It's a conference room that they're currently using for their chapel, until they can raise funds to build the actual chapel.
OK, so further confirmation that they can spend 10s of millions on a seminary structure but leave THE central focus and heart of the seminary for an afterthought. With proper priorities, you build that first and could get by with less-luxurious living accommodations.
So does that $50 million pricetag we've heard INclude or EXclude the cost of the eventual real chapel?
Winona was great, though some A/C might have been nice in the summer and Bishop Williamson didn't have the heat turned on there until November 1, which made for some classes where we're in their with coats and gloves on so our hands weren't shivering attempting to take notes and we could literally see our breath sometimes, but that was no fault of the facility, just Bishop Williamson's attitude. While I wasn't there when Fr. Iscara was, I heard of the infamous episode where he (being from warmer climates natively) went on strike and refused to come out of his room and teach until they turned on the heat.
It was beautiful, serene, and peaceful up there ... and they could easily have just added another building to it for 1-2 million tops if they were a bit short on living space, or extended a few of the existing wings of living quarters. Easy-Peasy. There was MUCH MORE to the acquisition of that new property than just practical (or even spiritual) considerations.
Apart from the fact that they were hoping for a huge influx of seminarians (build it and they will come), undoubtedly as the result of a "regularization", they also wanted to be close to D.C. That too was a step back, since with Winona's somewhat-central location in the US, seminarians from pretty much anywhere could reasonably make the drive to get there, rather than having to fly. It was equally-inconvenient from many locations, but not undoable. With the current location, now anyone West of the Mississippi would have to fly in and out ... hoping they don't hit some helicopters, and hoping there's no Plandemic 2.0 lockdown that would force them to get jabbed before they'd be allowed to fly (or maybe that's what they want). In the extreme cynical view, they put it near D.C. because D.C. might be a target for a terror attack and radiological fallout, so that someone intent upon wiping out as many seminarians and priests as possible might want to put it there. That's wild speculation, but nevertheless the fact that there were ulterior motives for different players is clear. This was an incredibly imprudent investment, and not required for any practical considerations.
Some factors that likely played into it: individuals' egos (look at how big a shot I am with my huge seminary), believing they'd get flooded with new seminarians after a regularization, desire to be near D.C., and the need to cash-strap the SSPX so badly that they would be forced to seek help from various special interest groups that would then have a large say in how things would be run ... e.g. Krah and company, as well as needing increased numbers of lay faithful (coming in from the Motu refugees), so they can't be too far "right" in their positions and their rhetoric, since they can't afford to lose all that collection money.
Topic: SSPX Response to Bishop Williamson (Read 162883 times)