Gift To America

Mary Petrich, Diane Novosel and St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church, Millvale

(photos courtesy of Pittsburgh Quarterly)

Passing the little yellow Romanesque church next to Rt. 28 outside Pittsburgh, many drivers don’t give it a thought. Perched on a hill overlooking the highway, St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Millvale is not grand—its pews seat 350 worshippers—but it has been the center of community life for generations of immigrants. Entering through a side door of the church, a visitor ascends a set of stairs and sees a painting of Christ on the cross being bayoneted by a World War I-era soldier. Christ wears a crown of barbwire. A picture next to the warlike Crucifixion depicts Mary grabbing the bayonets of two soldiers on a battlefield.
Croatian immigrant artist Maxo Vanka painted those and many other scenes on the walls and ceilings of the church in 1937 and 1941. The murals are a vivid mix of religious and cultural themes and commentary depicting the struggles of Croatian immigrant workers in America. The murals also represent Vanka’s hatred of war and his disgust at the human toll taken by industrialism. The artist considered the murals he created in the church dedicated to the gift-giving saint to be his “gift to America.”
Not so long ago, some parishioners didn’t recognize the wealth they had, until David Demarest learned of the murals. The Carnegie Mellon University English professor and booster of Pittsburgh’s industrial history helped to generate interest in the artwork by preaching of it to students, friends, and those in the art, education and labor communities around Pittsburgh. The Society for the Preservation of the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka was a by-product of a historical play, “Gift To America,” that was written by Demarest and originally staged at the church in 1981.
Demarest learned of St. Nicholas in the 1970s, when a friend invited him to check it out.
“We came into the church and it was really something else,” Demarest said. “It was just beautiful, striking, and surprisingly enough, quite unknown.”
On May 7-10 at 8:30 p.m., “Gift To America” will be staged at the church. Demarest, who is now retired from Carnegie Mellon, will again witness Carnegie Mellon drama students and faculty helping to produce the dramatic reading.
The one act, hour-long play is a fictional walk through the church and discussion between Maxo Vanka, the Croatian immigrant artist who created the murals, and Father Albert Zagar, the priest who commissioned the murals. The two characters discuss the meanings of the murals, as theatrical lights brighten the paintings. Two unnamed female supporting characters also are part of the play, which is accompanied by Tamburitzan music. The play will launch a campaign to restore, illuminate and preserve the murals.
Organizers of the event timed it to coincide with Pittsburgh’s 250th anniversary celebrations. They hope the play enlightens the public to one of Pittsburgh’s greatest cultural treasures.
Vanka was commissioned to decorate the church by Zagar, who sent for the artist when he heard he was in New York. Vanka had married an American and had recently moved to this country, and he hoped to make his name here with the church paintings. Zagar allowed the artist to illustrate his political views, and Vanka understood the opportunity he had. “Father Zagar was one priest in one hundred thousand courageous enough to break with tradition, to have his church decorated with paintings of modern, social meaning,” Vanka said.
He was not a religious person, but as Vanka labored nearly round-the-clock on the murals, the vision he illustrated revealed a deep spirituality. Working from 7 a.m. to 2 or 3 a.m., he was accompanied at night by Zagar, who prayed as the artist painted.
“It was well toward the end of May before the final murals complementing these on the back walls took shape and made the women on their way out after mass stop and weep and burn candles,” wrote Louis Adamich, a Slovenian immigrant writer and friend of Vanka.
In addition to writing the play, Demarest also wrote the text for an illustrated guide to the murals that is free to people visiting the church. His literary contributions have changed perceptions of the artwork, said Diane Novosel, head of the Society for the Preservation of the Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanka. “Ever since Dave’s play, awareness of the murals has increased. Once we started to tell the stories, the parishioners who didn’t like the murals recognized it was something special,” she said.
The murals express a passion that is universal and uniquely Croatian. After seeing the paintings, Talking Heads rock musician David Byrne called Vanka “The Diego River of Pittsburgh.”
While the murals are somewhat known around Pittsburgh, on many Sunday mornings after Mass, visitors will stop into St. Nicholas to see them. Many will express amazement that more people don’t visit the dramatic cultural site, while others will be visibly moved. One of the people who sometimes lead the way is Charlie McCoelester, a professor of labor relations at IUP.
“The church is unique in that it provides a vision of heavenly beauty and a stark vision of earthly greed and violence,” McCoelester says. “I took a group of Polish filmmakers there and they were shocked and amazed at seeing that kind of vivid depiction of violence in a church.”
Chatting in St. Nicholas Church after a post-Mass tour, Novosel nodded in understanding at the bewildered look on a visitor’s face as he scanned the paintings of a Croatian mother grieving over the corpse of her miner son, the Holy Spirit depicted as an eye with the dove of peace as a pupil, and other images.
“It’s an overload,” Novosel said.
Novosel and Mary Petrich, both lifelong parishioners (Mary saw some of the scenes being painted), lead tours of the murals and spread the word about them through their contact with the public, the media and arts organizations.
Lacking the finances to preserve the murals, the society and church members must witness their slow destruction. Some of the murals have been damaged by water leaking into the building. Some were repaired in the past, only to be damaged again by water seeping through the walls of the church.
Petrich would like to see the church’s brick exterior re-pointed and waterproofed. “That must be done first before we do anything with the murals. I’d also like better lighting installed,” she said, adding that all of the work could cost $1 million or more.
Without help from many more supporters, Vanka’s gift could be destroyed as time wears on. Fans of the murals don’t want to see that happen.
“It’s one of the historical/artistic treasures of western Pennsylvania,” Demarest said. “It’s the repository of real history of people who lived in that valley, and the artwork they allowed to commemorate their lives.”
To learn more about the murals or to contribute, write to 151 Stonegate Drive, Leechburg, 15656; or call Diane Novosel at 724-845-2907. http://www.vankamurals.org/

