THE MANAOAG shrine at the backdrop of a procession of the image of the Our Lady of the Rosary of Manaoag WILLIE LOMIBAO/ CONTRIBUTOR

MANAOAG, PangasinanFrom a small chapel built and visited by Augustinian missionaries in 1600, the church called Our Lady of the Rosary of Manaoag will finally be proclaimed a minor basilica, the highest title that a Catholic church outside Rome can earn, on Feb. 17.

This is really an honor and prestige for the Archdiocese of Lingayen-Dagupan. The title minor basilica is given only by the Pope and no one else, said Fr. Ronald Mactal, the churchs chaplain and liturgist.

Pope Francis bestowed the churchs new status on Oct. 11 last year, more than three months before he visited the country on Jan. 15.

As a minor basilica, the church has been recognized for its devotion and for its role as center of liturgical celebration, Mactal said.

It earned its new status after a tedious documentation and validation that began in August last year. The process required the church leaders to answer a 14-page questionnaire in Latin.

We documented everything: the vessels, the vestments, how many masses, sacraments, baptism. In a secular way, [getting the] minor basilica [status] is like [going through an] accreditation. We are being accredited by the Pope himself, Mactal said.

The church became a parish when the Augustinians turned it over to the Dominicans in 1605. But it was only in 1701 when the construction of a big church at its present location began, according to the Our Lady of the Rosary of Manaoag website (www.manaoagshrine.org).

It was destroyed by an earthquake in 1882 and what was left of the building was burned by revolutionaries in 1898. It was rebuilt after the Philippine Revolution and was completed in 1912.

To date, it is the only Catholic church that has been operated by the Dominicans in Pangasinan since 1925, with the approval of the Holy See.

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Manaoag now home to newest minor basilica

Students in teacher Amy Hofstetter's pre-k class tie prayer ribbons to the fence of a new playground at Stepping Stones Trinity United Methodist Church Preschool on Wednesday,

It was someone running a red light and his daughter's vehicle being T-boned that left her with a traumatic brain injury and confined to a wheelchair.

Since then, for Dan Johnson, senior pastor at Trinity United Methodist Church in northwest Gainesville, providing accessibility for everyone has become personal.

The church has made efforts to become fully accessible for all and, at 12:15 Sunday, a dedication ceremony will culminate three years of research and construction and the completion of a fully accessible, inclusive playground on the church's property.

Most of us tend to assume that other people are just like us and that's where you run into problems, the Rev. Johnson said.

Meeting the Americans With Disabilities Act standards, the playground will make available to the entire community an outdoor adventure for disabled and abled children to come together, along with their parents.

The only one of its kind in North Central Florida, the playground features a Noah's Ark and Bible verses on signs in Braille. There's also a Crooked House Chapel with specially designed wider doorways.

A steel drum that looks like a lady bug sits on the artificial turf installed especially for crawlers and new walkers. The engineered mulch around the attractions is meant to remove barriers for wheelchairs.

A Wheelchair Gondola has been installed so that all children can swing together.

Trinity Director of Communications Kelly Ping has watched the integration occur.

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Church to unveil fully accessible playground

OKLAHOMA CITY -

After years of deterioration, a metro church is now one step close to redemption.

News 9 first aired the story about the Teepee Church more than a year ago. Now with the help of countless donations, the pastor is sharing good news.

News 9's Justin Dougherty went back to the Teepee Friday.

"And I will fill this temple with glory says the Lord of hosts, the silver is mine and the gold is mine says the Lord of hosts. The glory of this ladder temple shall be greater than the former," said Pastor Terry Ward, of the Teepee Church, when reading from his favorite Bible verse.

Whether you're passing by or live in the neighborhood, Pastor Terry Ward knows his Tepee Church has been an eye sore and it was on him to open the door to its salvation.

"To see this building in the shape that it was in I know it bothered them and it bothered me. But there was nothing I could do about it," said Ward.

Until, all the silver and gold came rushing in like the rain through the church's roof.

"Oh, I was just floored," said Ward.

Contractors donated their time, roofers donated their effort, and someone, who remains anonymous, donated $50,000.

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Metro Church Closer To Being Complete After Numerous Donations

MITCHELL CO., GA (WALB) - An Albany construction company will volunteer its services to rebuild aMitchell County church building, which was destroyed by fire.

The Pastor of Beautiful Light Baptist Church says he has been praying for a miracle, and now he feels Kendell Crawford was sent to answer those prayers.Senior Pastor Reverend Rogers Chatmon said, "Our ambition is to rebuild."

Beautiful Light Baptist Church was destroyed by fire January 24th. The 140 year old church only has about a dozen active members, including Mary Marcus, who has attended all 73 years of her life.

