reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches

I think the “intimate” arrangement of stools around the Baptismal Font particularly bathetic and clearly demonstrates little or no realization of the cosmic effects of lavacral re-generation.

@corcaighboy wrote:

From today’s Irish Independent. I am sure regular posters here may find issue with the part I have underlined re experts!

Builders sore over priest’s tender

ANGRY builders have accused their parish priest of snubbing them by awarding a lucrative &#65533]They are the architects, the experts[/U]. You pay expert consultants on any job you are not capable of doing yourself,” he said.

Four other companies which indicated an interest were told not to submit tenders. One of them, GKT, was told it didn’t have sufficient experience in working on chapels to be considered for the job.

“That was an inadequate response. We finished off work on St Patrick’s Church in Belleek some years ago when the original contractor was unable to do so,” said GKT boss Brendan Keown, a member of the Bundoran congregation.

Thanks, CB for the enlightening newsbite.

FYI:

The Constitution on the Liturgy (1963) of Vatican 2 states:

“16. The study of the Liturgy is to be ranked among the compulsory and major courses in seminaries and religious houses of studies; in theological faculties it is to rank among the principal courses. It is to be taught under its theological, historical, spiritual, pastoral, and canonical aspects. Moreover, other professors, while striving to expound the mystery of Christ and the history of salvation from the angle proper to each of their own subjects, must nevertheless do so in a way that will clearly bring out the connection between their subjects and the liturgy, as also the underlying unity of all priestly training. This consideration is especially important for professors of dogmatic, spiritual, and pastoral theology and for professors of holy Scripture.”

If that is not sufficiently clear even to the merest dolt, read on:

“17. In seminaries and houses of religious, clerics shall be given a liturgical formation in their spiritual life. The means for this are: proper guidance so tht theu may be able to understand the sacred rites and take part in them wholehaertedly; the actual celebration of the sacred mysteries and of other, popular devotions imbued with the spirit of the liturgy. In addition, they must learn how to observe the liturgical laws, so that life in seminaries and houses of religious may be thoroughly permeated by the spirit of the liturgy.”

One would expect someone “thoroughly permeated with the spirit of the liturgy” to be an invaluable resource to a church architect. As a priest, Fr Munster or for that matter any other man ordained to the presbyterate, ought to be able to communicate effectively to the architects and contractors the liturgical needs and requirements that must be satisfied if they are to be granted the privilege of working on a church.

“18. Priests, both secular and religious, who are already working in the Lord’s vineyard are to be helped by every suitable means to understand ever more fully what it is they are doing in their liturgical functions; they are to be aided to live the liturgical life and to share it with the faithful entrusted to their care.”

Do the seminaries in Ireland not provide a thorough liturgical formation that would enable parish priests to sit down with an architect and a contractor and to set out priorities, aims, and objectives, reminding them of ecclesial customs and laws that are to be observed in designing new churches and in planning renovations of older churches? If not, then help can be acquired in remediating education that ought to have been provided by the seminary.

A final note from the Sacred Congregation of the Clergy, Circular Letter Inter ea to presidents of the conferences of bishops, on continuing education and formation of the clergy, especially the younger clergy, 4 November 1969 [Acta Apostolicae Sedis 62 (1970) 134:

“11. A strong spiritual life and sound theological knowledge enliven and nurture pastoral motivation and ministry, an effective administration of the sacraments, a convincing preaching of God’s word, and every form of pastoral charity: in short, the entire service for which priests have received ordination.”

]All citations above are available in ICEL, Documents on the Liturgy, 1963-1979: Conciliar, Papal, and Curial Texts (Collegeville MN: Liturgical Press, 1982.]

Perhaps the diocese was shortchanged by the seminary – in which case there really ought to be some restitution and reparation for the ‘bill of goods.’

@Praxiteles wrote:

I am afraid Rhabanus that in Maynooth the level of training in the Sacred Liturgy has been reduced to the brayings of Paddy Jones and his gnomic institute for pastoral liturgy.

So sorry to learn that Maynooth has slumped into the tar pits. A far cry, it seems, from the day when the likes of liturgist Gerard Montague held forth [see his Problems in the Liturgy (Westminster, Maryland: Newman, 1958) and Ireland led the Church Universal in theology, liturgy, missiology, and Church attendance. Now it seems the Church there has spun completely out of control. Where is the leadership?

Can worthy candidates for the priesthood not be sent abroad, as in penal times, to receive a competent liturgical education and formation? One does wonder about the quality of ‘domestic training’ when one reads the irresponsible pleas of ignorance regarding ecclesiastical architecture. I mean, if a priest has no clue about how to build and ornament a church, then what kind of formation has he received in the first place?

New Porches:

Here is an example of how to make a decent job of it, St Mary’s Church Clonmany, Co Donegal. The porch is less than 10 years old. Internally, the church has been restored quite sympathetically, I’m currently trying to track down a photo.

http://image54.webshots.com/154/1/37/20/2094137200093714059BSmged_fs.jpg

Another early exercise in the gothic revival: St. peter’s, Gaulby, Leicestershire rebuilt by John Wing in 1741:

@Praxiteles wrote:

That a modern Irish parish priest, in contrast to his 19th. century counterpart, does not know what he wants when he goes to build or decorate a church is merely symptomatic of a much deeper crisis in the Irish Church where bishops no longer know how to govern and, not infrequently, are no longer capable of knowing or identifying orthodox Catholic doctrine and practice.

