Holy Cross School Update...

On the way home from taking Kevin to Brother Martin High School to get him registered for 8th grade there next year, wife wanted to drive past St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Church and School on Paris Avenue. The church, school, and surrounding neighborhood was flooded with over ten feet of water when the storm broke the floodwall of the London Avenue Canal. Helen grew up on Chamberlin Drive, just across the street from Cabrini, and we were married in the church.

The exterior of the building doesn't look all that bad, other than the cross at the top of the high white tower still hangs broken at a 90-degree angle. That's the story of most of Gentilly, of course, the interior damage tells the tale, not the exterior.

The Cabrini campus, along with that of Redeemer-Seton High School next door is slated to be demolished to make room for the relocation of Holy Cross School. The process of moving the Ninth Ward school to Gentilly is moving forward:

The draft memorandum of agreement was circulated late Monday by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has been trying to balance a move to preserve the storm-damaged Gentilly church, built in the 1960s and celebrated for its modern design, against desires for a successful school in a neighborhood struggling to rebound post-Katrina.

Bill Chauvin, chairman of Holy Cross School's governing board, said the draft indicates that the church will be removed to make way for the Holy Cross campus: a middle school, high school, administration buildings and a sports complex.

According to the draft, the church's stained glass, altar and baptistery will be saved, he said. And the Holy Cross governing board will spend about $15,000 to hire a crane operator to remove the large cross from the top of the church, he said.

Where the church's altar is now will be the space where the church is commemorated, Chauvin said. Ideas include a garden with a statue of St. Frances Cabrini or a garden that includes the church's large cross, he said.

There are neighborhood activists who still hold out hope that the church can be saved, but that's looking less and less likely.

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