FALL RIVER – As Bryan Boyle flipped a panel of switches, the cavernous nave of St. Anne’s Church, pitch black on most nights since the city ordered it closed almost six years ago, was again illuminated in light.
“They just don’t build them like this anymore,” Mayor Paul Coogan said Jan. 7 as Boyle and other members of the St. Anne’s Shrine Preservation Society escorted him around the sanctuary, pointing out water-damaged walls and a roof that needed to be repaired
“’We feel that this church was meant to be here for 500 years, and we’re only at (125 years) now,” said Robert Gauvin, the vice president of the St. Anne’s Shrine Preservation Society, which is working to restore the iconic church on South Main Street.
In 2018, the Diocese of Fall River closed St. Anne’s, citing millions of dollars in needed repairs and weekly collections that had not kept pace with the costs needed to maintain the building. The upstairs church had been closed since 2015, when a piece of plaster fell off the wall during Mass.
“We don’t want to lose landmarks like this,” said Coogan, who visited St. Anne’s last week on the 125th anniversary of the dedication of the lower church. Coogan presented a mayoral commendation to the St. Anne’s Shrine Preservation Society.
This band of Fall River residents has cobbled together a plan to try and get it back open again,” Coogan said. “They’re using a lot of sweat and their own money, and it’s a great thing they’re doing for the city.”
After months of negotiations with the diocese, the St. Anne’s Shrine Preservation Society signed a ten-year lease in 2019 to reopen and maintain the basement shrine, “the lower church,” as a destination for prayer and private religious devotion.
“St. Anne’s Church and Shrine has always been a very sacred space. This was always a place where I’ve come, even if it was for a short visit, to say some prayers,” said Jeff Montigny, a member of the St. Anne’s Preservation Society.
Like other members, Montigny, 58, grew up in St. Anne’s, receiving his sacraments there and marrying his wife in the church nearly 30 years ago.
“When you come into the church, when you come into this building, there’s just something special about it,” Montigny said. “There is peace inside this building.”
Montigny, an engineering professional, and other members of the St. Anne’s Shrine Preservation Society use their skills and expertise to maintain and revitalize the shrine, whether that deals with carpentry, running the gift shop downstairs, fundraising or organizing two monthly Masses that the shrine hosts.
“We wear many hats. Some of us have to put on our marketing hats. We’re involved in fundraisers, meat pies, spaghetti suppers,” Montigny added.
Gauvin, 65, a financial executive, grew up on East Main Street attending St. Anne’s, where his great grandparents were married.
“My great grandfather used to work in the factories, then come here and help build this church,” Gauvin said. “We’ve had six generations. My grand kids were baptized here before the closing…. Six generations of sacraments. It’s important for me to keep this going.”
Contrary to earlier estimates that indicated it would require at least five million dollars to reopen the upper church, which he described as “blown out of proportion,” Gauvin put the total costs of repairing the water damage and repairing the roof at around $500,000.
“Once we stop the water from coming in, then maybe a year from now, or two years from now, we’ll have enough money to fix the walls that have been (damaged) by the water coming in from the roof,” Gauvin said. “Once we have that done and we get an inspection done by the city of Fall River, we should be in a situation where we can reopen the upper church.”
in the meantime, the lower church is open Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., and 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday.
“We used to be open all day,” Gauvin said. “But with COVID, obviously, we don’t have all the volunteers that we used to have.”
Before the pandemic shut down most of society last year, Gauvin said more than two dozen visitors on a daily basis were visiting the lower church, which has long been a destination spot for pilgrims and others seeking miracles. A stack of crutches and leg braces are a testimony to the countless physical miraculous healings that are said to have occurred at the church. Gauvin said the preservation society recently discovered a “book of miracles” in the church, which he said is in French and needs to be translated.
“It’s much more than a building,” Gauvin said.
Coogan agreed, describing St. Anne’s, with its two signature bell towers and blue Vermont marble exterior, as a “focal point” for Fall River.
“At one point, this was one of the largest French parishes in Massachusetts,” Coogan said. “It’s such a traditional building, you can’t replicate it now. I think it’s something we gotta try to find a way to keep.”
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