But for now, here on the grounds of the Cardinal Rigali Center in Shrewsbury, inside a brick outbuilding that used to serve as the campus powerhouse, he and other volunteers will keep these things safe.

The building is the St. Louis Archdiocese’s Reclamation Center. It’s part sorting center, part museum, part resale shop, part refuge. It’s the place where the “stuff” of a Catholic church may go once a church or religious order closes or moves. Sometimes, they are personal items from priests who have retired or died, such as chalices traditionally given to them at ordination.

Usually only those affiliated with the church come to visit, and give a donation for the things they find. It’s open to the public, but only for personal devotional items. The liturgical items can only go in a Catholic church or chapel or approved setting.

“Our whole point is to put it back into the life of the church,” says Mulvihill, who is based at Mary Queen of Peace parish in Webster Groves. “That’s a win for us.”

In light of the Archdiocese of St. Louis making a reorganization that could lead to mergers or closures of dozens of parishes in the region, the reclamation center, which is open two days a week, may see more action in the coming years. And it may need more space.

The center has about 3,000 items inventoried now, cataloged online and barcoded in a system set up by co-director Deacon John Stoverink, retired from an information technology career with places like the City of St. Louis and the airport. It’s one of a few such centers in the country, maybe the world, Stoverink says.

It has sent tabernacles to the Philippines, chalices to Mexico, and just last month an ambo, a type of lectern, to St. John Vianney High School in Kirkwood. The metal ambo came from the closed Chapel of Sts. Mary and Joseph in Carondelet. Brother Mel Meyer, a prolific artist and Marianist who worked out of a studio on the Vianney campus, made it, and the school was thrilled to get it.

Some items need special permission to leave the diocese, and most are reserved for pastoral use only, meaning they can only be used in a church or chapel and not for home or private use. In other words, the inventory website isn’t eBay. There are shelves of private devotional items such as books and figurines, which are available to the public for a donation.

“It’s an opportunity for parishes throughout the world to see what we have and see if it can be put to use to help people come to God,” says Stoverink, who is based at St. Joseph parish in Clayton. “That’s kind of it in a nutshell.”

Traditionally, if a parish closes or merges with another, the parish that stays open will often receive statues, candlesticks, chalices and other items from the closed one. Parish records and more valuable or sacred items like relics, typically placed within a church altar, may go in archives or may be kept safely with the archdiocese.

Tom DuBois, the director of building and real estate for the archdiocese, says it’s too early to say which parish church buildings may need clearing out, since some buildings may live on as churches or chapels or fulfill other purposes such as senior or affordable housing. There are deed restrictions that prevent church property to be reused as things like strip clubs or cannabis dispensaries.

“If some point, if a parish has to close or merge, under canon law it will have to go to the Vatican, to show just cause,” he says. “It’s not a thing where you lock the doors, and put a for sale sign out. It doesn’t happen.”

But if a church is sold or not used as a church anymore, things like statuary and altars will be removed. Even stained glass windows that show religious imagery may be removed, but windows with otherwise decorative or geometric designs can remain.

DuBois points to the chapel of Sts. Mary and Joseph in Carondelet, which closed in 2021. Some windows depicting Biblical imagery were removed but generic decorative ones, as well as a rose window, remain.

On a tour through the organized shelves of the center, it’s clear Mulvihill is the guy you want on your Catholic vocabulary trivia team. There are labeled sections for aspergilla (an item used for sprinkling holy water), thuribles (a metal censer for burning incense) and pyxes (boxes where the consecrated bread of the Eucharist is kept).

His interest lies in his love of resale shops. For several years, he’s found liturgical items in resale stores and bought them simply to get them off the public market. About 10 years ago, he spotted a monstrance (a receptacle used to display a consecrated host) for sale in a resale shop in Jefferson County.

The owner thought it was a reliquary (a container used to hold relics of saints) and wanted to sell it for $250. “The woman says, ‘It seems like you know what you’re talking about.’ She sold it to me what she paid for it — 20 bucks. I brought it here.”

A priest who says daily Mass in six villages in the Congo recently approached the reclamation center for help. His vehicle frequently broke down, and he sometimes traveled by foot, sometimes by donkey. It wasn’t practical to carry everything he needed to say Mass.

“I think he got 134 items,” says Mulvihill. “And we outfitted six chapels.”

Those items included candles, Roman missals, patens (a plate used for holding the Eucharist) and chalices.

There are three fundamental things needed for the Eucharist, Mulvihill explained: form (the words), matter (the bread and wine) and the intention of the church to consecrate the items and have transubstantiation, the Catholic belief that the bread and wine becomes the body and blood of Christ.

“You can go bare knuckles, and you can go to the Cathedral Basilica and go whole hog,” says Mulvihill. “But for this guy in the Congo, it was just kind of bare bones.”

The center also includes multiple clothing racks of used priest and deacon vestments in white, green, rose, violet, red and black, each color pertaining to a particular liturgical season, celebration, purpose or feast day.

“We had vestments that were orange,” says Mulvihill. “OK. I don’t know what happened there. Somebody didn’t get the memo.”

In that case, items like that are set aside for “pious disposal,” which is called for in canon law. Such objects shouldn’t be simply thrown in a trash can, but they can be burned or buried. The reclamation center sets aside items like torn and faded vestments, outdated books and broken rosaries and crucifixes, and will have them buried in a Catholic cemetery.

But when items get put to good use, everyone’s happy.

The Rev. Richard Stoltz of St. Alban Roe Parish in Wildwood is a frequent reclamation center visitor. He recently came away with a set of vestments in every color to keep in a suitcase at Autumn View Gardens Assisted Living and Memory Care in Ellisville, where he says weekly Mass.

He chose polyester vestments that wouldn’t wrinkle folded in a suitcase. “They don’t look like something the cat drug in,” he says, laughing. “The little old ladies, let me tell you, and they’ll tell you — ‘you look like something the cat drug in.’”

Stoltz loves resale shops, and loves the reclamation center for elaborately embroidered liturgical garments or engraved chalices not easily found new.

“I kind of have an eye for spotting good stuff, and so I grab it, and I will give it to people who appreciate it who will carry on the tradition and the history. It’s amazing some of the things you can find.”

When north St. Louis’ St. Liborious church, completed in 1889, closed in 1992, its altar and other pieces were moved to Holy Trinity Catholic Church in north St. Louis County, which itself was the product of merged parishes. When that church closed in 2020, the altar, tabernacle and ambo were moved to the reclamation center.

The Rev. Andrew O’Connor is the chaplain of Nazareth Living Center in south St. Louis County. In 2020, he was looking for some more fitting pieces for the chapel at Nazareth. He came to the reclamation center. Mulvilhill led him to a crate, unscrewed it and revealed the mosaic-adorned altar.

“That’s perfect,” O’Connor said.

O’Connor loves the history behind the items, and they prompt conversations with residents who may have connections to Holy Trinity and St. Liborius.

When St. Liborious closed, the Catholic Worker project called the Karen House used the complex as a homeless shelter. About 12 years ago, they turned it over to new owners who turned it into a skate park, known as Sk8 Liborius.

O’Connor said the altar looks especially beautiful outfitted with white lilies for the Easter season.

“They have been used and loved for so many years,” he said, “and now the legacy continues on in a new way with other people.”

For more information about the center, visit archstl.org/sacred-worship/reclamation-center, call 314-792-6461 or email [email protected]. The center is open Monday and Wednesday from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. and is located on the grounds of 20 Archbishop May Drive in Shrewsbury.