reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches
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This, I take it, is what is called a “measured response”!
What can you possibly expect from Cobh Urban District Council? I hope that the whole thing can be closed down by absorbing it into the greater Cork area. The think is just too incompetent and would cause the former rotten boroughs to blush! No, in the case of Cobh UDC drastic remedial work is urgently required.
@Praxiteles wrote:
This, I take it, is what is called a “measured response”!
What can you possibly expect from Cobh Urban District Council? I hope that the whole thing can be closed down by absorbing it into the greater Cork area. The think is just too incompetent and would cause the former rotten boroughs to blush! No, in the case of Cobh UDC drastic remedial work is urgently required.
There seems to be an inability to create and to sustain serious watchdog enterprises. Why is this so?
It always strikes me that the ‘redecoration’ of these churches must always be very expensive; even posterpainting a nave barbie girl pink requires costly scaffolding etc. One possible means of throwing a spanner in the works of these projects might be an examination of the finances; where are the priests getting the money? If it’s parish donations, demanding a transparency to the process and a choice of putting your money where you want it to go- maintenance, security, gardening or priest, etc would presumably leave the priests with no revenue for ‘renewal’ of churches as I can hardly believe anyone knowingly donates significant money to the obvious wreckage of their parish church. I don’t know how these things work, but inserting a bit of democracy into the process of looking after the church must be a good way to ward off the Calvinist notions of the modern clergy.
ake wrote:It always strikes me that the ‘redecoration’ of these churches must always be very expensive]John Henry Newman remarked in the nineteenth century that he found it odd that there was never any money to be had for beautifying or decorating churches, but there always seemed to be enough in the kitty to renovate, remodel, and redecorate the rectories and presbyteries of his day. How interesting that today money can be found to wreckovate the church, while the rectories are looking ever so much more posh, bedecked with the latest gadgetry and techno-toys from automatic garage-door-openers to plasma screens and virtual reality computer games. There seems no end of improvements to rectories whilst the House of God is stripped down right to the bare stone work and every thing of beauty swept into the rubbish bin or sent round to decorate pubs.
I think that the faithful should form an organisation to put an end to this reckless frenzy of artistic and architectural nihilism. If the clergy are not going to educate their successors in art, architecture, sacred music, and cultural heritage – as Vatican II called them to do! – then the faithful who do have human and cultural formation, as well as a deep commitment to the Catholic Faith, are going to have to assert themselves firmly
and brook no opposition on the matter of preserving the good, the true, and the beautiful in the works of art and architecture which their forbears provided at great sacrifice for the glory of God and the good of the Church.All it takes is a small group of faithful stalwarts who can stand up and be counted to articulate the vision, draft the mission statement, and then proceed with all due decorum to announce the foundation of the Church Preservation and Conservation Institute.
@Rhabanus wrote:
John Henry Newman remarked in the nineteenth century that he found it odd that there was never any money to be had for beautifying or decorating churches, but there always seemed to be enough in the kitty to renovate, remodel, and redecorate the rectories and presbyteries of his day. How interesting that today money can be found to wreckovate the church, while the rectories are looking ever so much more posh, bedecked with the latest gadgetry and techno-toys from automatic garage-door-openers to plasma screens and virtual reality computer games. There seems no end of improvements to rectories whilst the House of God is stripped down right to the bare stone work and every thing of beauty swept into the rubbish bin or sent round to decorate pubs.
I think that the faithful should form an organisation to put an end to this reckless frenzy of artistic and architectural nihilism. If the clergy are not going to educate their successors in art, architecture, sacred music, and cultural heritage – as Vatican II called them to do! – then the faithful who do have human and cultural formation, as well as a deep commitment to the Catholic Faith, are going to have to assert themselves firmly
and brook no opposition on the matter of preserving the good, the true, and the beautiful in the works of art and architecture which their forbears provided at great sacrifice for the glory of God and the good of the Church.All it takes is a small group of faithful stalwarts who can stand up and be counted to articulate the vision, draft the mission statement, and then proceed with all due decorum to announce the foundation of the Church Preservation and Conservation Institute.
