News about Church restoration 2023-2024

THE SITUATION OF THE CHURCH BUILDING

In 2023, we were told that the diocese wants to close and sell the church, which it owns. The diocese does not think the building is worth another large investment in restoration. The diocese wanted us to find another church for our parish. The board of our parish tried everything to keep the church by paying for the restoration ourselves, but in the end they did not succeed. The conditions that the diocese placed on paying for the restoration ourselves were simply too high for us to meet.

The parishioners' biggest objection to moving was to lose the parish independence we have in the current church and become “paying guests” in another church where we would not be able to have the parish activities we have now.

The diocese then suggested that we move to the Urbanus Church in Duivendrecht, where we would eventually become the “main parish” and thus maintain our independence. This church does have advantages: it is easily accessible by public transportation (train, metro and bus) and there is free parking. The disadvantage is that the church has far fewer spaces that we now have for religious education, board meetings and other gatherings. A delegation from our board visited the Urbanus Church a few months ago to see what the possibilities might be for us. The board of the Urbanus Church told us that they wanted to create the spaces we need in the rectory by some modifications and in the garden by building something. They also told us that no restoration was needed for the Urbanus Church. We then had an initial consultation with the board of the Urbanus and with staff members of the diocese. During these consultations it turned out, that restoration is still needed for the Urbanus church as well, and the costs of this are (at this moment) budgeted at 800,000 euros. Together with the renovation and extension for the necessary rooms, the budget comes to more than a million. About double what the Blessed Trinity church would cost! We as a board were very unpleasantly surprised by this “surprise,” of which neither the diocese nor the Urbanus Church had told us. We sent a letter to the diocese and the Urban Church informing them that we did not think this was a transparent way of consulting and that it did no good to the mutual trust.... We nevertheless went to a second consultation on Oct. 1 to see how these financial problems could be resolved. The diocese's idea is to sell the church on the Zaaiersweg, along with the rectory. The rectory, courtyard and hall are owned by the parish. Thus, the parish would receive a share of the proceeds. From this money, Blessed Trinity Parish could pay for (part of) the restoration of Urbanus Church and then become “main parish” of Urbanus. So everything now depends on how much the church and rectory will raise and how much we will receive from it. There are some conditions for the board: we are no longer going to ask money from our parishioners for the restoration of a church that is not our church. So the income from the presbytery must be such that we can pay our share of the restoration of the Urbanus Church from it, plus that we have enough reserve left over to pay for the costs of the pastorate (including the salary of a priest) in the coming years. If this financial condition is met, then we can continue to talk with the Urbanus Church about the many things that then need to be taken care of. A further condition is that we will not move before the summer of 2025.

The next step in the process is that the diocese will ask an appraiser to make an assessment of the value of the church. Once we know how much money we will receive from the sale, we can continue to talk with the Urbanus Church about our move, restoration and renovations and other arrangements that need to be made. A first, preliminary, meeting is scheduled for December 10.

We will keep you informed.

Fr. Peter.