Would I be safe visiting Detroit's Catholic Churches? (Grand Rapids, Marquette: neighborhoods, to buy)

[Coldjensens]

Can you post some pictures of the insides please? I have seen the outside of many of these and I always wondered what they are like inside.

COme back and do it again.

[cath4ever]

Attached are pictures of the insides of most of the churches. It was such a great time to go because all of the churches were decked out for Christmas and looked even more spectacular than they would have the rest of the year!

[Coldjensens]

Stunning! Every one of them. Thank you.

I wonder what it would cost to build a church like that today? Probably impossible. You would never find the people with the knowlege and skills to design and build something like that.

Now I want to go on a tour of churches.

[Retroit]

You could have been a little more descriptive with your labeling, instead of 1,2,3,4,etc.

But I won't complain.

...otherwise I'd have to go to Confession.

[MaryleeII]

For the OP---glad your trip went well!

Beautiful pictures! Is it just a personal interest of yours, or perhaps you're doing a project, etc? Thanks for opening the door inside many great old churches many of us have wondered about for years!

[magellan]

I love taking (and seeing) pictures of old churches, and this is one of my favorite threads I've seen here in a long time. Thanks for sharing!

[cath4ever]

Why am I interested in visiting churches? That takes a bit of explaining...
The original reason I got interested in photographing churches is way back when I was in 6th and 7th grade. During the Holy Year 2000 many Catholics made a pilgrimage to the four major basilicas in Rome: St. Peter's, St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, and St. Paul Outside the Walls. I live in the Diocese of Gaylord, MI, and during that year the Bishop of Gaylord said that, for anyone who couldn't make it to Rome, he would specify three churches in our diocese that the faithful could travel to instead: St. Mary Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Cathedral (Gaylord), Our Lady of the Lake (Prudenville) and Cross in the Woods (Indian River).

Instead of visiting just those churches though, I got the idea to visit all 81 churches in the diocese! So, every couple of weeks for about a year and a half my parents and I visited 80/81 churches in the Diocese of Gaylord. The only one we never visited is Holy Cross on Beaver Island. I would still like to get there eventually so I could complete all 81. At that time I would only take one picture of the exterior of the church and one picture of the altar because I was using disposable cameras, now I have a nice Olympus digital camera.

After we got done with those I really didn't visit too many more churches except a couple in the Diocese of Marquette and a couple in the Diocese of Grand Rapids. The Cathedral of St. Peter in Marquette has both the best interior and exterior of all seven Cathedrals in Michigan. After those I didn't do much more for about 10 years.

Then, last June I made a trip out to Winona, MN to attend the SSPX Priestly Ordinations. A coworker of mine recommended I visit the Cathedral of St. Paul in Saint Paul while I was out there, so I did and it was stunning! Until now the Cathedral of St. Paul was the prettiest church I had ever been in, but that has now been trumped by several of Detroit's churches. Seeing the Cathedral of St. Paul got me interested in visiting churches again. Unfortunately, I visited the Cathedral the day before I was to head back to Michigan, otherwise I would have visited more churches out there after seeing that.

When I returned to Michigan I decided I wanted to visit churches again, so in my free time from September to October I went on every diocesan website and looked up every church in the states of Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Most of the dioceses had pictures of the exteriors of their churches on their wesbites, so any churches that had nice exteriors I would put on a spreadsheet with the church name, address, mass times, and phone number. Then, if those particular churches had their own websites, I would go to them and search for any pictures of the interior. If they had a nice ornate interior, I would record that on the spreadsheet as well. I did this for all the churches in all of the states I listed. That is why I had such an extensive list of churches in Detroit that I wanted to go to.
Hopefully I will be able to go out to the ordinations this June in Winona too, and this time I'll stop at churches on my way out and on my way back.

While I was growing up I always wanted to be a Catholic Priest, so I have had a deep interest in the Holy Catholic Faith from about fourth grade on. However, as I actually think about the question "WHY do I like to visit and take pictures of churches?" I actually don't know...I just like them.

[the_muse]

There are so many beautiful churches in this area, and I'm so glad to see that many continue to exist and be well maintained. This is one of the great things we have in Detroit that many people don't realize.

[cath4ever]

For Retroit:
Top row L to R:
Sweetest Heart of Mary, St. Joseph, Holy Cross, St. Anne, Shrine of the Little Flower
Middle Row L to R:
Holy Redeemer, St. Paul on the Lake, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Old St. Mary's, Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament (I didn't go in there)
Bottom Picture:
St. Hedwig

[the_muse]

Oh! Too bad you didn't get to go inside the Cathedral. It is beautiful. I took a photo in there once with my camera phone... it was just before a church service, from the choir balcony. I think I just took a photo of one of the stained glass windows. I was trying to be discreet in snapping a quick pic before a major service. The Cathedral is absolutely beautiful inside. If I can find the photo and it looks halfway decent, I'll post it.