This is all too reminiscent of the Arian crisis back in the fourth century. Don’t you remember? The lay faithful and the pope of the day were in tune with the orthodox faith, professing that the Word-made-flesh (God the Son, Jesus Christ) is consubstantial with the Father, whereas the bishops ran the gamut of dissent from avid profession of Christ being “of like substance” to the Father, to useless dithering and flip-flopping on the issue. Nevertheless, St Athanasius sounded the clarion call and galvanised orthodox Catholicism for a new generation. Newman in the nineteenth century noted parallels between the England of his day and that world which had awakened to find itself Arian. [Read his Arians of the Fourth Century!]
Today it would seem that Ireland has awakened to find itself in the grip of an iconoclastic fit. The twofold solution is to restore a more robust appreciation of the mystery of the Incarnation, and to celebrate (recover) Catholicism’s rich heritage of ICONOGRAPHY. Teach the Faith through icons. The pre-literate (eg infants and children) will thank you for it, particularly as they read magnificent iconography in fresco and window and statuary during dull homilies. [Arians of the Fourth Century makes for good adult reading during particularly boring, ill-prepared, and long-winded sermons that go nowhere fast.]
Our young people deserve to read sacred signs, symbols, and sacraments with comprehension and facility. If they are to inherit the Faith, then we, like Benedict XVI, have to teach them through sacred art and architecture. Note the number and high quality of illustrations in the monumental Catechism of the Catholic Church. In the much more compact Compendium Catechism of the Catholic Church, then-Cardinal Ratzinger insisted on inserting even MORE illustrations in order to teach the Faith with clarity, and to show the consistency of the Catholic Tradition throughout the ages.
Ireland’s religious heritage is far too precious to be allowed to slip through the fingers of the current generation. This requires PRO-ACTIVE policies and a clear VISION for the future of Ireland’s churches and cathedrals. Anybody out there?
To ask a question for a moment: this is a picture of Sts Michael and John’s on the quays in Dublin. It was the earliest Catholic church built in the revival gothic in Dublin. Some years ago, I believe Dublin diocese sold it off -rather stupidly since the inner city population has since risen- and I have no idea of what happened to it. Has anyone any ideas? It took almost a year to find a photograph of it and this one was taken c. 1965.
I know the church. It’s never been open when I’ve walked past it. I vaguely recall it being somesort of Viking museum for a while,maybe that’s wrong. Don’t know what the interior is like now. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been obliterated and joined onto the adjacent buildings though.
Here is a most useful pictorial guid to churches in Cork:
Can anyone give a concise explanation of the phenonomen of flowers in churches? Are they liturgically required, permitted, historical,etc? I’m not a flower hater, but some altars, many altars in fact are miniature jungles- this really obstructs viewing the altar.
@ake wrote:
Can anyone give a concise explanation of the phenonomen of flowers in churches? Are they liturgically required, permitted, historical,etc? I’m not a flower hater, but some altars, many altars in fact are miniature jungles- this really obstructs viewing the altar.
Flowers, as an expression of joy and celebration, are permitted in church except for penitential seasons or on days of mourning. They ought not to be placed on the mensa of the altar, but may be arranged on stands beside the altar or may stand on the gradines behind oriented altars.
On Gaudete (Advent Sunday III) and Laetare (Lent Sunday IV) Sundays , flowers may adorn the sanctuary, musical instruments may be played solo, and the celebrants at Mass and Office may wear rose vestments. The colour rose derives from the mingling of joy (white) with penance (violet) as the Church marks the mid-point of the penitential seasons of Advent and Lent.
Those who belong to altar guilds or who decorate their local parish churches will know that certain flowers are associated in iconography with particular virtues: for example, rose = charity/love; lily = purity/chastity; violet = humility; daisy = simplicity; ivy = fidelity. Flowers, in due season and on various feasts, may decorate side altars and small shrines as well as the main altar. Like the practice of burning candles before sacred images, the custom of placing flowers before the tabernacle, the altar, crucifixes, statues, and icons, serves to express the devotion of the faithful and to give honour and glory to God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, or the Saints.