A version of this story first appeared in Pittsburgh Quarterly.

Jonathan Barnes is a Pittsburgh freelance writer. pittsburghreporter@yahoo.com

Fear Of Falling

As an adolescent growing up in Bellevue Borough, just beyond Pittsburgh’s North Side, I would go with friends to climb the superstructure of Jack’s Run Bridge, known by locals as Bellevue Bridge. I shake my head at the thought, because the bridge traverses a ravine between Bellevue and Brighton Heights, and the deck of the structure is 150 feet tall, supposedly eight feet taller than the deck of the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s not a safe climb.
We’d climb to the very top of the superstructure (without any climbing equipment, of course), all the way up to right beneath the roadway. Sometimes we would drink beers up there, then we’d race each other down the bridge, shimmying around the sides of the huge pillars and sprinting down the ramps between them. We acted as if we had no fear.
From the age of 12, I grew up working in landscaping and construction. Occasionally I’d have to climb a tree to prune it, or work on a ladder or on a roof, and it was just part of daily life, like when my brothers and I helped my Dad re-shingle the house. When I was 17, though, I got into a brawl at a party in the lower North Side of Pittsburgh, and I was pushed down some outside cellar stairs. Trying to catch myself in the 8-foot-fall, I stuck my left arm out and it went though the window in the cellar door, disfiguring my upper arm, severing the artery and causing me to nearly bleed to death. Ever since, I’ve had a healthy fear of falling.
Growing up in heavily working class Bellevue, I was occasionally reminded to hold onto that fear. In 1983, a friend of one of my brothers was killed on the job. Dan was working on a roof and he accidentally touched his measuring tape to a “hot” electrical wire, and was electrocuted and fell off of the house. They said he was dead before he hit the ground. He was 21, and left behind a wife he’d married months before.
Nineteen years ago, while I was working my way through college, my neighbor Doug, a guy who was all shoulders and arms and a favorite of the girls, was working for a contractor when he stepped through a hole on a roof where a skylight had been removed. The fall permanently disabled him, putting him in a wheelchair. He was about 25 when he was crippled.
Doug’s accident hit close, because that summer I was working for Kenyon Roofing, whose family was from the neighborhood, and I had my own job hazards to navigate.
We were working on a smaller airport in one of the suburbs that summer, and we had to tear off the roofs of several airplane hangers, in the humid Pittsburgh sun. Before we got onto the first roof, the owner’s son Brian, our foreman, instructed us: “Walk where the nails are. That’s where the trusses are.”
There was no plywood decking on the hangars’ roofs, and the only things keeping us from falling to the concrete floor below were good footwork and the prefabricated trusses. The roof we were replacing was a thin layer of corrugated material that was just rigid tarpaper a few sheets thick; step through it with one foot and you could fall.
The combination of the intense summer heat, the scary conditions and the realization that I could fall and become crippled, like Doug, got to me. I acted unsure while working up on the roof—not cocky, as some of the other guys did. After watching me working nervously up there for a while, Brian switched me to the job of carrying sheets of plywood and pushing them up ladders for the guys atop the hangar to nail down before shingling the roof. I was relieved.
I think about these and other unnerving work experiences when I write for Engineering News-Record. Injuries and deaths resulting from falls are among the most common accidents in the construction industry, and I often cover safety issues for this magazine. When I see contractors fined for fall safety violations, I think of the workers who made a mistake that could have been avoided, like Doug, who has the mentality of a child and is still in a wheelchair. Easter Seals pays for his apartment.
Doug came to mind when I noticed recently that several companies across the country had been cited for fall safety violations. In a one-month period, five contractors were slapped with a total of $777,300 in proposed fines for alleged violations. And on Apr. 2, OSHA issued $224,000 in proposed fines to a Carbon Cliff, Ill. company for safety violations after an Oct. 10, 2007 accident in which an employee was killed when he fell through a skylight.
My old neighbor Doug apparently absentmindedly stepped through a hole where a skylight had been. I imagined the Illinois worker doing the same thing. The similarity of some of these accidents, and the seeming inrease in such accidents, is troubling.
Ironworker Harold Billingsley, who died on the job on Oct. 5, 2007, is one of the statistics. Laboring on the construction of the Las Vegas City Center, Billingsley was about 60 feet up, walking in his steel-toed boots on uneven decking and going for some extra bolts, when he stumbled and fell through a 3-by-11-foot hole in the decking. Billingsley’s harness wasn’t connected to a safety cable he should’ve been tied to, and he fell to his death. The hole in the decking shouldn’t have been there, OSHA officials said.
These accidents made me wonder why the fear of falling and dying doesn’t stop contractors and workers from getting too comfortable on dangerous jobs? The answer is simple: Workers and owners aren’t afraid because tragedy hasn’t happened to them or someone they’ve known. Or if it happened, it was so long ago that nobody remembers.
