AUBURN — More than 400 people — some weeping openly — filled St. Louis Church on Thursday for the 95-year-old landmark’s final Mass.

“I can’t even imagine New Auburn without St. Louis,” said Shirley Madore of Lewiston. She grew up across the street and never imagined that the grand brick building or its columned and stained-glass interior might one day be gone. “Walking in here was very emotional.”

Mourning for the church began in April, when leaders from Auburn’s Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish presented their dire analysis to churchgoers.

The church would be sold or razed.

Issues included large cracks down a tower, cracks in a concrete overhang and a deteriorating stone crown on the roof. The parish committee and the statewide Roman Catholic diocese estimated repairs would cost more than $1 million, which they could not afford.

Thursday night, Bishop Richard Malone counseled parishioners to work harder, to encourage more people to practice their faith and to attend their new churches.

“We’ve got to get more vigorous,” Malone said. “We’ve got to become more effective at changing the secular culture around us. We’ve got to become more confident that God will give us the grace that guides us to go about His work with hearts full of hope.”

Malone, who served as bishop of Maine’s Roman Catholic diocese until last year, serves as the diocese’s apostolic administrator until a new bishop is assigned. He now works with churches in the Buffalo area.

“In a particular way — and I tell this to my new friends in western New York — we all have to learn to be missionaries,” he said. Though churches have been closing in Maine for years, many also have closed in the Buffalo area. In an eight-year span, that region lost 70 of 240 Catholic churches.

“We shouldn’t feel singled out in Auburn or in Maine,” Malone said.

The grand, Neo-Gothic church was lit up for Thursday’s Mass. Banners adorned the columns, and church volunteers guarded the bulging congregation from walking through the cracked arch at the building’s face. Instead, people were led through the rear or up a narrow staircase on the church’s west side.

When Shirley Madore walked in, she saw lots of friends from her childhood, during which she attended the adjacent school, which closed in 1969.

Once inside, she sat with her husband, Maurice. The couple was married here 35 years ago.

Several pews away, Glenn and Kim Scott sat in their pews and marveled at the grand nave. When the church closed in April, they began attending the city’s other, newer Catholic churches.

Both are fine places with good people, they said.

However, they miss the towering ceiling and the many stained-glass windows, Glenn Scott said. Something is missing in modern buildings. They can be more comfortable, but the grandeur suffers.

“We’re going to miss a real church,” he said.

dhartill@sunjournal.com

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