\nBilled as a first-class museum, high-tech exhibit hall and Catholic think tank that would promote the church within the broader culture, the center today is a 100,000-square-foot-money pit. Expensive exhibits go largely unviewed, interactive displays mostly untouched, while annual foot traffic through the facility is less than one-tenth of the neighboring National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are no busy days at the center,\u201d said a former employee.<\/p>\n
Constructed on a 12-acre site purchased from the neighboring Catholic University of America in Northeast Washington, the center was the inspiration of Detroit Cardinal Adam Maida, who, while serving as bishop of Green Bay, Wis., first proposed the idea to Pope John Paul II. But it\u2019s the downsizing Detroit archdiocese, which has closed three dozen schools over the past three years and is considering consolidating or closing dozens of parishes, which might yet foot the bill for the financially struggling center.<\/p>\n
The archdiocese has loaned or guaranteed loans totaling approximately $36 million to cover operating costs at the center, a source familiar with the center\u2019s finances told NCR<\/em>. Ned McGrath, spokesman for the archdiocese, confirmed that the Detroit church has supported the center both monetarily and through in-kind contributions, but declined to put a dollar value on that aid. \u201cThe cardinal thought it was a worthwhile project and still thinks so,\u201d said McGrath. \u201cBut we just don\u2019t talk about our investments.\u201d<\/p>\nThe center\u2019s executive director, Msgr. William Kerr, told NCR<\/em> the $36 million figure is \u201cprobably close to right\u201d though some of those funds, he said, went toward construction costs and not operating expenses. In addition, the center owes the Catholic University more than $2 million for the property on which the center sits. \u201cThere is just no doubt that the archdiocese of Detroit was the real force behind the establishment [of the center] and therefore the guarantor of the center\u2019s survival,\u201d said Kerr. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Really. Even though that corner of DC is a hotbed of Catholic life, the John Paul II Center seemed like an overreach to many when it was announced. Four years after it opened, there are, indeed, problems. Joe Feureherd reports: Billed as a first-class museum, high-tech exhibit hall and Catholic think tank that would promote…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n
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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4913\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}