Historic Outaouais church to be resurrected as cultural centre

A church cemetery in Perkins, Que., will be getting some unusual new occupants in the near future.

Local officials are looking to convert the historic Saint-Antoine-de-Padoue Church into a cultural hub, but the building itself will first need to be deconsecrated in accordance with Catholic traditions.

“The statues that can be taken off, and the tableaus, the artwork, that can be taken off will be buried in the cemetery,” said parish council president Louise Plouffe.

The future of the more-than-a-century-old church has been in question since it first shut its doors in 2022, as the parish struggled to raise enough funds to complete repairs.

More than three years on, construction crews have now started setting up scaffolding to fix the steeple, after the local community managed to fundraise $250,000, Plouffe said.

The rest of the $400,000 target budget for renovations will come from the province’s Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Plouffe said.

Ownership of the church will be ceded to the municipality of Val-des-Monts, she added. A recently established local non-profit, Val des Arts, will assume operational control of the new cultural hub.

A tale of two cultures

Saint-Antoine-de-Padoue was originally built in 1906, initially housing both Irish and Francophone congregations.

Sermons regularly alternated between English and French until the 1950s, Plouffe said.

When it closed in 2022, the extent of the structural damage had made the church a hazard to anyone using it.

Plouffe said she expects other elements integral to the church, like the stations of the cross and its 19th-century organ, will remain after the site’s conversion.

The pipe organ is amongst the oldest in the Outaouais region, Plouffe said, adding she hopes it can be used for concerts going forward.

Neighbours helping neighbours

As restorations get underway, parish officials are looking to another recently converted parish in the region as inspiration.

In 2021, the Grace United Church in Chelsea, Que., was officially converted into a local arts and events hub known as La Fab sur Mill.

Originally built in 1875, the building now hosts concerts, dance recitals, a visual art gallery and studio spaces for six resident artists.

La Fab’s president, Sandy Foote, said that while the 150-year-old building was in better condition at the time of its conversion than Saint-Antoine-de-Padoue, he's still confident the conversion of the Perkins church will be a success.

Over the past three years, La Fab has been advising the parish’s council on how to move forward with the process, offering help on establishing effective funding streams and suggesting local engineers.

One key message Foote's tried to imprint upon Saint-Antoine-de-Padoue's parish is that community involvement and proper governance need to be in place to keep the cultural centre running — challenges he says are as big as actually transforming the building.

“You have to have the governance in place to support it and you have to have the volunteers that are willing to step up and work with you,” Foote said.

Currently, there is no date for when renovations on the parish are to be set to complete, though Plouffe expects construction on the church’s steeple to continue until April.

As for when the cultural centre opens for its first event, Plouffe said she’ll be saving herself a spot in the front pew.