SHANKSVILLE, Pa.,None — A little chapel a few miles from the spot where Flight 93 crashed into a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11 has an ambitious growth plan that is causing some controversy.
The proposal has heightened long-simmering tensions with supporters of the national memorial in Shanksville and caught the National Park Service by surprise.
The church's founder has worked for the past year with a Pittsburgh architect on a $10 million proposal to move the 109-year-old chapel eight miles to a location just down the road from the Flight 93 National Memorial entrance. The plan would also enclose the chapel, add a 600-seat auditorium, a larger tribute area, a museum, a gift shop and conference rooms on a 30-acre site.
"I thought it was just going to be a little shrine," Alphonse Mascherino, 68, told the newspaper during a recent interview in the former Lutheran church about four miles from the crash site, "a place for people to stop, honor the victims and say a prayer, like the little roadside chapels I saw when I toured Germany years ago."
Mascherino, a former Roman Catholic priest, was excommunicated in 2007 amid a dispute with his bishop and joined an unrecognized offshoot of the Catholic church and was given the title of bishop.
The chapel has become a regular stop for visitors to the Flight 93 crash site -- more than 300,000 when Mascherino stopped counting two years ago.
"I think it really does detract from what the national memorial is becoming," said the Rev. Robert Way, a Somerset County Lutheran minister who was on the task force that helped create the national memorial. "I think the national memorial is a place of healing by itself."
The plan to dramatically transform the little shrine -- particularly the price tag and scope of the proposed chapel complex -- came as a surprise to officials of the National Park Service, which is opening the first phase of the permanent Flight 93 National Memorial this weekend.
Asked if the chapel was now in competition with the national memorial because it's trying to raise $10 million, when $8 million more is needed to fully fund the $60 million Flight 93 memorial, Keith Newlin, the park service superintendent overseeing the national memorial, said: "I'm going to wish them the best is all I want to say."
The park service had long considered the chapel a small, grass-roots effort supported by donations and sales of Flight 93 shirts, hats and other memorabilia.
"Why not support something the (Flight 93) families already support and work on, like the memorial?" asked Joanne Hanley, the park service's first Flight 93 superintendent until leaving the post earlier this year, when told about the chapel's new plans.
Gordon Felt, president of the Families of Flight 93, has said he had no objection to the chapel generally but hoped it wouldn't cause confusion to visitors about whether it was part of the national memorial.
"Anytime someone is willing to take the time to honor the passengers and crew of Flight 93, I'm honored," said Felt, whose brother, Edward, was killed in the crash.
Way, the Lutheran minister, believes Mascherino has purposefully let the confusion linger to attract more visitors and donations.
Mascherino denied that charge, noting that he decided in October 2001 to open the chapel because it looked like no formal memorial would be built for years, if ever.
He bought the abandoned church surrounded by corn and hay fields and began stripping its interior and buying materials in $50 increments to renovate it. A donation from the owner of 84 Lumber and a furious two weeks of work allowed it to open by the first anniversary of 9/11 in 2002.
Since then, it has attracted visitors from all over the world. Meanwhile, the road for Mascherino has been a difficult one.
In 2007, Bishop Joseph Adamec excommunicated him after 31 years as a priest.
Mascherino said he spent much of the 1990s battling Adamec over assignments and whether the priest's bipolar disorder and use of hypnotherapy left him unfit for the priesthood. He was largely left unassigned and with minimal pay from 1991 until he was excommunicated.
"He thought I was crazy, and he just didn't like me," Mascherino said.
Adamec said efforts to settle differences between the two "were not resolved to his liking, and he did his own thing."
He was referring to Mascherino's ordination in the North American Old Roman Catholic Church, an unrecognized offshoot of the Catholic Church.
"I think (the chapel) is a wonderful thing that it's there and it brings in the spiritual side of the issue," Adamec said. "But he had himself ordained by someone not of the Catholic church, not connected with the Pope. He chose to be excommunicated by what he did."
As plans for the expanded chapel progress, Mascherino has started to see things in a different light.
"I realized he didn't punish me, he set me free," he said of Bishop Adamec's decision. "I could do the same things I ever did but without him and the church hanging over me. And I still have some work to do."
The board of directors, which he formed this year to oversee the chapel and develop the expansion, has an option until the end of September on a 30-acre parcel of land that will cost about $300,000. No donor has stepped forward so far.
• Email Newsletter: Get The Latest News Sent To Your Email! • Mobile: Get WPXI Headlines On Your Phone, iPhone, More • RSS: Add Us To Your Page!