The following comes from an Apr. 4 story on SFGate.com.
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.”
The archdiocese constructed the colossal church over a 12-year period starting in 1897. It survived the 1906 earthquake and the Loma Prieta quake in 1989. But in 2004, citing a seismic repair bill topping $8 million, the archdiocese closed the church. Parishioners were devastated and tried fruitlessly to save the church that had been their spiritual home for generations.
The building has changed hands at least twice since then and gradually slipped into disrepair. Homeless people broke in to the basement, and many of the artifacts – including the marble altar and a pair of circular rose stained-glass windows – were removed and sold.
In addition, the roof started leaking, sending chunks of plaster from the ornate, mural-covered ceiling onto the floor.
The building is now owned by a San Francisco contractor who declined to comment Thursday but reportedly hopes to build retail shops at the site, a process expected to take several years.
Enter Miles and his cadre of roller-skating apostles.
Miles was skating one Sunday last fall at Sixth Avenue and Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park, where he has gathered with like-minded skaters for more than 35 years, when it started to rain. Skating in the rain is no fun, and he casually started asking around if anyone knew a dry, wide-open place that could accommodate skaters.
Friends of friends referred him to the current Sacred Heart owner.
“It was like a light went off in his head,” Miles said, remembering his initial conversation with the owner. “We agreed to try it once a week. But my instincts are pretty good. I took one look at this place and knew this was going to be great.”
Once a week has now turned into four nights a week. Miles, who runs a roller-skating party business, has outfitted Sacred Heart with a disco ball, flashing strobe lights and first-class sound system.
The pews are pushed against the wall, and he coated the 3,800-square-foot vinyl floor with polyurethane to provide some traction.
The Archdiocese of San Francisco does not object to the building’s current use. After all, it ceased being a church at its final Mass on Dec. 26, 2004, when church officiants formally closed it. Now, it’s just a regular building, said archdiocese spokeswoman Christine Mudridge.
To read the entire story, click here.
NOW IT IS JUST A ‘REGULAR BUILDING’!?
ISN’T THERE A ‘RITE’ THAT THE CHURCH DOES UPON CLOSING/SELLING A CHURCH BUILDING?
CAN ANYONE ANSWER MY QUESTION?
AND WHY DO THEY STILL REFER TO IT AS SACRED HEART THEN??????
Of course they de-consecrate it.
It’s more than just a regular building. It’s National Register of Historic Places #10000112.
https://www.noehill.com/sf/landmarks/nat2010000112.asp
And apparently the Church of 8 Wheels:
https://www.skategoldengate.com/churchof8wheels.htm
… and most likely not for long. It’s being used for the moment in a very low-end way, but the neighborhood has some of the highest property values in the country. It’s probably only a matter of time before it’s made into condos, or some kind of venue or retail space.
Being a landmark, that’s probably why it’s been unused for so long. It’s similar to Saint Brigid, which ended up intact as a lecture hall for the Academy of Art (though the school there is still in use). There are limitations on how the building can be modified, and Saint Brigid still looks exactly the same.
There was already an issue with that a few years ago, where the Catholic school that owned the building stripped and sold (illegally) a lot of the interior:
https://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/historic-items-from-sacred-heart-church-sold-to-benefit-academy/Content?oid=2129743
But it is really just a building. If the Diocese was concerned about its use, they wouldn’t have sold it… At least it will probably never be defiled in the way the Limelight in NYC was… turning into one of the most decadent clubs on earth for a while.
Elizabeth,
Yes a Church is SUPPOSED to be de-consecrated before it can be used for secular purposes. Whether or not that happened is another question. It probably depended on who was Bishop at that time.
God have mercy May on an amoral Amerika!
Viva Cristo Rey!
Yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher, Founding Director
Concerned Roman Catholics of America, Inc.
This beautiful church and it’s present state of degradation is a sign that symbolizes the present state of the Catholic Church.
The Church should be donated to a Traditional Order, or to the SSPX. Ooops, can’t do that, can we, they might dedicate the old roller rink to the TLM and Traditional sacraments, then where would we be? Perhaps they could create a new LGBT-church, co-run by the Episcopalians, where various homosexual groups could don their leather, feathers, and other dress-up ornamentalia, and prance around their altar making up their own “sensitive” service (they already have their own rosary “mysteries,” to go along with this). That should make them feel good, and maybe take some pressure away from MHR, while it fulfills its critical mission of giving communion to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, holding lots of fund-raisers to make the homosexual sexualists feel good (while winking at the mortal sin carnality all around), and having meals for Abp. Cordileone and the local homosexual intelligentsia (to “dialogue” dontcha know).
