CASTLEGAR NEWS Your Horoscope For the Week with Michael O’Connor inside the West Kootenay Advertiser
Vol.10 Issue 30 •
Breaking news at castlegarnews.com
Thursday, July 25 • 2013
Suspicious circumstances Local man still missing as involved in gas leak of press time See Page A3 See Page A2
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The Reverend Father David John has spent time and energy dealing with the positive aspects of the coming re-build of St. Rita’s Roman Catholic Church — targeted by arsonists four months ago today. Marvin Beatty
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St. Rita’s church in Castlegar, a parish of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Nelson, was struck by arson four months ago today, destroying a building that had been home to weddings, funerals, baptisms and much prayer. Three days after the blaze, Lee Wilding of Castlegar was arrested. He and a female — also from Castlegar and who cannot be named under the provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act — were each charged with two counts of arson relating to the fire at the church and another the same night which destroyed a vehicle owned by the Red Cross at Kinnaird Community Church. Though the building is gone, the church community remains strong and a path forward is being forged. “A lot of people were very upset and distressed because they really felt a loss. Not only that, there was the fact that we didn’t know why the events had happened,” said The Reverend Father David John
on Friday, July 19. John said people may have felt different if the church had, for example, been hit by lightning but when the cause was determined as arson it was unsettling. “It made it very difficult because [we asked] was it an attack against us or was it just random?”, he said. “It’s sort of odd when a complete stranger does something that impinges your life because you just ask why.” He added if there’s a why you can get past that question and get on with healing. John said it was recognized early on that the way forward had to involve all church members. The Diocese, erected February 22, 1936 and serving parishes in the Kootenays and the Okanagan, currently ministers to approximately 78,000 Catholics. After the fire, decisions were made to convert some of the remaining space to other uses, providing continuity of the many services offered. One classroom is now a temporary office, another has
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become a weekday chapel with seating for about 30 and the hall has become the location for mass. John said he’s not rushing through the rebuild because he wants people to understand what a church is and what is done within it. “The hall we’ve got set up for our liturgy at the moment is much more attuned to the type of liturgy that I celebrate than a long, thin church was,” he said. “I actually feel much more comfortable because there was 20-something rows there [in the former church] and we’ve got five rows here; I can have eye contact with everyone.” He gave another example of finding positives in the face of adversity. “During funerals in the old church we would have to move the casket to the side as the family came in and then put it back in the centre; when we got to communion, we would have to move it again where the choir normally sits.
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