In the case of the Cobh debacle, we find a bishop guffing (or having guffed on his behalf) ideas about communal worship that not only reduce, but ultimately eliminate, the idea of the priest as one constituted in Sacred Orders to act in Sacris before God on behalf of mankind -and having the gall to refer this a the Liturgical Movement or as Liturgical renewal. And this without knowing or realizing that the same ideas were expressely condemned by Pius XII in 1948 with Mediator Dei and who clearly either cannot or will not understand what he reads in the Rite of Priestly ordination. Patently, a demonstrable specimen of the cloud of unknowing!

This crisis of identity, and of purpose, manifests itself in other areas which are best not entered into here.

Point well taken, Prax. This parlous state of affairs doubtless makes life rather challenging for the good, faithful priests who go about their apostolic duties with sincere conviction and unalloyed commitment to their priestly state and its inherent responsibilities. For whilst the time-servers and the gadflies lurch from one crisis to another, leaving a swath of confusion, anger, and misery in their wake, priests seriously intent upon their duties must contend with the fallout from the ridiculous bahaviour of the overindulged narcissists pandering for higher offices in the chancery. Thank heaven the faithful can tell the real sheperds from the hirelings. It all looks rather different in the vanity rags that pass for diocesan newspapers these days.

Tell me, Prax, are there Clown Masses in Ireland? They’ve occurred in Australia, Canada, and the United States. I recall that quite a row broke out in the diocese of Victoria, Canada, where an Italian widow and her family took action because, as the loved one’s casket was wheeled into the church, clowns in full costume and make-up appeared from a side entrance and proceeded to tie helium-filled balloons to its handles. The family was confused and ultimately appalled. How did such a situation arise in the first place?

The following true story suggests that the craziness is still not out of everyone’s system. On Sunday, 31 October 2005, in a parish church in one famous diocese in the USA, a priest concluded the evening Mass by slipping behind a screen (not, I might add, a rood screen, but some flimsy structure erected behind the all-important chair), and, re-emerging in the costume of ‘Spiderman,’ ran down the central aisle from the sanctuary to the front doors. The faithful had been told the week beforehand that they should feel free to come to Mass in their Halloween costumes, since the children would probably go out for ‘Trick-or-Treat’ and the adults were likely to attend fancy-dress balls. The faithful duly arrived Sunday evening (31 Oct) to find plastic spiders adorning the candlesticks on the altar and cotton stretched thinly around the altar to give the impression of spiderwebs. The arachnid theme had invaded the very sanctuary of th Lord and laid the scene for the ultimate emergence, after Mass, of Fr Spidey. Although many of the parishioners were ripping mad at this display of sacrilegious buffoonery and profane vulgarity, no suspensions, interdicts, or any other consequences were forthcoming. Business as usual – – monkey business!

The thing that really galls me is that the guffers and the lickspittles, the panderers and the time-servers are all rewarded lavishly, since their antics seem well in keeping with “the spirit of the times” even though ‘the times’ themselves lapsed forty years ago. What a pity the episcopate hasn’t checked the calendar recently, otherwise they’d realise that the sixties and the seventies, for whatever those decades were worth, are long gone, and that the Church has moved beyond the perceived need to cater to entities which only despise and mock her.

Church architecture fora, such as this one, play a prominent role in keeping hope alive in those who recognise the need for true beauty, proportion, and harmony in church buildings. They also serve as a witness to the overwhelming majority who want to retain and enjoy beautiful liturgical edifices despite the determination of the vain, the frivolous, th eobstinate and the obsolete to consign the legacy of our forebears in the Faith to the ash heap of history.

So post the broadcast times of any Clown Masses that might be taking place in Ireland over the next little while. I hear they get a bit lean in Lent, but they experience a surge of exuberance around Easter.

I’ll be watching for times.

Here is a new chapel, dedicated to St. Rita, recently build in Mayshiel, East Lothian, Scotland, by Graig Hamilton with sculpture by Alexander Stoddart.

Architect
Craig Hamilton

This chapel adjoins a house that Craig Hamilton designed and is a tour de force of contemporary ecclesiastical design and an exciting fusion of art and architecture. It takes the form of a small Italian chapel, with the west façade enlivened by Michaelangelesque detailing and a bronze bust of St Rita by Alexander Stoddart, who will also be producing life-size figures of St Augustine and St Nicholas. The commission included the design of almost all the interior fittings including the silver communion set, the tabernacle, the altar, the pews, the font, the consecration candelabra, the priest’s chair and the organ.

From the detail of this chapel (which accomodates c.40 people) it is more than clear that Mr. Hamilton was extremely well advised – and it shows. Note for instance that the coffered ceiling of the nave (modelled on that of the Pantheon in Rome) is without gilding while that part of the ceiling over the sancturay is distinguished by the gilding of the coffering; while I cannot see clearly enough from the pictures, it is at least evident that the altar is raised on at least two steps of not three above the floor of the nave; a sancturay lamp is hang8ing in an appropriate position; a altar rail and gates have been installed -curiously while the Midleton oral Hearing last year Professor O’Neill could not think of a modern church with altar rails these were just then being erected; the tabernacle is centred on the altar and both are on the central axis of the chapel; also, it is quite extraordinary that all of the fittings and furnishings should have been commissioned from the same architect -and even more extraordinary that consecration candelabra (now almost never seen in Ireland) should have been included in the garniture.

Can some one explain to me why the miserable lot of fraudsters running around Ireland wrecking anything they can lay hands on were never trained to be able to produce something like this?

Kilkenny RC Cathedral. Just bear in mind that dozens of such masterpieces of painting have been just painted over as if they were a rusty gate! The full set, along with other Kilkenny pics is here http://www.flickr.com/photos/59301202@N00/sets/72157594527658365/
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The first photo is of kilclaren church Feakle Co. Clare, decorated by us in 1932. The second is of the same church desecrated in 1982.

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