But you don’t even have to fall very far for it to lead to your death. Eleven years ago my Dad, who had been a civil engineer for U.S. Steel and American Bridge, was standing on a ladder scraping paint from the woodwork on the porch, when he fell into the sloped concrete driveway below, hitting his head. He went into the house and laid on the sofa. My brother Pete came home and Dad asked him for a wet towel for his head, and said: “I hit my head. I feel sick.”
He seemed a bit out of it and went to the basement bathroom and after a moment Pete thought something was wrong, and went down to check on him. He found Dad lying on the floor of the bathroom. Dad, who had heart problems and hypertension for years, had brain damage. He was rushed to the hospital where they did emergency brain surgery, removing a piece of his skull to relieve some of the pressure on his brain. On life support, doctors weren’t sure he’d make it.
He did make it back—sort of. He made a fairly miraculous recovery, and eventually came back home. But my Dad, Harvey Lea Barnes, with his square-shouldered commanding presence, his booming voice and intensity that could focus a roomful of people (a good skill when you’re the father of 12 children), wasn’t really there.
Dad still had the wonderful vocabulary of his formerly inveterate reader self, but it was like he was somewhat retarded, or stoned beyond recognition. About 10 months after his fall, Dad fell again while at home, breaking his hip. The subsequent hospital stay was his last, as his condition slowly worsened and he died several weeks later.
If he’d not fallen, old Harve would’ve lived to tell me I was writing for the best engineering and construction magazine around. “You have a natural inclination for engineering,” he would’ve said. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
Harve had worked as an engineer on projects in Africa, Europe and Asia, and had regularly inspected steel mills in Birmingham, Gary and elsewhere, but he wasn’t working on a hazardous site when he fell. He was working at home. But many workers also labor as casually as if they were doing home repairs.
Why do we climb to dangerous heights so carelessly? Climbing the bridge as kids, we scaled the height to prove our manliness. I wonder if the blasé attitudes that some of us show when working up high might be machismo in the face of potential calamity? Or is our boldness just feigned bravery masking denial of our own mortality? Even when our subconscious tries to broach these questions, we sometimes ignore the warnings.
In the weeks leading up to ironworker Paul Corsi, Jr.'s death, he had dreams of falling and premonitions that something bad would happen. On Feb. 11, 2002, the day before his death, Corsi called his girlfriend from work to tell her he didn't feel right about being there. She told him to come home, which he did, but she couldn't convince him not to return to work the next day. He was killed the next day when the truss on which he was working, the 13th of 15 trusses being erected at the David. L Lawrence Convention Center, fell and crushed him.
I was contacted by ENR to cover the coroner’s inquest into the accident, which killed Corsi, who was 38. It was my first story for this magazine, and Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen Zappala said Corsi and other ironworkers caused the accident by using the wrong nuts to secure connections on the structure. But the D.A. found no one criminally responsible for the accident, which also injured two other ironworkers.
"If you're going to climb the steel, then you've got to see that the connections are made properly," Zappala said.
Connecting the recognition of our own mortality with the best methods of work might seem simple, but it’s not always easily done. The ironworkers at the Pittsburgh convention center thought they were using the correct nuts, and no one told them otherwise. Matthew Abate, a fourth generation ironworker who was injured in the truss collapse, was saved from falling with the truss because his lanyard snapped and he was able to scramble to safety as the truss fell. His lanyard was meant to save him in a fall, but it would’ve helped to kill him if it hadn’t broken.
One could argue that the ironworkers were careless, but all of the men had been climbing the steel for years. It would perhaps be more appropriate to blame the inspectors who were paid to ensure that the job progressed according to the specifications for the project. Maybe there’s plenty of blame to spread around in this sad case.
To remind contractors and workers of the danger of fall hazards, OSHA steps in. Large fines remind business owners that they can’t ignore the rules. For some, such fines also replace the lack of fear of tragedy with an apprehension about losing money for not having adequate safety protections. Even so, people make mistakes. But in construction, a mistake can be fatal.
Sixteen years ago, I was working as a carpenter’s helper for a contractor, building a large home in a Pittsburgh suburb. The head carpenter/owner of the company was a drinker and a hothead, and he would fly into rages over the simplest things, throwing the other workers off-kilter. Bill was flipping out one day, screaming at me and another laborer about needing a power saw, and I scrambled over to him with the saw in my hand.
In my haste I stepped onto the corner of a piece of plywood that we had placed, un-nailed, over the floor joists of that area of the second floor. The plywood slipped from under my feet, falling through the joists, and I fell too, still holding the saw. Luckily, I caught myself between two joists, saving myself from falling about 20 feet to the concrete garage floor below. My left side got the brunt of the fall, landing hard on a joist. My back hurt for weeks.

