reorganisation and destruction of irish catholic churches

Here we have the interior of Ballina Cathedral functioning in a most appalling travesty of the rubrics of the Roman Rite:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Polqj…eature=related

The family of Saint Anne, Flemish c. 1490

@Praxiteles wrote:

To-day marks the opening of the Lourdes Jubilee year to commemorate the 150 anniversary of the apparitions there in 1858.

The first photograph shows the interior of the upper basilica shortly after its consecration in 1867.

The second shows the High Altar as it is to-day.

The third shows the consecration as depicted in the glass of the upper basilica.

An external lateral view of the Basilica.

An external view of the principal facade.

beautiful.The exterior is very nice. I would have expected the hgh altar to be richer though.

@Praxiteles wrote:

This is true about the High Altar but I expect that in 1867 no one had the slightest imagination as what Lourdes was going to become.

The Basilica there has recently been restored and to the highest standard – an example taht could be emulated by not a few visitors from Ireland when “restoring” their catherdarls.

They also have a horrible underground bunker trading as a basilica though?

And a litte seasonal taste of Tomas Luis de Victoria’s wonderful music:

http://bach.nau.edu/Victoria/OMagnum.html

http://bach.nau.edu/Victoria/OVos.html

http://bach.nau.edu/Victoria/OSacrum.html

and that of some of his near contempories:

http://bach.nau.edu/Byrd/AveVerum.html

http://bach.nau.edu/Palestrina/Sicut.html

http://bach.nau.edu/Monteverdi/Lauda.html

Here we have some liturgical reasing for the Cloyne HACK over the festive season:

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/reviews/reviews_3.html

@Praxiteles wrote:

Here we have some liturgical reasing for the Cloyne HACK over the festive season:

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/reviews/reviews_3.html

Perhaps the Cloyne HACK should be eating crow rather than goose or turkey this Christmas!

Thank you, Prax, for the excellent snaps of the Upper Basilica of Lourdes. The shot from 1876 was stunning. Rhabanus thinks that the current state of the high altar could be improved somewhat. Paraphrasing ake, it seems a bit subdued. A little more eclat wouldn’t harm it.

Must agree with Fearg, that the St Pius X Basilica is a concrete bunker – does nothing to inspire confidence in Rhabanus. On the other hand, the processions on the esplanade are always uplifting. Those spires pointing heavenward against a red sunset stand as an image of the Christian Faith persevering and unwavering against the twilght of the gods.

Thanks, too, for Dr Reid’s trenchant review of the recent Marini oeuvre. Marini’s swan song serves as a useful pendant to Bugnini’s Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975. Readers can see how politics played (and still play) a pervasive role in the advancement of the liturgical juggernaut. It is about time that the Holy See implemented its ‘hermeneutic of continuity’ before all the ecclesiastical architecture of Ireland is completely flattened out by the ideologues and heirs of Bugnini-Marini – their name is Legion! Time to dissolve the apparatchik.

The “Reform of the Reform,” as envisioned by Benedict XVI, is long overdue. Plenty of young people seem quite interested. Many are aware that their patrimony has been squandered – and they are seeking to reclaim it. Aren’t forty years of decline sufficient reason to begin trying what has worked for centuries? Namely, the liturgy as transmitted and received in fidelity from the Apostles and their disciples. Let the development be organic and faithful to the depositum fidei.

Westminster Cathedral looks magnificent, as usual.

It’s long past time that St Colman’s Cathedral, Cobh, celebrated the solemn pontifical rite of Mass according to the usus antiquior or the “extraordinary form.” Quando? Quando? Quando?

Can’t get the YouTube pics as intended. But thanks anyway for the references!

@Praxiteles wrote:

And here we have St. George’s Cathedral, Southwark (London) built by A.W.N. Pugin and considered to be one of his finest works. Unfortunately, it was bombed during the war but restored in the late 1940s and early 1950s only to have been hacked to bits by the liturgical agitators of the 1970s and 1980s who eventually ht on the (much hackneyed) idea of abandoning the chancel and placing an unraised altar at the crossing.

From the photographs on the following likns, it is easy to see how difficult it is to celebrate the Tridentine Rite in this kind of set up – clearly the hacked sanctuary was adapted as best one could to accomodate the Tridentine Rite but, as you can see, it is a foreigner in this setting -which in itself sevres to indicate the underlying theological/intellectual problematic involved in the hacked solution which is basically not Catholic.

The solution here is, not surprisingly, quite close to what was proposed for Cobh Cathedral:

http://www.traditionalcatholic.org.uk/SouthwarkCathedral8Dec07/Photos_3.html#10

A formerly glorious church cut down to size by the liturgical peddlars. Take us back to Westminster, please.

But let us peek into St Etheldreda’s Ely Place – the oldest Englsih church in Catholic hands. Once the residence of the bishops of Ely (whose patron saint is St Etheldreda of Ely), it was won in an auction for 100 pounds sterling.

Supporting the arches are several of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. The east window, though too modern, celebrates the Kingship of Christ. The west window is superior. It depicts the Catholic martyrs of sixteenth-century England.

St Ethelreda’s has long hosted the usus antiquior of the Roman Rite.

St Ethelreda’s, Ely Place, London

Here we are!

@ake wrote:

Have you ever seen any critical mention of the vast destruction wrought on churches in the last decades in this or any Catholic newspaper?

It would be far too much to expect criticism of what should be cirticized from the Catholic Herald which has been up a remote shunt for years. It is not in any demographic way representative of critical Catholic opinion for it is firmly in the hands of a set of dim old fogies who have not noticed that the social utopia of the 30s just did not inexorably evolve into the promised land.

As for most of the rest, you can forget about those as well. What is much more interesting is the phenomenon of free Catholic newspapers which are independent of the dead hand of ideology and go some way to reflecting what is going on in the Church in an intelligent way.

To be fair, the Irish Catholic was very sympathetic to the FOSCC cause and those running it at the time certainly wriggled as much as they could within the ideological straight-jacket gagging them.