A candle left burning in a side altar at Incarnation in south Minneapolis caused a fire early the morning of March 9, 2022. Firefighters quickly extinguished the flames, but smoke permeated much of the church, requiring intensive cleaning and other repairs.
Had the firefighters arrived 10 minutes later, damage would have been much worse, said Chris Pangle, development assistant at the parish. “If the fire had spread into the upper roofs, it would have been completely lost,” he said.
That side altar area of the church sustained the worst damage — it was the only part of the church where the fire burned through the rafters to the outside. Reconstruction in that area was completed by the end of June, followed by roofing work and a new ceiling.
Bricks in the side altar were “incinerated,” Pangle said. “When you touched them, they just flaked off to dust because the fire was that hot,” he said.
The most heavily damaged materials needed to be replaced and “they don’t make these same bricks anymore,” Pangle said. So, workers found bricks of the same size and bleached and stained them to match the originals.
Today, all repairs are complete except the church organ in the choir loft, which is at least 70 years old. “It’s high enough that all the smoke just flooded to it,” Pangle said. Staff members hope it will be operating by Easter.
Matt Rieger, 67, who attended the former Incarnation grade school, and his wife, Dorie, 66, said before a recent Mass that they were married at Incarnation nearly 42 years ago and raised five children. Matt has been going to the church since he was born.
“I think it’s the most beautiful church in Minneapolis,” he said. For the parish’s 75th anniversary, he wrote its history and how it was called “the cathedral of the cornfields” because it was surrounded by farm fields growing the crop. The church was completed in 1918 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. That status required the parish to run any changes to the building’s exterior, including the stained glass, by a committee to make sure they were consistent with the church’s original design, Pangle said.
HONORING POLICE, FIREFIGHTERS
The fire at Incarnation started in, and most badly damaged, a side altar in a chapel called Santo Niño (Holy Child). Two stained-glass windows were destroyed that dated to the church’s construction in 1918 and bore images of Sts. Patrick and Paul.
“We had no pictures of the stained-glass windows that were in that particular altar space,” said Deacon Carl Valdez, who serves at the parish. In creating replacements, the parish asked an artist to match the style of the other stained-glass windows in the church, he said.
The parish had another request: Use the windows to honor the police officers and firefighters who responded to the fire. The windows feature images of St. Michael, the patron saint of police officers, and St. Florian, patron saint of firefighters.
The windows allow the parish to “turn it into an altar for safety in Minneapolis,” Deacon Valdez said, and “a tangible way to say thank you to police and (firefighters).” The new windows are also “a perfect match” for the style of the other windows in the church, he said.
“We’ve all commented on how beautiful the restoration is because, even as a kid, with all the lit candles and incense, the colors had started to blur a little bit, and when they got finished with everything, it’s just so stunning — the color of the brick, the ceiling, the marble,” Matt said.
Many parishioners have deep roots in the parish, Dorie said, and others have family members who did. Even if they don’t belong to the parish today, many have come back to see the church because it was a part of their lives, she said.
In the end, the fire brought the parish together, Matt said. “People were energized about helping.” About reopening, “it’s really been a wonderful celebration,” he said. “Almost a reincarnation of this church.”
Insurance covered what was damaged by the fire and needed to be brought up to code, Pangle said. Significant costs were still accrued in the restoration process, he said. For example, with tall scaffolding in place to make fire-related repairs, cracks above each major stained-glass window were identified and those repairs were made out of pocket, he said.
Repair costs will be paid with generous contributions from parishioners “and anyone else who would love to help us keep Incarnation a thriving part of south Minneapolis,” Pangle said.
The first Mass after the fire was held at the former Incarnation School five days after the blaze, March 14. During that Mass, Father Kevin McDonough, the pastor, told those assembled to expect a lot of inconvenience, but also many blessings, “so hang in there.”
No one was hurt, he said, “nothing that we had already repaired is damaged. The church needed a lot of cleaning,” something that would have been addressed in an upcoming capital campaign, Father McDonough said. Now, “it’s going to be done much sooner than that.”
The parish was in the middle of a large capital campaign to repair the roof at the time of the fire. The main section of the roof was finished but winter arrived before the lower pitches over the side altars could be completed, Pangle said. “So, when the fire burned through the roof, many parishioners were afraid that all the work that had been completed was for naught,” he said. But “miraculously,” the fire did not touch any recently completed repairs, he said.
