What is going to happen to the current St. Philip Catholic Church? Our current campus is an asset to the parish as we move forward in concert with the Diocese. We'll obviously keep it until we have appropriate facilities on the new property where we can move and continue to grow. At that point, the Diocese will have to decide what to do with the current property. There are two possibilities:
It could be sold and the proceeds used against our debt.
The Diocese could keep it and use it in some fashion, but they have indicated that in that event, we would get appropriate credit toward our project.
Would the Diocese use it for another parish? In the strategic plan of the Diocese, our new parish campus is destined to be the only parish for our area in the forseeable future. It is very unlikely that the current facilities would become another Catholic Church, but the final decision rests with the Bishop.
What will happen to our current fixtures? We would hope to take with us those cherished reminders of our current home as well as items that may reasonably be re-used in a future facility. Some choices will depend on the Master Plan and design of the future buildings, and others on the ease with which certain things can be moved. For example, it may or may not be possible to move the bricks in our prayer garden; if it is not, we will memorialize those named on the bricks and honor the donors in some permanent way at our new campus. Also, we know many of you would like for us to plan for a set of outdoor stations at the new location, but while we can remove the bronze figures from the stations we currently have, the concrete pillars they are on cannot be removed without destroying them.
What about the Columbarium? The remains of our departed brothers and sisters will of course be transferred to our new campus; there they will be re-interred with dignity in a beautiful, quiet, and prayerful place, accessible to visitors. Our current plan is to move the columbarium (it was specifically designed to be mobile) to the new location, incorporate it into the new campus design and ensure it has an appropriate and reverent location. There could be changes as we want to also ensure that we have a consistent architectural theme on the campus. With a growing parish, we would also expect that it will have room to grow. Current reservations would of course be respected and would have first rights to space in any expanded columbarium if there was a desire for adjusting personal location.