Flowers for saints’ shrines and individual statues ought to refelect or represent in some way the virtues of the saint being honoured. On St Agnes’ Day in Rome, for example, two lambs are presented in her church on the via Nomentana, one wearing a crown of red roses (martyrdom) and the other wearing a crown of white roses (virginity). The flowers allude to St Agnes’ dual status as a Virgin Martyr: “A virgin she remained and the martyr’s crown obtained.”
On Palm Sunday, the church ought to be decked out with palms, some fronds of which can be stretched out like fans to adorn the main altar and the rest of the sanctuary.
Artificial flowers are not appropriate for church or chapel. Even dried flowers are a vast improvement over plastic or silk flowers and can prove particularly effective in the autumn, especially in November with its eschatological themes and feasts.
Pictures of the Madonna and various saints often portray them holding flowers or, in the case of the martyrs, carrying palms. In fact, some Madonnas are named for the flower that Our Lady holds in her hand (eg. Madonna of the Carmen; Madonna of the Pink, etc.)
There is a plethora of books available on the selection and arrangement of flowers to be used in decorating churches on specific feasts and liturgical occasions and seasons. Obviously some altar societies and individual decorators are more successful than others. Like good liturgy itself, excellence in decorating churches for the sacred liturgy does not simply “happen.” The best arrangements, like the liturgical observances themselves, are those which are planned well ahead of time with due thought given to the significance of the mysteries being celebrated.
Perhaps it would be useful for readers to take note of how their churches are decorated this Sunday, Pentecost Day. The colour of the Holy Spirit, like that of the martyrs is red, signifying love. Because the Holy Spirit is the Love between the Father and the Son, and because He descended in the form of tongues of flame on Our Lady and the Apostles and Disciples in the Cenacle (upper room where the Last Supper had been celebrated on the eve of Our Lord’s crucifixion), the vestments of the day are red. Hence the floral decorations for Pentecost Day ought to highlight the colour red.
Papal events are marked by gold (yellow) and silver (white) in heraldry, bunting, and floral arrangements. Note the colour scheme of the arms and flag of the Holy See. The papal rose is a golden rose. It was the custom of the pope in the Middle Ages to ride a white palfrey from the Lateran palace on Sunday Lent IV (Laetare) to the church of S. Croce in Gerusalemme (Holy Cross in Jerusalem), where he would preach on Christ the Rose. During the homily, the pope would hold a golden rose, the symbol of Christ. He would carry the golden rose with him after Mass in procession back to the Lateran. Upon dismounting the palfrey, the pope would present the golden rose to the nobleman who assisted him. This gesture of appreciation for services rendered the Holy See became formalised in the papal custom, still in vigour until relatively recently, of awarding The Golden Rose to kings, queens, or institutions distinguished by public acts of charity, beneficence, or heroism.
How is your church decorated? Are cut flowers tastefully arranged and replaced when they show signs of wilting? Are the penitential seasons properly observed in your parish church, or do artificial plants and flowers present a gaudy spectacle that merely collect dust and clutter the sanctuary? Clever decorators take into account the architectural features of the church and use niches and arches to full advantage in arranging flowers and plants. How does the decoration of your church on feast days and ferials rate on a scale of 1 to 10?
Very interesting rhabanus thanks. Alot of churches way over do it with the flowers- in Waterford, that church I mentioned before is particularly bad- with one of the side altars (an absolute beauty) totally bombarded with flowers in not very nice vases. The arrangement is unthoughtful, and does not recognise the architectural/artistic design- a flower is put wherever there is level surface. I didn’t want to photograph it like that and the only other option was to move all of those pots on to the ground momentarily- I gave up there were so many.
