Does it look more like a school than a church? Well, that's because it was. A number of parishes, back in the late 19th to mid 20th centuries built a school first, with a chapel or other area set aside for a temporary church.The polite way to describe this sort of thing is that they had a great respect for education and believed their children's education was more important than honoring God. My way of describing it was that they had their priorities backwards.
Now don't get me wrong. I know how terrible a time they had with the public schools of the time, which were too often used ( Still are, in the south. ) for Protestant indoctrination. I had teachers who did that, as late as the 60's. It was much worse before compulsory prayer was banned. I respect them for placing a high value on a Catholic education, but other means could have been used.
The worst of the problem? The whole idea was a trap. The parishes who built a church first were almost always able to build a school. Far too many of the parishes who built schools first ran into problems with money and general inertia. Many of them just faded away. They ended up with no church and a school that couldn't be fully utilized.
As school buildings go, this is a good one.
Excellent tower.
This building is right behind it. Anyone know what it was?
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