Re: Re: reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches

@johnglas wrote:

onq: I just became so frustrated reading your responses to Praxiteles (which never seemed to rise above the literalist reposte of the girls’ upper Fourth) that I have to respond in turn.

As gunter says, there is an unanswerable case for the replacement of removed altar rails in historic (i.e. pre-Vat II) churches. Whether a contemporary church should or should not have a rail is a matter of liturgical taste, but that the sanctuary should be separate and distinct is not an issue. True, you don’t need a church for worship, but 1700 years of tradition cannot be lightly set aside. (All the churches of the Reformation still required some places of assembly, which oddly enough over the years have come to look very like churches – sort of odd, that.)
The ultimate in separation between the nave (earth) and sanctuary (heaven) is the iconostasis of the Orthodox tradition – perhaps they could all be demolished and burnt in the interests of suppressing ‘vanity’. As for equating special clothes (vestments?) and ‘setting oneself apart’ (as one having a special function) with paganism, well that is pat on the head time.

The problem with many contemporary and reordered churches is that they are simply not numinous enough, they are not ‘set apart’, they are not ‘special’. I have strong reservations about the architectural form of Stroik, but I have none about his intentions.

Intellectual superiority comes in many forms, but none so riddled with hubris as the one that fails to see the necessity for irreverence in dealing with hidebound religion, or doubt to test faith.

Far too many people the world over believe in the visual bullshit presented in Catholic Churches.

Most of this represents pivotal moments in time, iconic episodes, caricatures of the person or event being portrayed – and impossible idealised portrayal of smelly humans, who are after all, only the current meeting place where the fallen angel meets the rising ape.

Its almost enough to make you go Muslim.

But to listen to the endless quotes here which are nothing more than some humans’ views about how to conduct or regulate a strand of human behaviour being presented as if they are God’s word – saddo, saddo, saddo.

ONQ.