@ake wrote:
Very interesting rhabanus thanks. Alot of churches way over do it with the flowers- in Waterford, that church I mentioned before is particularly bad- with one of the side altars (an absolute beauty) totally bombarded with flowers in not very nice vases. The arrangement is unthoughtful, and does not recognise the architectural/artistic design- a flower is put wherever there is level surface. I didn’t want to photograph it like that and the only other option was to move all of those pots on to the ground momentarily- I gave up there were so many.
Sounds like a purveyor of schlock hath invaded the church at Waterford! Interesting that you should comment on the poor quality of the vases. If a decorator were serious about doing up an altar in proper fashion, vases specifically designed for the altar would be used. The architect of the church would have provided such at least in the nineteenth century. Can you imagine Pugin, for instance, allowing a reredos to be cluttered up with tasteless vases and deplorable flower arrangements? Methinks that good old Pugin would have “cleansed the temple” forthwith. The sacristans would have been sweeping up plenty of smashed glass after that event!
Good architects design tasteful furnishings and accoutrements that lend coherence to their overall work, all the components complementing one another.
An amusing story is told about the London Oratory on Brompton Rd. I hope that I am getting all the facts right. During a solemn high Mass on a great feast, the priest celebrant proceeded with the deacon and subdeacon to incense the main altar. There was so much foliage and frondage on the reredos and throughout the sanctuary that when the deacon went down to incense one of the attendant clergy, he found himself brushing back overhanging branches until he could actually find the priest waiting to be incensed. The deacon’s comment, uttered sotto voce, and doubtless inspired by another renowned encounter in the jungle: “Dr Livingstone, I presume?”
I wish you had taken the photo of the altar in the Waterford church anyway, even if only as an object lesson in how not to decorate an altar. Sometimes we learn by the via negativa – learning what NOT to do.
Please keep the photos coming, ake. They are splendid. If you return to Waterford and click the jungle, I’ll try to spot Dr Livingstone.
No impressions of the Pentecost floral arrangements in local churches?
On the solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul each year, a floral fishnet is suspended over the main door of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. This expresses the Apostolic and Petrine vocation to be “fishers of men.” The floral fishnet hangs just under the relief of Christ bestowing upon St Peter the keys of the kingdom of Heaven.
Any ambitious floral customs to share on this thread?
@ake wrote:
Very interesting rhabanus thanks. Alot of churches way over do it with the flowers- in Waterford, that church I mentioned before is particularly bad- with one of the side altars (an absolute beauty) totally bombarded with flowers in not very nice vases. The arrangement is unthoughtful, and does not recognise the architectural/artistic design- a flower is put wherever there is level surface. I didn’t want to photograph it like that and the only other option was to move all of those pots on to the ground momentarily- I gave up there were so many.
I agree with ake. The flower situation is completely out of hand and needs to be addressed. Unfortunately, we have moved from flowers as decorations for the principal feasts and festivals to a situation where the church has become an amphitheater for the local flower club. Not only are flowers supplied but also rags, banners, dross, junk, posters,etc.etc.etc.etc.etc. whicyh are subsequently discarded in the sacristy. Worst of all is when the local flower club gets “expressive” and we find all sorts of meaningless junk dumped in front of the altar in such a way that you cannot walk around it and you cannot approach it from the front. Where are the liturgists now?
Interestingly, the Jansenists hated flowers and the famous Jansenist Synod of Pistoia banned any flowers in a church. Now we have the opposite extreme. Time to bring out the machette.
@Praxiteles wrote:
I agree with ake. The flower situation is completely out of hand and needs to be addressed. Unfortunately, we have moved from flowers as decorations for the principal feasts and festivals to a situation where the church has become an amphitheater for the local flower club. Not only are flowers supplied but also rags, banners, dross, junk, posters,etc.etc.etc.etc.etc. whicyh are subsequently discarded in the sacristy. Worst of all is when the local flower club gets “expressive” and we find all sorts of meaningless junk dumped in front of the altar in such a way that you cannot walk around it and you cannot approach it from the front. Where are the liturgists now?
