Praxiteles

This week saw the publication of the first volume of the theological Opera Omnia of the present Pope which will run to 16 volumes. Not surprisingly, the first volume published was volume 11 which just happens to be his liturgical writings. Unfortunately, they have not yet been translated into English – nor for that matter are they out in nursery rhyme form for the benefits of the illiterati on the Cloyne HACK. The follwoing report on the event is taken for the New Liturgical Movement webpage:

Saturday, October 25, 2008
Benedict’s Preface to the Ratzinger Opera Omnia: What is and is he not saying about Liturgical Orientation?
by Shawn Tribe

Zenit recently published this article concerning the collected writings of Ratzinger. It contains some interesting snippet quotes that will bear some looking at following the piece. Comments to follow.

Pope Hopes “Complete Works” Get Past Polemics: Recalls Stir Caused by 2000 Book on Liturgy

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 23, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI says he hopes the publication of his complete works will help get past polemics regarding the liturgy.

The Pope affirmed this in the preface to the first of 16 German-language volumes, which was presented Wednesday. The “Complete Works” will contain previously unpublished texts, and range from Joseph Ratzinger’s university years up to his election as Pontiff.

“It would please me very much if the new publication of my writings on the liturgy could contribute to making visible the great perspectives of our liturgy, putting again in their place the small and pitiful diatribes on exterior forms,” the Holy Father writes in the preface, which was partially made available in Italian by Vatican Radio.

The Pope said that starting off his complete works with the theme of the liturgy, as happened at the Second Vatican Council, reflects the primacy of God.

The liturgy, he added, “has been for me the central reality of my life since childhood.” He said it gives the answer to the question, “Why do we believe?”

“God before all else,” Benedict XVI affirms in the preface. “Wherever the gaze at God is not determinant, everything else loses its orientation.”

Seeking calm

The Pontiff acknowledged that to avoid polemics, he had considered removing nine pages from his book “The Spirit of the Liturgy: An Introduction,” published in 2000. This book makes up the main portion of the first volume of the complete works.

Unfortunately, he recalled, almost all reports on the work focus on those pages where he wrote of the orientation of the priest during the liturgy.

Later, the Holy Father continued, he decided to keep the pages, satisfied that his overall intention is clear.

He recognized that his suggestion is gaining ground: “to not modify the structures, but simply to put a cross in the center of the altar, such that both the priest and the faithful look toward it, so as to allow themselves to be drawn toward the Lord, to whom we all pray together.”

“The concept by which the priest and the assembly should look one another in the eye during prayer has been developed only in modern times and is totally foreign to ancient Christianity,” the Pontiff wrote. “The priest and the assembly didn’t pray facing each other, but directed toward the one Lord.

“Because of this, during prayer, they look in the same direction: Either toward the east, a cosmic symbol of the Lord who is to come, or, where this was not possible, toward an image of Christ in the apse, toward a cross, or simply all together toward the heights, as the Lord did during his priestly prayer the night before his passion.”

[…]
Evidently, there is going to be some attention given to the Pope’s statements about the question of orientation — ironically perhaps given the context in which it comes up. But I would advise people not to get their hopes or their backs up too readily here — depending upon how you are approaching this question — for the Pope is not actually saying anything here that he hasn’t said as a Cardinal.

First off, it is important that we quote the Pope’s words in fuller form, which reveals them to be much less dramatic than they might otherwise sound. Consider the following quotes from the preface, as published in Italian in “30 Days”, and presented here in an NLM translation:

“Unfortunately, almost all the reviews [of the Spirit of the Liturgy] have focused on a single chapter: ‘The altar and orientation of liturgical prayer’. Readers of reviews would have had to conclude that the entire work had treated only of the orientation of the celebration and that its content was reduced to wanting to reintroduce the celebration of Mass ‘with your back to the people’.”

“In view of this misrepresentation I thought for a moment [NLM emphasis] to delete this chapter in order to bring the debate onto the real issue that interested me and still interests me in the book.

This was made all the more easily possible [to consider doing] by the fact that in the meantime appeared two excellent works in which the issue of orientation of prayer in the Church of the first millennium was clarified so persuasively. I think first of all the important little book by Uwe Michael Lang, Turning towards the Lord, of particular importance, and the important contribution of Stefan Heid, attitude and orientation of the first prayer in the Christian era (in the Journal of Christian Archeology, 72-2006), where sources and a bibliography on this issue are amply illustrated and updated.

The conclusion is quite clear: the idea that a priest and the people should look one another in the eye was only [an idea] in modern Christianity and is completely alien in the ancient [Church]. The priest and people certainly do not pray to each other, but to the one Lord. They look in prayer in the same direction: towards the East as cosmic symbol for the Lord that is to come, or where this is not possible, to an image of Christ, to a cross, or simply to heaven, as the Lord did priestly prayer in the evening before his Passion (Jn 17:1).

