About a month ago several Catholic blogs were discussing a new church built in Round Rock, Texas, called St. William. (I wrote about it too.) Since it’s not far from Austin, where Melanie’s parents live, we took a trip over there today to get a closer look.
It’s a very nice church. I’m no architectural expert, but I would call it neo-traditional, being a clear development of the classic pre-Vatican designs while using all the more modern conveniences.
Here is a whole set of photos we took, including some architectural details for you church building geeks. The artwork is nice. I wouldn’t call it austere, but it’s certainly not ornate. My guess is that they’ve left room to add more artwork in the future.
There are many nice touches. The ladies room has a nursing mothers’ area with a privacy screen, a glider-rocker, and a TV to keep up with the Mass via closed circuit. There are also flat-panel TVs in the very large narthex, presumably when they have overflow crowds on big holidays. The Church will seat 1,700 and I bet they can get more than 100 in the narthex alone.
The parish has a big plot of land with a whole lot of parking, but also empty land to grow on.
Overall, it’s a nice looking church and—apart from all other considerations—I could certainly get used to going to Mass there on a regular basis.
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