church is to be transferred... before it can be sold for secular development.” 

“If there are funds to maintain it, they have to be used,” Hale continued. 

Normandin emphasized that the preservation society has further fund resources they haven’t yet tapped. “We haven't actively gone out and campaigned because we wanted to make sure we had an agreement with the diocese in the bishop before we did that,” she said.

“The best case scenario,” from Drouin’s perspective, “would be that we find an appropriate use for the church, that the funds are there to do the necessary repairs and perhaps establish some type of fund trust to maintain the operations as well as the maintenance.”

When asked about why this vision, similar to that expressed by the society, could not yet be put into motion, Drouin said, “Because we haven't been able to come up with a direction and how to continue to use the building yet. It's a much bigger issue than just fixing a building ... and that’s what, if anything, is the holdup.

“So yes, there's a commonality and a common ground,” Drouin continued. “We welcome their support, and we welcome their financial donations, but we just haven't reached that direction yet or that decision point.”

Drouin was unaware of when a decision would be made. 

“We're looking at a variety of potential options, and it’s a matter of seeing what will be the best opportunity for use of that property,” he said.

When asked for comment about its alleged unresponsiveness and about its hopes and intentions for St. Joseph, a representative for the diocese sent a copy of Drouin’s Dec. 9 letter.

The preservation society, as of Thursday, was still drafting a response to Drouin’s letter. Their biggest hope forward, Normandin said, was for public engagement.

“The community support was just so effective the last time,” Normandin said. “We think people might be under the misimpression that we saved the church.”