Changing Skyline: Philadelphia's historic churches: Do they have a prayer for survival?

The Church of the Assumption gets its final shot at redemption Monday. That's when the Callowhill Neighborhood Association will make a last-ditch appeal to Philadelphia building officials to halt the planned demolition of the landmark Spring Garden Street church where the Catholic saint Katharine Drexel was baptized.

As hopeless causes go, the Assumption's chances look better than most. Not only does the ocher-colored church have a skilled and determined neighborhood group in its corner, it has the good fortune to be located in a reviving neighborhood, a brisk 10-minute walk from City Hall. It's true that its twin verdigris spires, beloved as a compass on the skyline, require serious repairs, but that hasn't made arts groups and developers any less eager to get their hands on the handsome building.

If only the hundreds of other crumbling historic churches, synagogues, and mosques in Philadelphia were so lucky.

Like most older cities, Philadelphia finds itself with an immense inventory of historic religious buildings, from lacy Gothic chapels to chocolaty Victorians to grand, Byzantine-inspired domes. They're a legacy of a time when people communed with their higher powers on a regular basis, and every neighborhood boasted its own distinct house of worship.

But for all the familiar reasons - demographic, social, spiritual - many of these sanctuaries will never again see their pews filled with worshipers. Some were shuttered long ago and left to the elements. At others, congregations manage to keep the doors open, but can barely afford basic maintenance. No one knows the precise number of troubled religious structures, but Robert Jaeger, who heads Partners for Sacred Places, estimates that about a third of the 1,000 historic religious buildings in Philadelphia - say 350 - are stressed near the breaking point.

So, even if the city's Licenses & Inspection Review Board - which hears appeals - does the right thing Monday and agrees to spare the Assumption, there are still 349 other historic buildings that need a rescue.

You don't have to be a believer to worry about their fate. Just imagine how dreary Philadelphia's neighborhoods would be without the tapered spires and crenulated towers to puncture the rowhouse sameness. They stand out as examples of real craft in an era when everything new seems to be made of plastic. Religious buildings, like libraries and schools, offer us a reflection of our better, nobler selves.