FIRE DESTROYS SALESIAN CHAPEL:
TASMANIA
HOBART (Tas): 25th May -- In the early hours
of Sunday morning, a fire has destroyed the chapel dedicated to St. Dominic
Savio at Dominic College, Glenorchy, Tasmania. The Tasmanian Fore Service
which attended the blaze estimated damage to be in the order of $600,000.
The real costs may be much higher and for the Salesians and many local people,
it is not a question of financial loss, but the loss of something which lay at
the heart of the extensive Salesian presnece on behalf of the young people of
Tasmania.
The school holidays had begun on the Friday - and
the fire was burning for as long as two hours before one of the Salesians was
woken by the sound of falling debris. Thick fog and the already advanced
state of the fire meant that the fire service could do little to save the
building. Investigators are yet to determine its cause.
The chapel was blessed and opened by the Late
Archbishop Guildford Young in 1957 - it marked the development of Savio College,
as it was then known, from the earlier Boys Town of post-war years. A
feature of the chapel were the hand-painted windows depicting the Stations of
the Cross. In more recent years the chapel had been completely
refurbished. For an important part of its history, the College had
combined with the local Dominican Sisters' Holy Name Girls School and was
renamed Dominic College. The chapel became the centre of that entity's
liturgical and prayer life.
Dominic College has now returned to its original
Salesian inspiration and management and plans are already in place to bring the
Primary school onto the College grounds (presently located a kilometre
away), making it one of the largest K-12 institutions in the State. The
chapel will certainly be rebuilt to focus the eucharistic heart of this
enterprise.
