When Holy Angels Parish in St. Cloud closed in 1991, the future of its historic church building — once the cathedral for the Diocese of St. Cloud — was uncertain. But the closure of the downtown parish led to a transformation that benefits both the students of Cathedral High School and the broader community.
In 1995, the former parish church was refurbished and repurposed as the Holy Angels Performing Arts Center, which now serves as a venue for concerts, theater productions and school events. This adaptive reuse preserved the architectural beauty and spiritual legacy of the building while giving it a new role in education and the arts.
“Holy Angels is a great example of the successful reuse of a church building,” said Maddy Johnson, program director of the Church Properties Initiative of the Fitzgerald Institute for Real Estate at the University of Notre Dame. “A performing arts center is among the best options for repurposing a sacred space,” she added.
As the Diocese of St. Cloud continues to implement it’s All Things New pastoral plan, structural stewardship — the care and thoughtful reuse of parish buildings — will become increasingly important, especially as Area Catholic Communities consider merging or closing parishes.
The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture offers guidelines, approved in 2018, for “Decommissioning and Ecclesial Reuse of Churches.”
The document emphasizes that, “as far as possible and compatibly with the original intention of the building, it is desirable that when it can no longer be maintained as a religious building as such, an effort be made to ensure a new use, whether religious (for example, entrusting it to other Christian communities), cultural or charitable.”
“The general principle is that charitable uses, cultural uses — like Holy Angels Performing Arts Center — or community uses, anything that preserves the sense that this is a gathering space and it’s open to the public, is best,” Johnson said. “Nothing should happen there that isn’t fitting of the sacred character of the space.”
After Holy Angels Parish closed, the building mostly sat idle for a few years, except for a daily Mass. In 1993, fearing that the vacant building might be torn down, the members of the Cathedral High School board of directors began discussing ways it might be re-purposed.
“It was a beautiful old building, and many members of the board did not want it demolished,” said Sharon Hess, chair of the board at the time.
“Some members, though, felt strongly that renovating the building would have many challenges and high cost,” she remembered. “The board was divided as to which path to take.”
The school’s original north building, which housed the auditorium, had been torn down in 1990, leaving the theater program — which returned in 1993 after a 13 year absence — without a proper venue, said Emmett Keenan, CHS director of athletics and activities.
“So, the idea came about to renovate the building for music and drama,” Hess said.
After significant discussion, the board approved the $1.3 million renovation in early 1995 and an agreement was reached with the diocese, which owned the building at the time, to proceed.
“Holy Angels Church has always been an integral part of Cathedral’s campus,” Hess said, in a Feb. 1995 story in The Visitor newspaper. “This remodeling will ensure that it will continue to be, rather than just sit vacant and deteriorate.”
The final daily Mass was celebrated March 4 of that year and work began on the performing arts center.
When a church is repurposed, the guidance is to first remove any sacred items — such as altars, tabernacles or stained-glass windows — which are then reused whenever possible, Johnson explained.
“Clearly someone was reading the norms and best practices [in the case of Holy Angels],” she added.
Eight of the original stained-glass windows were incorporated into the construction of Holy Spirit Church in 1995, and others were stored until recently. Two of these — depicting the Angel of Healing and the Angel of Justice — were installed in the new chapel at Cathedral High School, part of the school’s recent campus expansion.
Sacred Heart Parish in Wahkon repurposed 22 pews to help furnish their newly constructed church and other items such as candle holders, statues and the Stations of the Cross were put in storage.
“Old buildings carry architectural details and character that cannot be replicated in new construction,” Hess said. “When the project was completed and the center opened, the community response was overwhelmingly positive.”
“The center currently serves the Cathedral community as a venue for band and choir concerts, presentations and speakers, theatre performances and summer camps,” Keenan said. “It gets used in various ways that benefit the community too, like an upcoming concert sponsored by the Knights of Columbus to promote their Coats for Kids campaign,” he added.
In the 30 years since the performing arts center opened, there have been improvements to keep it up, Keenan said. The sound and lighting systems were upgraded to state-of-the-art in 2019, for example.
It’s important to be good stewards of the buildings that are entrusted to us, Keenan said.
“While we shouldn’t forget the past and we shouldn’t forget our history, we have to be doing things differently today in order for our kids and grandkids and great grandkids to be enjoying things 80 years from now,” he said. “We need people with lots of vision, people who are prayerful, to decide what the right changes are to ensure the future.”