Jonathan Barnes is Engineering News-Record’s correspondent in Pittsburgh. jdavidbarnes@hotmail.com

A shorter version of this essay first appeared in Engineering News-Record.

Politely Speaking

I am shamefaced at the thought of what a knucklehead I’ve been. I’ve been discourteous. Even worse, I know better, and still, I’ve acted poorly. I’d blame it on the Internet, but technology could only be partly at fault.
For weeks I have had the phrase “Mind you Ps and Qs” in the back of my mind, reminding me to behave. As a freelance writer, I count on people calling me back so I can interview them for stories. Sometimes, particularly with cold contacts, I won’t get a return phone call saying they’re not interested. But very often, they’ll return my call, even though they don’t know me. The help of these people, though, contrasts greatly with the behavior of others.
Maybe I’m cranky, but I’m sick of the lack of professional courtesy that I encounter. I regularly try to contact people who don’t respond to emails, or don’t return phone calls, or fail to return calls in a timely fashion. But what got me thinking about the lack of courtesy that the Internet has helped to engender were my recent attempts to network with a group of young people who have a marketing firm. These folks are friends of a friend of mine. I had expected a good response, and after speaking with one of them and emailing three of them (one of whom I’d met in the past), I’d received no reply.
You could blame their unresponsiveness on being green, but these folks have had major successes. Which gets me back to “mind your Ps and Qs.” The phrase is an instruction to mind your manners, or to behave properly. But it also can mean be on your toes, be alert.
It dawned on me recently that I needed to remember to mind my manners and to be on my toes. A while back I ran into a local merchant with whom I’m acquainted, who recently tried to connect me with a small business owner who employs freelance writers. I was shocked to see Gail at a local grocery store—I said "Hi" and then turned to walk away. I was embarrassed, because I’d been too rushed to follow up with the friend of hers, who I’d contacted for work. As I turned to flee, Gail said, “Wait, hold on.”
I went over to explain that I hadn’t followed up with a resume after talking with her friend, Harriet, because I’d been busy with work. I felt like an idiot. I knew this woman, and she’d tried to help me, and I‘d blown it. I finally did follow up with Harriet recently, and she was kind and easygoing and I may work with her yet. But the recognition of being confronted by Gail on my bad behavior stung for a while after our grocery store meeting. I realized I’m as inconsiderate as the unmannerly people who annoy me.
These days of email have created a netherworld of dissociated feelings, where people often don’t recognize their rudeness. With email, the lack of a response is a de facto negative response, and many people don’t think there’s anything wrong with such indifference. But responding to an email is as simple as pushing a few keys, though that often is too much trouble for many of us. The lowest common denominator seems to be decreasing, and we’re all being pulled down. It’s tough to fight. You have to concentrate on behaving properly, because there’s no one around to remind you every minute.
Back in prep school, our school had a director of etiquette. This faculty member ensured that everything in the dining hall went according to the rules. Food was to be served to the tables in a certain order, and the rulebook governed behavior at those tables. “When I’m finished with you, you’ll be able to dine with the Queen,” the pursed-lipped Director of Etiquette would tell us.
Dine with her, yes, but would we return Her Majesty’s call? These social niceties are the lubricant of 21st century society, just as they were in previous centuries, yet we often forget them. Maybe we could learn something from cultures that have different ideas regarding polite behavior.
I recently contacted some Japanese guys for a story. Unlike many of my countrymen, the Japanese responded to my emails very quickly. One of the guys responded with an email in which he referred to his friends and me with the suffix –san, as in “Jonathan-san.”I looked up the meaning of –san and I was pleased to see it is a title of respect. Honorifics in Japanese are referred to as keigo, or “polite language.” But I could tell from the context that the “san” was meant to be polite, so the meaning was immediately clear.
Our society could use more polite language and more polite behavior. Most of us know how to behave properly, yet we often behave boorishly. We work to earn a good professional reputation, yet we forget the social graces that are only elective rules because the people who created them were polite. Many of us need to work on keeping our commitments—even the small ones, like replying to emails, returning calls, and following up. So I ask your forgiveness, Gail-san. And I appreciate your understanding, Harriet-san. I have been busy, and disrespectful. I’m working on it.

