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MILWAUKEE - Lightning hit St. Stephen Catholic Church on Milwaukee’s south side late Thursday, setting the steeple on fire. The spire is gone. Friday, parishoners were at the church, looking on with sadness as contractors took the spire down. A crew dangling in the air used chainsaws and clipped the charred beams, and ever so slowly they brought it down. “It was so badly damaged,” Father Richard Liska said. Father Liska felt the strike that set St. Stephen’s spire ablaze. He showed us the sacred pieces he rescued from the altar. “We have to preserve that, or at least try, and fortunately I was able to do that,” Father Liska said. The rush was on to raise the damaged tower. Contractors feared the damaged, 80-year-old timber was too weak to hold. With the legs wobbling, the crane operator tried to protect the copper cross. “This church is a hundred years old,” one parishioner said. The congregation plans to move to a new church in Oak Creek, but they want to bring that cross that just came down with them. TODAY’S TMJ4’s Tom Murray: “Is that cross in a condition where you can preserve it for the next church?” “We’re hoping so,” Father Liska said. An unfortunate day for parishioners as they watched this symbol of their church and their faith collapse to the ground. “It’s just so sad to see it come down,” one parishioner said. St. Stephens won’t be ready to move for awhile. They will need the church for at least a year. Until this building can be secured with a temporary roof, the congregation will hold mass in the fellowship hall next door. TODAY’S TMJ4 has dramatic video of flames spitting from the top of the church. The building’s more than 80 years old. It was built in 1926 after a fire took down the previous church. The building is still standing, and Father Richard Liska says there’s not much damage inside. Father Liska saw the lightning strike. “All of a sudden, there was a big bang and I looked out the windows. The windows in my office were shaking. A lightning bolt came right across eye level,” Father Liska said. The church has a history that goes back more than 100 years and it’s been hit by fires and even a tornado before. “In 1999, the first year I came, oh Ash Wednesday, a tornado came through while we were having a service and this year, we got wiped out on Ash Wednesday because of a snow storm,” Father Liska said. TODAY'S TMJ4 was over the burning steeple with Chopper 4 Thursday. Click on the link under related content to see video from the scene. Firefighters have not confirmed the cause of the fire, but church officials say lightning ignited the steeple. Many people in the area saw lightning and heard huge claps of thunder. They did not see lightning hit the church directly. Lori Spiros said the thunder and lightning were so loud she ran inside. Later, she took photographs that showed the steeple engulfed in flames. Mike Smith describes the lightning as "an explosion." "A ball of lightening came and it blew up in the sky over here," Smith said. By the time firefighters extinguished the blaze, the church had sustained approximately $200,000 worth of damage. St. Stephen Catholic Church was going to be torn down to make room for hotels. Parishioners were planning to move to a new church being built in Oak Creek. Still, it was hard for Donna Morris to watch her childhood church burn. “I got my holy communion in that church. My sister was married in that church," she said. "Sitting here looking at that building, it just breaks my heart. It breaks my heart.” Saturday and Sunday services will be held nearby at Race Hall.