Masses moved to the church basement April 3 after water damage was repaired. The first Mass back inside the church — with a relatively small number of pews — was held the weekend of Oct. 1 and 2. By the second week of October, Masses were held with enough seating for all, which then made it feel whole again, Pangle said.
A nine-minute video, including the song “We Shall Overcome” was posted on the parish website, highlighting key steps in cleaning, repairing and restoring the damaged church.
An overcoat was applied to protect the wood for another century or more, Father McDonough said in the video. A protective layer over the stained glass was removed, the windows were cleaned and new protective covering was installed. The floors were redone, the ceiling was repainted, stained and sealed and the pews were repaired, some fire-damaged, some not.
Charlie Epple, 87, said he was married at Incarnation and has been a parishioner for more than 60 years. “It’s great” how the workers “cleaned and fixed everything” and that the parish had a “nice plan B” for holding Masses during the renovations, he said.
“People are coming back,” Epple said. “They’re excited to see, curious to see how it was going to turn out. But they did a wonderful job. The spirit is still here.”
Isabel Hidalgo, 48, her husband, Reynaldo, 47, and their children, are very involved in the parish, including two sons in the choir, said Gretchen Valdez, parish volunteer and wife of Deacon Carl Valdez, who serves the parish. With Deacon Valdez translating, Isabel said she was “really sad” when the church was damaged. Incarnation has been her parish for a long time, and she feels close to many people, including the deacon and his wife, she said.
Now, Isabel said she is glad because “thanks to many generous people, the church is ready.”
“Overall, we’re thankful to God because it’s God who does everything,” she said. Asked if it feels the same to attend after the fire, she said “it seems stronger because you see more people, more faces, more people at Mass.”
Deacon Valdez said the 11 a.m. Spanish Mass is “standing room only, with the next highest attendance at the 1 p.m. Spanish Mass, then the English Mass at 9 a.m.”
“It seems happier, more joyous, but I think that’s in part because of what we missed. And now it’s back and it’s clean,” Deacon Valdez said.
To hear and see work inside the church that took place after the fire,
view the video at incarnationmpls.org.
FOOD CENTER DIDN’T MISS A BEAT
The church fire at Incarnation didn’t affect the parish food center, except for discarding some food in a back room damaged by smoke and ashes, said Chris Pangle, development assistant at the Minneapolis parish.
Pangle also co-manages the food center, Harvest from the Heart (Cosecha del Corazón). “We were open the next day,” he said.
Previously housed in the rectory basement, it is now in a converted four-car garage behind the rectory. Glass-fronted refrigerators and freezers line two walls. One row of racking holds fresh produce, and another along the back wall contains bread, sweets and shelf-stable items. Down the middle are pallets of bulk food. Available food varies daily, as it is supplied from donors. Families can use one of six shopping carts while choosing food items. There is no cost to shoppers.
The parish has run a food shelf since 1984, when it served about 120 families a month. Today it serves about double that in one day, Pangle said.
Three staff members and “a litany of volunteers” are involved with its operation, he said, and demand continues to grow. It is open five days a week.
In 2022, about 6,000 “unique families” visited Incarnation’s food shelf, with a total of 24,083 visits by families. The food shelf distributed 889,984 pounds of food last year. By December 2022, numbers reached 3,150 visits by families per month. At that pace, the food center over 12 months would serve families during 37,800 visits.
In January 2023, 73% of families were Spanish speaking, a little higher than the parish’s percentage of Spanish speakers, Pangle said. The food shelf draws from a larger base than parish families, he said. Parish affiliation is not asked of food shelf visitors, but zip code and income level are.
Behind the scenes, volunteers in “food rescue” are out every day picking up food at locations including Costco, Cub, Jerry’s, Target and Trader Joe’s. Pickups at Kowalski’s happen three times a week. Once a week, a St. Vincent de Paul-Twin Cities employee driving a refrigerated truck goes to Prescott, Wisconsin, to United Natural Foods. The list expands in spring and summer, when local growers donate surplus food.
Pangle used to work in “food rescue,” so he didn’t see families’ reactions to receiving the free food. It was harder to feel like he was making a difference, he said. But at the food center, Pangle said, he sees “many happy, emotional responses” when visitors “can choose whatever food they want and go home with it. It’s not uncommon that people cry and tell you how much it changes everything,” he said.
For information on the food center (in English and Spanish), visit harvestfromtheheart.org.
