{"id":6840,"date":"2022-02-14T15:11:20","date_gmt":"2022-02-14T20:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/news\/news-2\/montreal-city-157-steeples-and-more\/"},"modified":"2022-02-14T15:11:20","modified_gmt":"2022-02-14T20:11:20","slug":"montreal-city-157-steeples-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/news\/news-2\/montreal-city-157-steeples-and-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Montreal, City of 157 Steeples (and more!)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A few blocks further down, he walked into another church. And then another. \u2018\u2018All of a sudden, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized: there is so much rich history here! There is so much faith, so much devotion! But when the doors are closed, which is almost all the time, you would never imagine it. We walk past a building like this as if it were a caf\u00e9 or an old bank\u2026\u2019\u2019
\n
\nCollector of pictures of church steeples<\/strong>
\n
\nInspired by Mark Twain\u2019s phrase, \u2018\u2019Montreal, city of 100 steeples,\u2019\u2019 he set himself the challenge of visiting one hundred churches. He began in his own parish of Saint-Jean-Baptiste, and one thing led to another, eventually taking him further and further into the diocese of Montreal. He would attend Mass and while there, he would visualize the shots that he would take after the celebration was over.
\n
\nHis fiftieth church was St. Joseph\u2019s Oratory, his hundredth Notre-Dame. Sunday after Sunday, Rodrigue compiled an ever more impressive number of pictures of steeples. They are all arranged by album on his Facebook page with accompanying architectural comments or historical notes on his \u2018finds;\u2019 in one such comment he describes how, at the location of Saints-Anges-de-Lachine, there used to be a Fort \u2018\u2018back in the day.\u2019\u2019
\n
\n\u2018\u2018Each steeple ended up having a personality all its own.\u2019\u2019 So after 100 steeples, what had he achieved? \u2018\u2018I\u2019ve realized that, even though I was photographing bricks and glass, it is often the people who have stayed in my memory.\u2019\u2019 Like the priest of Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue shovelling the whole front walkway of the church before his parishioners arrived because, he said, one of them is going to fall and break their nose. \u2018\u2018That is not in any photo. That just stays in the photographer\u2019s heart.\u2019\u2019
\n
\n\u2018\u2018Why are you stopping now?\u2019\u2019 someone asked him. After all, Rodrigue has visited 157 steeples.
\n
\nLiving places<\/strong>
\n
\nRodrigue is well aware that resources and funds are limited, that it is not quite realistic to keep \u2018\u2018these treasures\u2019\u2019 always open. \u2018\u2018What\u2019s sad is that people living in these neighbourhoods don\u2019t have the faintest idea of the value of these buildings, of the treasures they house.\u2019\u2019 Pointing to the great interest that churches attract in Europe, even tiny ones in the out-of-the-way countryside, he asks why the same should not be done here, with churches that are so close by, right on our doorstep. \u2018\u2018I don\u2019t say that they should be preserved at whatever cost, but we must find a way to reintegrate them into our realities, to share them, albeit temporarily.\u2019\u2019 He doesn\u2019t have the solution, but his wish is that people would have the nerve to walk into a church, to make it \u2018\u2018less intimidating.\u2019\u2019 \u2018\u2018Because whether you\u2019re a believer or not, when you walk into a church, you can\u2019t help being filled with peace, no matter what your beliefs are. You step inside and there is something about it, if only the silence.\u2019\u2019
\n
\n\u2018\u2018How many of our parents and our grandparents met for the first time at a church dance\u2026,\u2019\u2019 says Rodrigue. Schoolchildren doing homework, Wolfcub pack meetings, movie afternoons in the church basement – how could we put these buildings, these churches, back at the heart of our communities?
\n
\n\u2018\u2018It\u2019s my enduring secret hope that, once people encounter them again, they will make them their own,\u2019\u2019 and they will once again become living places. Worship and culture, as commented \u2018\u2018the priest of Saint-Jean-Baptiste,\u2019\u2019 or worship and many other things, there is so much room to use our creativity, says Rodrigue.
\n
\nTo enjoy the monk-like work of Rodrigue Escayola:
\n https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LaVilleAuxCentClochers\/photos\/?ref=page_internal&tab=album<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Raising the lights at Saint-Jean-Baptiste
\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=giDGx9q8QP8<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Bird\u2019s-eye view of Saint-\u00c9douard
\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=00aX9vRtQZE<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Bird\u2019s-eye view of Saint-Enfant-J\u00e9sus du Mile-End
\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=t4hhNWZrhj4<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Church \u00abOutside \u00bb :
\nhttps:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LaVilleAuxCentClochers\/photos\/pcb.3131950763717236\/3131930130385966<\/a>
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few blocks further down, he walked into another church. And then another. \u2018\u2018All of a sudden, it hit me…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6839,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nouvelle"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diocesemontreal.wp.vortexdev.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}