The Atlanta Protestant church sees tradition as an obstacle. The excommunicated priest sees the bare hotel room as an obstacle and needs the visuals:

An ultra-inclusive splinter church led by an excommunicated Roman Catholic priest has moved from a hotel banquet room to a vacant Episcopal church, where the 300-member group will celebrate its first Masses in a church building this weekend.

Hausen’s church now has a one-year lease with the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh for the former Epiphany Episcopal Church in Avalon, just outside Pittsburgh.

"We need some smells and bells," Hausen quipped when asked to explain the move Tuesday. "Now I have to get a stained-glass voice."

Hausen said "a lot of people like that stuff and they think it’s really important" to be in a church.

"I think the church is the people, not the building, but having an appropriate setting can be uplifting to people," Hausen said. "Also, there’s an artificial barrier about meeting in a hotel that I think keeps some people away."