{"id":2385569,"date":"2026-04-23T09:25:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T09:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2385569"},"modified":"2026-04-23T09:25:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T09:25:03","slug":"our-lady-of-sorrows-church-reacts-to-new-kc-royals-ballpark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/our-lady-of-sorrows-church-reacts-to-new-kc-royals-ballpark\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Lady of Sorrows Church reacts to new KC Royals ballpark"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The century-old Catholic church, Our Lady of Sorrows, is poised to get a new neighbor: the Kansas City Royals.<\/p>\n

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Sunday worshippers going to Mass could soon be joined by baseball fans going to their sacred space when the Royals stadium opens in Crown Center.<\/p>\n

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Bishop James Johnston of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph was in the audience as leaders of the Royals, Hallmark Cards, Kansas City and the state of Missouri announced plans<\/a> Wednesday morning for a baseball stadium on the site of the current Hallmark headquarters in Crown Center. Construction is expected to start in 2027 on the $3 billion project.<\/p>\n

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Renderings the Royals shared on April 22, 2026. Our Lady of Sorrows church is visible to the southeast of home plate. <\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

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Renderings of the new ballpark show the red brick Our Lady of Sorrows church perched above the ballpark \u2014 which would be built into the ground so fans could enter the upper sections at street level \u2014 just southeast of home plate.<\/p>\n

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In a Wednesday afternoon emailed statement, Johnston said the diocese only just learned about the plans:<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe diocese and parish have not been involved in the planning prior to today\u2019s announcement. We were made aware of the announcement earlier this week and learned most of the details along with the rest of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Our Lady of Sorrows church and the adjacent parish hall sit on almost an acre of land owned by the diocese at the corner of Gillham Road and E. 26th Street. The rectory was not shown in stadium renderings \u2014 a diocese spokesperson wrote \u201cwe are not aware of any planned impacts to the existing structure of the church or adjacent buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Map
Map showing the proposed stadium location within the Crown Center district. Neil Nakahodo<\/span> <\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

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Currently the structures are surrounded on three sides by Hallmark headquarters parking lots and offices.<\/p>\n

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The diocese plans to discuss security and parking with the Royals as plans develop, however, according to the statement, \u201cwe view this as primarily an enhancement that could attract new people to worship and experience the beauty of our Catholic faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe have been assured that care will be taken to maintain the character of the neighborhood, including the iconic features of Our Lady of Sorrows\u2019 building and its historic presence in the heart of downtown Kansas City,\u201d according to the statement.<\/p>\n

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\"Angels
Angels support a crown above the altar of Our Lady of Sorrows. The Catholic church which would be located southeast of the home plate of a new Royals ballpark, according to April 22 renderings. Star file photo KANSAS CITY STAR<\/span> <\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

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Our Lady of Sorrows currently holds midday services on Wednesdays and Thursdays, in addition to masses on Saturday at 4 p.m. and Sunday at 11 a.m. In 2025, the Royals played 14 weekend series<\/a> at home, with the Saturday games starting just after 3 or 6 p.m. and Sunday first pitches scheduled for 1:10 p.m.<\/p>\n

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Our Lady of Sorrows was originally built in the late 1800s on the site of Union Station<\/a>, and was moved brick-by-brick to its current site, according to the parish website.<\/p>\n

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The current church structure opened in 1923, with a 146-foot tall tower and red tile roof. It is located in the Crown Center Historic District.<\/a><\/p>\n

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Above the altar is a crown sculpture surrounded by angels, which a former pastor called, \u201cthe first crown at Crown Center.\u201d In a few years, there could be even more.<\/p>\n

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This story was originally published April 22, 2026 at 3:47 PM.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Related Stories from Kansas City Star<\/h5>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Eleanor Nash<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Kansas City Star<\/span><\/p>\n

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Eleanor Nash is a service journalism reporter at The Star. She covers transportation, local oddities and everything else residents need to know. A Kansas City native and graduate of Wellesley College, she previously worked at The Myrtle Beach Sun News in South Carolina and at KCUR.\u00a0<\/span>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.kansascity.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The century-old Catholic church, Our Lady of Sorrows, is poised to get a new neighbor: the Kansas City Royals. Sunday worshippers going to Mass could soon be joined by baseball fans going to their sacred space when the Royals stadium opens in Crown Center. Bishop James Johnston of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2385570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2385569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Our-Lady-of-Sorrows-Church-reacts-to-new-KC-Royals.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2385569"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2385571,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2385569\/revisions\/2385571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2385570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2385569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2385569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2385569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}