Get real.
SSPX would have been free to purchase the Church, but I doubt they could have afforded the repairs – even if given to them for free.
Read this from Pope Benedict, if you do not want the privilege of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass revoked.
So stop with the SSPX stuff.
Repent after me – “When done according to GIRM (General Instruction of the Roman Missal) for the Ordinary Form of the Mass, and the 1962 Missal for the Extraordinary Form (Latin) of the Mass – then both forms are HOLY.
QUOTE: “19. The faithful who ask for the celebration of the forma extraordinaria must not in any way support or belong to groups which show themselves to be against the validity or legitimacy of the Holy Mass or the Sacraments celebrated in the forma ordinaria or against the Roman Pontiff as Supreme Pastor of the Universal Church.”
https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_commissions/ecclsdei/documents/rc_com_ecclsdei_doc_20110430_istr-universae-ecclesiae_en.html
“David”: You are wrong. Many bishops and others in the Catholic Church will have nothing to do with the SSPX and refuse to let them even make on offer to purchase discarded Catholic churches and other property. Offers of purchase are most often closely scrutinized to be sure that the SSPX is not using a “straw man” to purchase property for its use. And why not? Most bishops detest Tradition and directly disobeyed Pope Benedict and Summorum Pontificum by doing all they could to avoid letting any “extraordinary” sacrements be used anywhere. Further, and the literature is very clear on this, as has been previously discussed on this blogsite, there is a recognized difference in the graces flowing from the TLM and from the N.O. No, they are not simply “different flavors.” Your willful ignorance is astounding; the GIRM is subject to substantial change, and has been changed to make the new form of the Mass seem to have a special provenance. Instead, the N.O. was developed to placate Protestants and to support ecumenism efforts (which have really worked well, haven’t they?). Msgr. Bugnini made this up by himself; and, incredibly, it was “accepted” by Paul VI. Of course present power in the Church will say “they are the same” as careers have been made of this position. Interstingly, the development of the new Missal translation — which is wonderful by comparison to the “original” Missal — is now being attacked by the same tired Liberals that foisted the N.O. on an unsuspecting Catholic population.
Thank you, St. Christopher, for putting the face of reality on the situation of Catholic churches up for sale. The same goes for seeking the TLM and the supposed push for the laity to pursue a deeper understanding of the Faith in order to evangelize.
Prefer the TLM mass for shallow reasons of smells and bells, GREAT, but if one actually takes the time and onus to discover the deeper realities of what lies behind the ritual, or the fruits thereof, and we’ll revoke what, in reality, you have a legitimate right to receive. And yet Catholics are supposed to reach out to others for ‘discovery’…. even though we are verboden from engaging in honest dialogue amongst ourselves.
So say you prefer milk to water for nutritional value and – yank – no milk for you. The lesson being – lie. Discover the benefit and fruits of the TLM, but DO NOT SHARE. Oh, but we must repent from this horrible position of desiring what is good and nourishing for our neighbor.
All sacramental and Catholic artwork should have been removed, including the Cross on the top/front of the building and inlaid crosses on the front.
In 2004 Archbishop George Hugh Niederauer made all the final decisions,
not current Abp Cordileone. Please do not slander the current Archbishop. Speak only the truth.
“David”: Nothing untruthful here. Abp. Cordileone can undo the wrong created by his predecessor and should do so. In truth, Sacred Heart should go to a Tradtional order. Even at Star of the Sea, the Novus Ordo continues.
People move. Inner city churches die. Suburban communities and churches grow.
It is called change. For those of you who have moved from a city to a suburb, you are as much of a part of the cause as anyone.
Interesting comment by Mr. McCrea. Loyal Catholics are to blame for the destruction of this magnificent church and parish. Yet the facts are not quite so: Sacred Heart was a well-attended black and Hispanic parish in its last operating years. And all of us loyal SF Catholics who give ardently to the Annual Diocesan Appeal, as I am sure does Mr. McCrea, would have expected that the revenue-sharing plan of the diocese would have helped to facilitate the survival of this spiritual, historic, and architectural masterpiece and our mutual heritage. But no: instead, we are to blame.
That is not at all the issue. This church should have and could have been kept open, or at least in the custody of the SF Archdiocese, and should never have been allowed to have been profaned into the status of a skating rink. Its closure and it’s present state of degradation is a sign that symbolizes the present state of the Catholic Church.