Jonathan Barnes is a freelance writer. jdavidbarnes@hotmail.com

Saving St. Nicholas

Susan Petrick prayed she’d somehow know when workers would be removing items from her church, the closed St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in the north side of Pittsburgh. Then one afternoon last March, her son was driving by the 106-year-old church, saw workers there, and told her when he got back to her house. They went over to the church to see what was happening.
Petrick, a lifelong parishioner, saw workers tearing out antique marble altars from the oldest Croatian church in America. As she was catching her breath, a man came up to her.
“You can’t be here. You don’t belong here,” the man said. Petrick recognized him as a member of the closed church’s sister congregation, St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church in Millvale, which the north side congregation had been merged with as one parish in1994, its centennial year. Ten years later, on St. Nicholas Day in 2004, the north side church was closed, and now it was being de-sanctified.
“I’m a parishioner of this church,” Petrick said to the man, trying to control her anger.
“You’re not supposed to be here. You have to leave,” the man said. “If you don’t leave, I’m going to call the cops.”
“Call them,” she said stubbornly, walking around her church and surveying the damage the crew had done. The framed Stations of the Cross that hung on the walls had disappeared. All of the statues were gone and workers had removed the Last Supper relief from the front central altar and were disassembling and removing the other altars. Petrick was devastated.
She had been trying for years to save the church, and now much of what made it special
had been carted away. Some of it was even being broken and taken away in front of her. It’s the type of thing that could make some people lose hope.
But nearly a year after the destruction, which was done to prepare the church for sale to Italian developer Follieri Group, Petrick says she’s still hopeful that her church can be saved as a shrine to St. Nicholas and a heritage site for the Croatian people. Her band of former parishioners and preservationists, the Preserve Croatian Heritage Foundation, are meeting at least monthly, and the sale of the church to developer the Follieri Group is far from done. “We’re not giving up,” she said.
Petrick and others who want to save the church have won many victories in their quest to save the structure, built with the nickels and dimes of immigrants. In 1922, the north side church was moved up the hillside to accommodate the revamping of Rt. 28. In 2001, the church was given historic designation by the city of Pittsburgh. Five years ago, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation officials had slated St. Nicholas for the wrecking ball. PennDOT engineers were planning to widen Rt. 28 and the church was in the way of the proposed reconfigured road.
But George R. White, a retired electronics engineer and board member of Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, recognized that getting the right of way to a set of unused railroad tracks along the river would enable PennDOT to build part of the reconfigured roadway over the railroad tracks, removing the need to tear down the church and excavate part of the hillside to rebuild the road. A road reconfiguration plan submitted in 2003 to Pennsylvania Department of Transportation by White on behalf of the PHLF was the basis for the PennDOT’s revised road plan. It ended up saving $60 million dollars on the project, which had been expected to cost $200 million. Part of the savings was the millions that PennDOT would have paid the Diocese of Pittsburgh to buy St. Nicholas Church in order to raze it.
* * *
The stubbornness of Croatians is legendary, from their defense of Christendom from the Muslims to the modern-day fight of the Pittsburgh Croatians to save their church. Maybe the Diocese picked too stubborn an opponent in these children and grandchildren of immigrants, since it seems the only way they can be beaten is to sell the church to a Vatican-backed Italian company in a sweetheart deal. The Diocese’s plans to sell the church to Follieri Group, an Italian company with a Manhattan office, seems stubborn. The fact that Follieri chief Rafaelo Follieri romances both actress Anne Hathaway and tabloid journalists from Manhattan (they’ve named the couple Hathielo), doesn’t seem to be a concern of the Pittsburgh Diocese. Nor, apparently, is the Diocese swayed by the fact that Rafaelo Follieri is being sued for millions by billionaire businessman Ron Burkle, who says Follieri misused funds to pay for a lavish lifestyle. Still, Pittsburgh Diocese spokesman Father Ron Lengwin said recently that the sale of St. Nicholas Church to Follieri Group is pending.
“There’s no question Follieri as a company is going through some difficult times,” Lengwin said. “They’ve regrouped, and want to buy the church.”
