The Sacred Heart Parish Church in Tors Cove, a landmark which stood since 1893, has been torn down.
“It is a sad thing, and a disappointing thing, and a difficult thing, and I understand how people feel,” said Our Lady Star of the Sea parish priest Monsignor Patrick J. Kennedy.
Like other churches in rural communities, in its day, the church was the centre of the community.
“The church was the gathering place. It was the place for baptisms, weddings, and regular Masses and other religious activities, because it wasn’t just limited to Mass, the Stations in Lent, and benedictions and funerals, and all the other things that bind a community together and family,” said the priest.
Kennedy was appointed to the parish in July of 2011, but his history with the building dates back much further.
“I was baptized in that church,” said Fr. Kennedy. “My parents were married in that church. I was confirmed and had my first holy communion in the church, and one of my first Masses, 54 years ago, was in that church, and then I served there as the parish priest.”
The discussion about what ought to be done with the church, which was decommissioned and deconsecrated in June of 2014, had long been a topic amongst church leadership.
“When I first came to the parish in 2011, I think the first meeting I had was a meeting about the situation and the state of Tors Cove church,” recalls Kennedy. “We made an attempt to fix the roof. It was far gone and leaking badly. We spent a little over $11,000 trying to fix the roof and patch it. We didn’t have the money to put a new roof on it, which was what was needed.”
A 2013 engineering study found that much work would be needed to be done to bring the building up to snuff, including structural foundation work.
“We didn’t have the funds to do what was needed. And what was needed was very, very, very considerable,” admitted Kennedy.
Following its decommissioning in 2014, artifacts, pews, statues, and altars, were removed and sold at public auction, with the $7,000 in profits given to the cemetery committee in Tors Cove. That money was used to build a chapel in the cemetery, which contains many of the remaining pews and artifacts.
“The chapel has a lot of the artifacts. One thing is a magnificent stained-glass window of the Sacred Heart,” said Fr. Kennedy, who has since hosted funerals and liturgies in that chapel.
Ultimately, the decision to tear down the building was a necessary one, Kennedy said, especially as the building became a target for vandals.
“Week after week after week the RCMP had to be called,” said Kennedy, who added that no sooner than a parish member could board up a broken window, vandals would break it again. Graffiti became a common problem, both inside and outside the building.
Kennedy said that one night the police were called, but by the time they reached the building, the vandals had fled. They returned that same night after the police had left.
But an even bigger concern was that someone would start a fire, which could spread to nearby homes, or that someone would fall through a sagging floorboard or through the steep tower stairs and injure themselves.
“We couldn’t leave it there like that. It was just to dangerous,” concluded Kennedy, who said there was no other option than demolition.
The wreckage of the building in still on site pending an environmental assessment before a full cleanup can be completed. But, in a larger sense, the church itself, which once served as a landmark for fishermen on the water, remains. Its parish committee is still active and its parishioners are still involved in the ministry of faith.
“The church is not a building; the church is the people of God,” said Fr. Kennedy. “And we have three churches here to serve the area, one in Bay Bulls, one in Witless Bay, and one in St. Michael’s.”
