MONTAUK Church Is Back On Track After 10-year delay, a Catholic flock sees hope

Montauk's Catholic community numbered 60 in 1930 when the walls of St. Therese of Lisieux Church were first raised on land donated by Carl Fisher, the developer with dreams of making Montauk the Miami Beach of the North.

The roof of the Tudor-style structure was held up by four wooden trusses, the very same trusses that, for most of the past year, have held up the church's fitful, decade-long resurrection. It may finally be at hand.

During the celebration of Mass on Saturday evening and again on Sunday morning, Father Peter, as St. Therese's priest, Msgr. Peter Libasci, is known, was finally able to tell his flock that seven new trusses, which are to be added to the original four to support a new, larger church, were in production after complicated delays. He received standing ovations.

The truss problem was only the latest setback in what has been an emotionally trying period for Montauk's Catholic faithful, who have been without a proper church since the original was deemed unsafe in 1995.

It has been a long road, unnecessarily long in the opinion of a number of parishioners who charged incompetence on the part of the Rockville Centre Archdiocese, of which St. Therese of Lisieux is a part. The parishioners said they wished to remain anonymous because it was time to forgive and forget.

The original church was built with money raised by immigrants from Nova Scotia including Eli Pitts, Leonard McDonald, Edgar Grimes, and Tom Joyce, whose families have remained active in the Montauk community ever since. The church was designed by McDenna and Irving, a firm that had been hired to build other churches for the Archdiocese of New York.

Sixty-five years later, in June of 1995, the church's 500 parishioners were told their church was unsafe. Its doors were locked the next month, and a chain link fence was placed around it. Weekly Masses, funerals, and weddings were moved across the street to the low-ceiling basement of the parish school, where they are still held today.

The move across Essex Street prompted a debate about whether the old church should be repaired, at an estimated cost of nearly $500,000, or razed and replaced by a new one, costing in the area of $3.5 million. The debate grew heated, so heated that a number of the flock took wing.

The fate of the beloved stucco church was still not decided by 1998 when, in the interest of peace, Bishop John R. McGann of the Rockville Centre Diocese imposed a moratorium on public discussion of it. The diocese favored a new church, but a poll taken in 1996 showed that the majority of parishioners supported repairing the old one.

The debate continued to rage behind the scenes, and it took its toll. The Rev. Raymond Nugent and Msgr. John C. Nosser, his successor, left the parish after failing to persuade parishioners to accept a new church. In 1998, church members were again polled, this time with five options, one of which was to build a church big enough to accommodate the growing congregation.

The Rev. Peter A. Libasci was brought in to calm the waters in June of 1999, and received a standing ovation from parishioners in May of the following year when he announced that the Priest Senate of Rockville Centre had granted approval to dismantle the old church and then rebuild it.

The new, 9,751-square-foot St. Therese would seat 516 instead of 197 worshipers, and it would incorporate four wooden trusses from the old church, as was the compromise wish of the parishioners. Construction was to have been completed by February of '04, its $3.5 million cost raised entirely from local sources.

The old church was demolished, and work on the new church began in the fall of 2002, but was delayed almost immediately by bad weather. Work began again in the spring of 2003, but was halted anew when consulting engineers hired by the diocese discovered cracks in the foundation.

Charles Grimes, a subcontractor on the project whose father helped build the original church, had predicted the cracks and refused to backfill the new foundation because the concrete had been poured, with the engineer's blessing, without the steel supports known as rebar. He quit the project, but said last week that he intended to stay on as a member of the church.

In January of 2004, Monsignor Libasci had the difficult task of informing his flock that the partially built foundation would have to be demolished and removed, and that the mistake would add an estimated $2 million to the $3.5 million price tag. The diocese, which acts as the overall administrator for the project, filed a lawsuit against the architects, Zwirko, Ortmann, and Issing of East Hampton, and against the engineers, Hawkins, Webb, and Jaeger of Port Jefferson.

They were replaced by the architectural firm of Denker Cackovic Architects of Nyack to work with the Clay Hines Engineering firm of Connecticut. The old trusses were placed in storage until new plans could be drawn up. Last week, Monsignor Libasci, who was promoted to monsignor by Pope John Paul II in January, explained what happened next.

Many Catholic churches are built in the shape of the cross. The altar is set where the transept, or crosspiece, intersects the nave, the longer part, which runs west to east in the case of St. Therese of Lisieux. The plan was for the four old trusses to support the roof of the transept, two to be located in each wing. Seven new trusses would support the roof of the nave.

"The old trusses were made 80 years ago. The measurements were imprecise, plus they have shrunk and twisted over the years. The new trusses were all computerized," with very exact measurements, Monsignor Labasci said.

There were discrepancies in the area the nave and the transept in the center of the church. Fitting them became a mathematical challenge.

"The engineer would send his figures to the architect. The architect would challenge them, and they'd go back to the engineer. It was like a dissertation. Each time it went back and forth it took another three weeks," the parish priest said.

By this time, the walls of the church were up, waiting for the trusses to support the roof, the window openings ready to receive stained glass windows from the old church as well as new ones. The project was "demobilized" last January, at first because of the harsh weather, but by spring, when it was to begin again, the Canadian firm hired to make the new trusses could wait no longer, and took on two new jobs.

Work that was restarted in March was stopped once again, the church's empty concrete walls reminiscent of the aftermath of a bombing raid, and the source of wild speculation. Monsignor Peter told his congregation on Sunday that it had become difficult for him to go anywhere in Montauk without being buttonholed about what appeared to be an unfinished ruin.

One parishioner who is a building contractor quit the church's building committee several times over the past 10 years in frustration, only to go back again. He put the responsibility for most of the decadelong travail on poor administration by the archdiocese. "They should have gotten a good kick in the ass," he said of the original engineering firm.

"But it didn't happen. It got far more complicated than it needed to be. It was a bitter experience, but I'm going to leave the bad feelings behind." The parishioner said the delays must have added significantly to the project's cost.

Monsignor Libasci said yesterday that a figure had not been officially established, and he was generally reluctant to talk about how the new church was being paid for. But one parishioner said the money was there to make up the difference, that over $5 million raised from the local congregation specifically to pay for the new church is earning interest in the bank.

Ray Elhilow, a spokesman for the J. Petrocelli company, the general contractor that has done the construction so far, said that with the trusses in the pipeline, the project should go forward without delay. "All the cement and masonry are ready, the windows are in storage. We're all set up. I feel sorry for the parish," he said of the 10-year wait.

Many parishioners, including John Keeshan, credit Monsignor Libasci with helping them keep the faith. "If it wasn't for Father Peter we wouldn't have a parish, no less the church," Mr. Keeshan said. "He rebuilt the parish."

"When the grand day finally comes, and we're sitting in the pews, it will be the icing on the cake. Father Peter is responsible for the cake."