Interestingly, the Jansenists hated flowers and the famous Jansenist Synod of Pistoia banned any flowers in a church. Now we have the opposite extreme. Time to bring out the machette.
Just get home from Pistoia, did you, Prax? I hope you haven’t picked up any nasty habits from the Jansenist friends you met on the weekend. Your tone sounds distinctly militant.
Rhabanus is of the more pacific mindset that floral arrangements for church, like sacred architecture, ought to be left to the experts rather than the hacks and the HACKS. The problem lies, after all, not in the flowers or greens themselves, but in the tasteless way that they are strewn about sanctuaries without a clue as to the canons of good taste and common sense. The churches maintained by the Fathers of the Oratory, for example, on nearly any continent you can name, can boast with reason of tastefully and beautifully decorated altars, sanctuaries, and shrines. Many Anglican churches, too, do a pretty good job with flowers in church, and have published informative and improving books on the matter. Plenty of good reading there!
Flowers in church demand care, sense, and taste – all too lacking in many of today’s local parishes where sloppiness and the lowest common denominator abound. Some priests’ taste is all in their mouth. Relying on highminded but inept volunteers to decorate one’s church is akin to inflicting similar punishment on the faithful by letting generous but inept musicians twankle their guitars, bash their tambourines, or pound on the organ during liturgical functions. Sir Edward Elgar, who wrote some simple but exquisite settings of well known hymns and motets once complained about his parish organist, who, according to Elgar, had “one foot on the pedals and the other in the grave.”
The prevalent tendency toward “folk art,” as opposed to true artistic excellence in art, architecture, and, yes, even floral decoration, often succeeds only in turning people away from devotion and religion, rather than leading them to pray and to meditate more deeply on the mysteries being celebrated.
Not one to throw out the baby with the bathwater, Rhabanus urges closer attention to the canons of good taste in floral displays in church, and cautions local pastors and altar guilds against the danger of throwing out the baby and drinking the bath water.
Put down the machette, Prax, and think ‘flower power.’ You’re not in Pistoia any more!
Consider these memorable lines from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience:‘Though the Philistines may jostle, you will rank as an Apostle in the high aesthetic band,
As you walk down Picadilly with a poppy or a lily in your mediaeval hand.
And ev’ryone will say,
As you walk your flow’ry way,
“If he’s content with a vegetable love which would certainly not suit me,
Why, what a most particularly pure young man
this pure young man must be!”‘Romanesque sculpture found when demolishing St.Finbarre’s in the 1860’s ; ASTONISHING!!
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And this is the old gothic door there; also remarkably good.
[ATTACH]4890[/ATTACH]What happened to these? Are they in museums/private collections? They should be in Kildare street! It hardly even occured to me that cork was a medieval city. Can anyone post a drawing or painting of medieval or pre Georgian Cork? Maybe in one of the cork threads.
Some clue as to the whereabouts of these figures might be available in Ann Wilson’s book on St. Finn Barre’s Cathedral. It was published last year by Four Courts Press.
Notre-Dame-de-Croas-Batz in Roscoff, Brittany:
In super condition, fabric has recently been restored, but all the original fittings retained. Unfortunately, this is spoilt slightly by some of the usual clutter..
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Here’s the altar in the Dominican church in Waterford I was moaning about. There were alot more flowers the last time, and there’s alot more out of shot, almost all cheap plastic. More shots from that church here http://www.flickr.com/photos/58086761@N00/sets/72157600277832250/
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@ake wrote:
Here’s the altar in the Dominican church in Waterford I was moaning about. There were alot more flowers the last time, and there’s alot more out of shot, almost all cheap plastic. More shots from that church here http://www.flickr.com/photos/58086761@N00/sets/72157600277832250/
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This is a very fine altar and a wonder that it has survived given what might have happened had Asutin Flannery been in this house. I am wonderng is it a 19th century construction or a 17th century piece imported into Waterford in the 19th century?
Very nice set of pictures Ake!
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