The Follieri Group is supposedly in the business of buying and re-using church properties, but did not return numerous calls for comment for this story. Still, the question of why the Diocese wants to sell the church to outsiders—people with no cultural affinity to the church and no goal of preserving the identity of the building—lingers suspiciously. Some say it comes down to the bottom line, and supposedly Follieri Group offered more money for the church. But where is the money? Ron Burkle wants to know.
Meanwhile, people with the means and the desire to save the church building are being ignored by the Diocese. A group of prominent Pittsburgh business people, most of whom have some Croatian blood, are part of the Pittsburgh-based Croatian American Cultural and Economic Alliance’s effort to buy the church and turn it into a shrine to St. Nicholas and a cultural site dedicated to the Croatian people. The group also would like to create a park on the strip of land alongside Rt. 28 from the church down to the north side proper, as a green gateway to the city.
Preliminary plans for the renovation of the church and creation of the park had been designed, when the Diocese gave CACEA and PCHF unacceptable terms of sale for the church, and the preservationists rejected the terms. That was in October of 2006, and the church still is empty, unused and slowly deteriorating. But the decision to sell the building to non-Croatians goes against public opinion and the views of those in the Pittsburgh preservationist community.
Dan Holland, chief executive officer of the Pittsburgh-based Young Preservationists Association, said he believes religious properties across the nation are at risk “Our general attitude about historic properties is that if a suitable re-use of a property can be found, then it should be used that way,” Holland said. “However, if it can be used as it was intended, that’s wonderful.”
Preservation Pittsburgh executive director Steven Paul said his group believes the church is a local and national treasure. “We think it should be a national shrine, and was uniquely suited to that purpose,” Paul said. “The Diocese has not acted in good faith to those who want to protect the church, which is profoundly disappointing to us… I’m very hopeful that the Diocese will begin to see the value of preserving that structure inside and out.”
Some preservationists wondered about the particular obstacles inherent in a negotiated sale between the Croatians and the Diocese. “We would all like to see the church saved, but the complexities are still there,” said Arthur P. Zeigler, Jr., president of Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation.
The Croatian preservationists rejected the sales agreement of the Diocese in part because the agreement stipulated that the Diocese could buy the church back for $100,000 at any time if it did not agree with the way the building was being used. At issue is the use of the church building for a specific religious purpose—as a shrine—over which the Diocese says it should have jurisdiction. The sales agreement also would have denied the new owners of the church the right to have alcoholic beverages in the church, which has a basement social hall with a bar. The Croatian preservationists found these conditions unacceptable because wine is used in church services, and also because they envisioned having fundraisers to pay for the $2 million church renovation and endowment that would support the shrine.
* * *
Eight years ago, St. Nicholas Church parishioners first heard of a plan to destroy their church for a road, and they formed PCHF in response. Now, nearly a year after many parts of the interior of their church were pulled out and hauled away, former parishioners of St. Nicholas keep their convictions. “It’s not about faith,” one parishioner said of the struggle to save the church. “These decisions were made by men.”
Susan Petrick, who is secretary of the Preserve Croatian Heritage Foundation, said she would not give up the fight. There are still promising signs.
“I believe my immigrant grandparents and all our immigrant forefathers would say, ‘Save and rebuild St. Nicholas Church,’” Petrick said. “To me, the fact that our church has not been sold is a sign that God wants us to rebuild his church.”
Parishioner Peter Karlovich said he has not given up because the fight is not over.
“The status of St. Nicholas is as much in the air today as it was eight years ago,” Karlovich said. “I believe that the church is a valuable asset to the city. It is a historic building that is also a work of art. It should be preserved to mark the presence of past generations and to inspire future generations.”
Other former parishioners involved in the effort to save the church have said they won’t quit. They won’t allow one of the most beloved landmarks in Pittsburgh to be wasted, or used for some commonplace purpose.
“We have to continue because this is part of us, part of our own history—what the Croatian community has accomplished. We shouldn’t disband because we don’t have a church,” said parishioner Rich Sestric. “We are still alive and want to carry on the culture. The church building is the symbol of us. I’m going to stay until I die.”
To learn more about the effort to save St. Nicholas Church, email Susan Petrick at sypetrick@hotmail.com, or email Peter Karlovich at pjkarlovich@verizon.net.

