Resurrecting Old Houses Of Worship
MONTREAL — For generations, parishioners whispered their sins in the confessional booths of Notre-Dame- du-Perpétuel- Secours, a Roman Catholic church. But on a recent day, the comedian Sugar Sammy was being filmed inside a booth, the latest celebrity confessional on the talk show “Y’a du monde à messe,” or “The Church Is Packed.”
“I made a sex tape in order to be famous, because I thought it was the path to glory,” Sammy said with mock seriousness, as the camera zoomed in on his face, seen from behind a grill. “It didn’t work because no one watched it.”
The once-hallowed space has been reinvented as the Théâtre Paradoxe at a cost of nearly $3 million. It is now host to, among other events, Led Zeppelin cover bands, Zumba lessons and fetish parties, as well as the talk show that Sammy appeared on.
While the former church has wel- comed a Crucifix Halloween party featuring barely dressed dancers gyrating in front of a cross, the theater’s director, Gérald St- Georges, a Roman Catholic, stressed that its function was still sacred. It teaches former addicts and high-school dropouts technical theater skills so they can get jobs. He said, “We are remaining true to the church’s mission of serving the community.”
The radical makeover reflects the decline of the Catholic Church in a Canadian province where 95 percent of the population went to Mass in the 1950s but only 5 percent do so today. The drop, coupled with spiraling maintenance costs, has made heritage groups, architects and the church itself think creatively to conserve historic buildings.
At least 547 churches i n Quebec have been closed, sold or transformed. Christian Lépine, the archbishop of Montreal, said, “There is a sadness when a church is shuttered or transformed, but we have to accept reality.”
After a church has been selected for conversion, any human remains inside are moved to a Catholic cemetery. Many architects seek to keep some details in a nod to the buildings’ heritage. After the local church in Sainte-Élizabeth- de-Warwick, a central Quebec town of 400 people, was transformed into a cheese company a few years ago, its owners decided to keep a small chapel for the community. Some residents, however, refuse to attend Sunday Mass in a church where the former nave had been repurposed to ripen cheese.
Jean Morin, the owner of La Fromagerie du Presbytere — who purchased the church for $1, invested $1.2 million to renovate it and has since won the Canadian Cheese Grand Prix — said the transformation saved the building.
At the Saint Jude gym in Montreal, members luxuriate in an outdoor steamy bath. Olivier Pratte, 31, an advertising copywriter, noted that while his grandmother was religious, his parents’ and his generation were not. “My grandmother is happy I spend time in a church,” he said, “even if I’m working my biceps and not my soul.”