Marcus said "Lord, I'm still hurting because this is my heart down here."

Crawford Construction owner Kendell Crawford now has stepped forward to help rebuild the church,

Crawford said "This is not a nightclub. This is the Lord's church. I think it's only proper and fitting that the community come together and help the church. Give a donation. Give some time."

Crawford said he has already talked with material suppliers and contractors, getting pledges for the materials and people needed to rebuild the burned out building. Reverend Chatmon says God is answering his prayers."We are determined to continue to have church. And work to save souls for the Lord.First move we will have to make is demolition the building. Take it down and come back up."

Members say the church building was battered by a tornado in 1978. Now a fire consumed the building, but the members say they are confident their church will go on.

Chatmon said "One round does not determine who will win the fight."

And thanks to Crawford's help, they believe their prayers have been answered. However, they would be grateful for any donations.

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Parishioners say their prayers have been answered

TAMPA The New Salem Missionary Baptist Church, led by embattled Pastor Henry J. Lyons, was heavily damaged by a fire that began before dawn Monday.

No one was injured, but the roof and virtually the entire interior of the church was destroyed; damage was estimated at $400,000.

The church building had stood in North Hyde Park for nearly 65 years. Church members milled about Monday morning as Tampa Fire Rescue firefighters stood by, occasionally hoisting an extended ladder over the smoldering building, dumping water onto spots that flared up. Some congregation members wept and hugged each other.

The church, organized in 1906 and at its current location since 1950, had recently been in financial trouble and was placed under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2012, though it has since emerged from bankruptcy.

The church was for sale but still was home to some 450 members in this neighborhood just west of the University of Tampa.

The 4,700-square-foot brick church building at 405 N. Oregon Ave., and some adjoining lots were placed on the market for $1.8 million in November, according to the website of AKA Commercial Realty, which is listing the property.

Tampa firefighters got a 911 call at 6:30 a.m., a half-hour before the day-care in the building was to open, said fire-rescue spokesman Jason Penny. When firefighters arrived, flames already were breaching the shingled roof, rising about 30 feet above the structure.

The first arriving firefighters immediately called out a second alarm, Penny said, because of the flames and the age of the building.

Flames could be seen on Interstate 275, a dozen blocks to the north, Penny said.

The second alarm doubled the units responding. In all, about 45 firefighters were at the location on the corner of Oregon Avenue and Fig Street, considered the north part of Hyde Park.

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Hyde Park church led by Henry Lyons gutted by fire

REUTERS/Enrique De La Osa

A remote town in western Cuba is set to be the first parish in the country to build a new church, as official government policy in the Communist nation towards religion makes a major shift.

According to CNN, a new Catholic church is set to be built in the remote town of Sandino. The new church will take two years to build and will have a capacity to accommodate 200 churchgoers.

Rev Fr Cirilo Castro told CNN that Sandino's Catholics have celebrated Mass once a week in a converted garage for many years now. The priest drives to the town every week to officiate as part of his ministerial duties to the province under whose jurisdiction the town falls. However, when the new church is completed, Fr Castro said that he will minister full-time in the town.

The diocese assured Sandino's residents that "everything is ready" for the construction of the new church.

"There is money to start, there is the construction material to start, there are the permissions to start," Bishop Jorge Enrique Serpa Prez said.

CNN reported that most of the money that was donated for the church's construction came from the St Lawrence Catholic Church in Tampa, Florida.

"Much of Tampa's history and culture comes from Cuba," Rev Tom Morgan, St Lawrence's vicar, told CNN. "It's absolutely fantastic they are building a new church, and I hope to be able to visit one day."

Fr Morgan also hopes that the changes in the US Treasury's policies could make it possible for St Lawrence to contribute materials for the church's construction.

Religious freedom was suppressed after the 1959 revolution that brought the late Fidel Castro to power. However, since 1998, the Cuban government began easing up on its restrictions on the Catholic Church. This year, the government began approving requests for the construction of churches in the country, with the project in Sandino being the first to receive a green light.

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Cuba to get its first Catholic church since Castro

Photo: Reuters

Priests from different denominations celebrate the annual Inagural mass for the Ice Church in Romania's Fagras Mountains.

Priests from different Christian denominations have given their blessing to a unique ice church located at the Balea Lac resort in Romania's Fagaras Mountains.

According to the IB Times, a group of leaders came together on Thursday to hold the annual inaugural Mass for the Ice Church in the Hotel of Ice. Among the priests who came together for the ceremony were a Franciscan monk, a Romanian Orthodox priest and a Greek Catholic priest.