Jonathan Barnes is a Pittsburgh freelance writer who is part Croatian.

This story previously was published in Croatian Chronicle. http://www.croatianchronicle.com/

Love One Another

A while back I did some coverage on the effort of some Pittsburgh Episcopalians to break away from the US Episcopal Church. In a way, covering the press conference was a weird thing to me, because I had covered a similar story for Reuters a few years back.
I got to the Episcopal press conference on time, and of course it didn’t start on time. The press conference was at Trinity Cathedral, in downtown Pittsburgh. But when I, a reporter from the Toronto Starr and other reporters and camera news people showed up on time for the press conference, an ongoing worship service wasn’t over yet. So we hung around the hallway outside the sanctuary, waiting for the service to end. Finally, the group of bishops solemnly filed out in their vestments, heading to an upper room, where they would make their announcement. Here’s the first part of the story:
Conservative bishops upset with U.S. Episcopal Church stands on gay issues said on Friday they will call a constitutional convention to form a new "Anglican union" in North America.
"This is a time of reformation," said Robert Duncan, Episcopal Church bishop of Pittsburgh who convened the group. "We hope to go through this in a way that brings honor and glory to God."
Bishop Duncan seemed like a fine fellow, but when he said that his group hoped to break away from its national church and bring glory to God while doing it, I was a bit incredulous. Not because I didn’t think Bishop Duncan was serious in his intent, but rather, because it seemed to me at the time that bringing glory to God was not the crux of the dispute. Reuters titled the story, “Conservative Episcopalians Plot Separate Church.”
The Episcopalian story reminded me of a story I did a few years back during the Methodist convention here in Pittsburgh. The story, of course, was about gay issues and the Methodists. Since I couldn’t find the piece online anymore, here’s part of it:
Methodists Fail to Heal Rift Over Clergy
Wed May 5, 2004 07:33 PM ET
By Jonathan Barnes
PITTSBURGH (Reuters) - Supporters of gay clergy in the United Methodist Church complained bitterly on Wednesday over a refusal by the third-largest U.S. Christian denomination to soften its stance on homosexuality.
Delegates at the Methodist general conference this week rejected repeated attempts to change the church stance and reaffirmed a view of homosexuality as incompatible with Christian teaching. This came despite a church decision, upheld on Tuesday, to allow a lesbian minister to stay in her post.
The conference's position has left some liberal advocates contemplating their future within the church.
"As a gay man, I certainly don't feel very loved (in the church). As a part of this community, I have an obligation to push for greater acceptance," John Fletcher of Minneapolis told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.
Here's what happened with that.
All of this stuff reminds me of a piece I wrote sometime back for this blog. I didn’t understand this gay Christian debate entirely then, and I still don’t now. But I don’t think it’s right to exclude gay people from communities, though I can understand how some people believe that being gay is incompatible with Christian theology. Still, why would anyone, gay or straight, want to join a church that wouldn’t have him as a member because of who he loves?
I don’t understand why the Episcopalians and the Methodists can’t simply form their own pro-gay or neigh-gay denominations. You could have the Free Gay Methodists, and the Gay-Free Episcopalians, kind of like the Free Will Baptists . I’m kidding, but I wish it were that simple.
Clearly, what these denominations’ brothers and sisters are fighting about is not only differing interpretations of the Bible, but also power and property. Trinity Cathedral, where I attended the Episcopal press conference, is a beautiful old stone structure with a historic cemetery next to it, where an Indian chief and Revolutionary War heroes are buried. On the other side of the small cemetery is First Presbyterian Church, home of many Tiffany stained glass windows and the former pulpit of evangelist Katherine Kuhlman. It also is the church I grew up attending. I hope I don’t end up there for a press conference in the future.

Resolutions for the Steelers Nation

I’m not happy about the Steelers loss to the Jaguars, but I am relieved. If they’d won we probably would have had to see them lose further into the playoffs, when it would’ve hurt even worse. Now that the season is behind us, I’ve been thinking of how to rebuild morale among fans of the team and among the Steelers themselves. The answer is, of course, outsourcing. We should outsource some of our Pittsburgh-ness to like-minded folks across the country.
There’s a lot of talk during football season about the Pittsburgh Steelers Nation—the widespread group of expatriate (and non-native) fans that don their Steelers-themed clothes and root for the hometown win. But once the football season ends for our team, we Pittsburghers tend to forget about our wide network of Steelers kinsmen. Similarly, those fans in San Diego, Seattle, Baltimore, and beyond tend to forget about the Steel City when the Steelers aren’t playing. Maybe it’s that aching that we feel when the Steelers don’t win the Super Bowl that keeps us from staying in closer touch. Or maybe it’s the painful nostalgia that expatriates feel when they think of being away from their homeland.
Whatever the reason for our distance from each other, we Steelers fans need to stick even closer together in the off-season than we do during the season. Those of us in the Promised Land of Pittsburgh take our hills, foods, sayings and ways for granted. But people who left, even if they left decades ago, still get a wistful look when they talk about our City of Champions. We know that oftentimes their love for the Steelers is wrapped up with their love for Pittsburgh, a place where they sometimes wish they were, but cannot be. To fight the ennui that falls like a winter freeze in the off-season, folks in the Greater Steelers Nation can do more than a few things to keep their Pittsburgh Spirit alive throughout the year:
1. When stopped at an intersection where you have the right-of-way, wave the opposing car ahead of you.
If you do this, I guarantee you’ll feel like you’re in the City of Bridges for just a moment—or at least until an irate driver behind you honks his car’s horn. We still do neighborly stuff for each other here, maybe because we all grew up near Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.
2. At least once a month, say something nice about Pittsburgh to someone who knows little about our town.
Resist the urge to say that you had to leave the city to get the job you wanted, and please do not mention our city’s politics, which are an easy target that can quickly lead to low blows. Think of something nice to say about our city, and work it into a conversation with a person who knows nothing about Pittsburgh or even better, one who hates the Steelers.
3. Give us a call.
We miss you, which is why we tend to turn our backs on you when you leave town. By giving us a call and wishing us well, you’ll provide a psychological boost to Pittsburghers, which could translate into more productivity, greater creativity and a better season next year for the Steelers.
4. Plan a trip to Pittsburgh, then come see us.
You talk a lot to your kids or spouse about the way things were in Pittsburgh, yet you never take them here. Engender a true love of the Steel City in their hearts by taking them to see the homeland. Whether historic architecture, cultural attractions or outdoor recreation is your bag, it’s here. If enough of you visit, the injection of money will have a real impact on the region’s economy.
5. Invest in a Pittsburgh-based business.
There are so many large and small companies here that you have a lot of choices for potential investments. You don’t even have to leave your home to do it.
6. If you have a child considering colleges or technical school, suggest that he consider a Pittsburgh school.
We have dozens of colleges, universities and technical and training schools in the Pittsburgh area. Many of these schools are among the best in the world in their fields. For expatriates, a secondary benefit of sending their children to school here is the chance for the kids to learn the mother tongue. With some practice, your child could be fluently asking “How yins doin?” by the time he graduates.
7. Buy a book or two produced by a Pittsburgh-based author or publisher.
Buying into our city’s literary scene will not only edify you, it will help to enhance Pittsburgh’s reputation as one of America’s most literary cities. And it will inch us closer to being named “One of America’s Most Writerly Cities.”
8. Read Pittsburgh publications, such as the local newspapers and magazines. Publications such as the local newspapers, magazines and journals are definitive sources of Pittsburgh culture. You might not like all of that culture, but it’s still easy to access, and reading it is a way to get a deeper look at the place that your favorite football players call home.