The Hotel of Icerevealed on its website that the church was born out of the concept of "religious tourism". The hotel sponsored the construction of the church within its premises, and said that it was intended to be open to various denominations.

The church, which is located more than 2,000 metres high in the mountains, has become a popular tourist attraction even among those of different religious orientations, the Hotel of Ice claimed. The church's architecture is based on another church in Malancrav, in Sibiu County in Romania, and its interior features an ice altar and a large crucifix also made out of ice.

Every year, the church is constructed out of sanctified ice from the waters of the Balea Lake. Priests from different Christian denominations are called to give their blessings to the waters of Balea Lake before they are frozen to make the blocks of ice for the church. Once the structure has been completed, the priests are again called to perform an inaugural Mass to commemorate the building of the new ice church.

According to the hotel, the church has celebrated baptisms and weddings as well as religious services for different Christian denominations. The church has also hosted religious concerts.

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New ice church blessed in Romania

Cardone of Keystone says fundraising would be needed to start church construction, after $ spent on
Cardone of Keystone says fundraising would be needed to start church construction, after $ spent on Sterling Dr entry By: dan sokil - Staff writer slash mobi...

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Cardone of Keystone says fundraising would be needed to start church construction, after $ spent on - Video

The area surrounding East 6th Street, where the city hopes to spark new housing construction, was a predominantly Swedish neighborhood in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Swedish residents established two churches known today as Grace Lutheran Church and Grandview Baptist Church.

Grace's original house of worship, 637 E. 6th St., has been converted to a three-plex. Grandview's original building, 700 E. 6th St., has been in religious use as Kingdom Generation Church.

Grace was organized March 25, 1883, as the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church. Its church building on East 6th Street was moved there in 1888 from 4th and Iowa streets, where it had been dedicated in September 1883. The church has its roots in the First Lutheran Church, Rock Island.

In 1924, Grace held its first services in its new home at 1140 E. High St., where it remains today. Its original building was converted to a residence in 1926, according to city directories.

Leadership in the church was rapidly passing out of the hands of the founders to a new generation eager to communicate the same Gospel in the English language, a church history states. Changes had also taken place in the neighborhood in which the first church stood and one by one the families which had settled in the neighborhood of their spiritual home moved to other parts of the city. Thus it was considered advisable to seek a new location for the church building.

As the congregation became Americanized and conducted its services in English, the church was renamed Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church. The oak pulpit from the 1883 church stands in the narthex of the current house of worship.

Grandview Baptist Church has its roots in the Swedish Baptist Church of Rock Island, the first church of what would become the Baptist General Conference, now known as Converge Worldwide. Members of the Rock Island church living in Davenport dedicated their own house of worship at 700 E. 6th St., the northeast corner of Grand Avenue and East 6th Street, on Nov.11, 1883.

The church had been built in 1856 at the corner of 11th and Scott streets as the home of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church and moved to East 6th Street as a gift from the Presbyterian church.

It is a very neat substantial house of worship, the Davenport Gazette reported on Oct. 28, 1883. It is situated on a hill with a grand scenic panorama at its front, the Mississippi, Island (Arsenal), Rock Island, Moline and a large part of Davenport being in view.

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Swedish history

Story highlights Cuban Catholics start building their first churches since 1959 Religious believers had been seen as suspicious under the Castro regime The new churches are desperately needed, Cuban Catholics say

But in the isolated town of Sandino, Cuba's first Catholic church since the 1959 revolution took power is set to be built.

"There is money to start, there is the construction material to start, there are the permissions to start, so everything is ready," said Bishop Jorge Enrique Serpa Prez, who oversees the diocese where the new church will be built.

The Sandino church has been 56 years in the making, ever since Fidel Castro took power and Cuba became an officially atheist state.

Religious people fell under suspicion by the new revolutionary government, but none more so than those who belonged to the Catholic Church, which was seen as being overly sympathetic to the Batista regime that Castro had driven from power.

In the first years of the revolution, thousands of Catholic priests were jailed or forced into exile, and church property, including the Jesuit school that Castro attended, was seized by the Cuban government.

Only with the visit in 1998 of Pope John Paul II to the island did relations between the Cuban government and Catholic Church begin to thaw. Christmas again became a national holiday, and Cubans faced less official discrimination for practicing their faiths.

In December, Cuban President Raul Castro thanked Pope Francis for his role in the secret talks that led to a prisoner swap between Cuba and the United States and the start of negotiations to restore full diplomatic relations.

In 2015, church officials said requests to build new churches that had long been ensnared in red tape began to receive government approval.

While church officials said several new Catholic houses of worship are in the works, the first will be built in Sandino, a remote town at the end of a pothole-cratered road in Cuba's westernmost province.

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Cuba builds first church since Castro