A Christmas Production, by Danny O’Leary

When I was an adolescent we used to go Christmas caroling. If it was snowing, with large snowflakes blowing wildly, it was an even better time to do so. Back when we were about 13, a group of 10 or 12 of us would walk around Bellevue, sometimes from door to door, singing carols to raise money for charity. Some of the times the money would go to benefit Pittsburgh’s Children’s Hospital, where my younger brother Pete had recuperated after being hit by a car and nearly killed six years before. That fact alone might have been part of the reason why I was so easily suckered into going caroling, when I would’ve rather have been raising Cain somewhere. The other reason I was so easily convinced was that the girls were involved.
Danny O’Leary, who lived a few blocks away from me and whose mom was our Cub Scouts den mother, seemed to always be the ringleader of our caroling expeditions. Like some salesman of the art of performing, Danny would talk a bunch of us childhood friends into doing something selfless and fun for Christmas. For a time, he always succeeded in getting us to go caroling, and now I look back at the memory as sort of a quaint reminder of a bygone era—back when milk was delivered to our doorsteps in the morning, and when kids delivered the daily newspaper. Even back then, at least some of us thought that caroling was corny, but Danny could sell it.
“It’ll be fun!” Danny would say, wide-eyed and grinning, his enthusiasm reminding me of how he had led our childhood games of Planet of the Apes years before, hanging off of tree branches and acting the perfect monkey. “And we’ll raise money for charity! It’ll be great!”
Danny’s charm would invariably talk me into going, and soon I’d be singing harmony with Penny Balouris, Kim Stewart, Karen Ehlinger, Pete Sourlas and other kids I’d known since kindergarten.
We’d walk up the steps to the front porches of the old Victorian homes in Bellevue and ring the doorbells, sometimes anxiously beginning to sing just after we rang the doorbell, other times waiting for the homeowners to open the front door before we started. Bundled up in out thick wool coats and scarves with the soft snowflakes falling, we almost looked like a greeting card scene as we sang “Hark the herald angels sing” and other well known tunes. Most often, people would hear us out for our first song, then we’d tell them we were singing for charity. Usually, they’d give us a donation and we’d sing another song or two. I can still recall the kindly smiles on some of these folks’ faces as they watched us sing, noticing how our harmony was perfect and our delivery was nearly professional. For some of the old ladies, it was no doubt the first visitors they’d had all day—a sad fact that we realized as we moved from home to home, spreading our Christmas cheer.
Danny had a lot to do with the entire productions. He would warm us up and go over a song plan before we began to carol. We’d loosen up a bit as we began to sing together, hearing again how well we harmonized.
“We sound good,” Danny would coach us. “They’re going to love us.”
Danny went on to study musical theater at Point Park. Last time I heard about him, years ago, he was working as an actor in off-Broadway productions. Back when we were Christmas caroling, though, Danny was the star.

Jonathan Barnes is a Pittsburgh freelance writer.