Meanwhile, fortunately the proposal I made in my work at the end of this chapter works its way [into practice] more and more: not a new change, but simply the putting of a cross on the middle of the altar towards which priest and faithful can together look, to be guided in this way to the Lord, [toward which] we all pray together.”
As is evident in the fuller quotation, the Pope did not think of deleting his chapter on liturgical orientation because he thought it was a misguided or unimportant subject, but because he thought it was distracting from the broader, deeper focus of his own work. Further, it is an extraordinarily relevant detail that he considered doing so (“for a moment”) in the light of the fact that others, like Fr. Uwe Michael Lang, had since then made the case (“so persuasively”) for the historic form of orientation in Christian liturgical prayer in their own studies, and therefore he did not have to. Clearly this is not a Pope who sees the matter as unimportant — but, let it be said that any writer can relate to the frustration of writing something and having one single point come to distract from the greater whole and more substantive thesis.

The Pope, as is evident in his writing here and elsewhere, clearly sees the problematic nature of the change in orientation at the altar which focused upon this idea of looking upon each other. One point he wishes to drive home is that regardless of the exterior form, our focus ought to be upon the Lord. Therefore, even in our present situation which finds so many priests directed toward the nave of the Church (and hence toward the people) our focus should be upon the Lord and not each other.

Accordingly, the Pope, like the Cardinal, has put forth a pragmatic proposition in the light of present circumstance: namely, exclude the notion that we must see each other eye-to-eye — that we are the point of focus within the liturgy — and place a central cross upon the altar thereby beginning the process of re-orienting the priest and the faithful towards the symbol of the Cross, making it a symbolic “East”.

The Pope, being a pastor, is also concerned with pastoral questions, and this is where his consideration of the changing of structures seems to enter in, which is a key contextual point. Let’s consider what he said in Fontgombault in 2001 which shows the consistent theme of his thought and gives us further context to understand it:

The third problem is the celebration versus populum. As I have written in my books, I think that celebration turned towards the east, toward the Christ who is coming, is an apostolic tradition. I am not however in favour of forever changing churches around completely; so many churches have now been restructured that starting all over again right now [NLM emphasis] does not seem to me at all a good idea.

— From “Looking Again at the Question of the Liturgy with Cardinal Ratzinger”
Ratzinger’s thought, and Benedict’s apparent echo of that thought, would seem to be pastorally motivated and pragmatic in nature. He seems to be considering a situation of change on a vast scale (similar to what happened following the Council) to both permanent structural arrangements of churches as well as to a widescale shift in liturgical practice. Ratzinger has made clear that he saw this approach following the Council as being quite harmful and he clearly is not eager to see a repetition.

That said, some will no doubt try to suggest that Benedict is therefore stating that we should not celebrate Mass ad orientem in the traditional sense, nor even make minor, non-structural re-arrangements, but this would seem to mischaracterize his thought, not to mention his practice. Evidently, Benedict is giving a primacy at this point to the use of a central altar cross as a primary means by which to begin re-orienting our approach to the liturgy. This much is clear — and really comes as no surprise given its consistency with all he has said before. It really is the most realistic method, and in some cases, it would be physically the only way to accomplish it short of substantial renovations to permanent arrangements. This method will allow each and every Mass and each and every parish to begin the process of re-orientation, and with the least general disruption.

But while speaking of what will be the primary course for re-orienting our liturgies in most of our parishes, it wouldn’t seem to mean that ad orientem in its traditional expression is outside the pale — indeed, it is envisioned and allowed for by the Missal and by liturgical law. We should note that what he has clearly spoken about not being done is pursuing a large scale program of significant structural changes to permanent sanctuary arrangements, or a widescale shift in general liturgical practice. This doesn’t, however, preclude a gradual or longer term process however, either on a general scale or an individual parish level. I would propose that the introduction of some Masses ad orientem in a parish setting, or less significant re-arrangements would seem to be quite consistent here, as would seem to be clarified by three facts:

One is the testimony of his own practice. Not only does he celebrate this way each day in his private chapel, but he also recently did so in the Sistine Chapel. This occured in the context of a parish like situation and they could have, as had been done every other time prior to that (see image), done so at an altar ad populum with a central altar cross upon it. He did not however. The fact this wasn’t done and that the original high altar was instead used is suggestive that Benedict does not see this as inimical to pastoral consideration in any kind of general way, or a practice to be avoided.

Second, Benedict praises Fr. Uwe Michael Lang’s treatment of the subject, which is not only a historical examination, but also includes practical liturgical considerations on the recovery of traditional orientation for the second half of the liturgy, “the Liturgy of the Eucharist”, in the modern liturgical context. Perhaps relevant is that Ratzinger himself wrote a preface to that work which not only consistently re-states some of the very points we have been discussing here (i.e. our true orientation regardless of the incidentals of where the priest is facing) but which also defends the fact that present liturgical law (as clarified by the Congregation for Divine Worship) does not make Mass ad populum obligatory. Given the consistency we see in Benedict’s thoughts on these matters, this may be important to help contextualize his thought here.

Finally, it is also worth remembering that Benedict has “freed” and encouraged a form of the liturgy which will predominantly (if not entirely) be celebrated in the traditional orientation at those same parish altars and in the parish context, and he has couched this in terms of its possibility for “enrichment.” This opens the door to this orientation to the typical parish and may also require minor-arrangements to accommodate this. If Benedict saw this as generally pastorally problematic, regardless of the fact we are speaking of the use of a different missal, it would seem rather inconsistent to say the least.

What then are we to make of his thought? What is he proposing or not proposing?

First, he seems to desire to steer people away from polemical hostility and into greater liturgical calm in the hopes of fostering a better overall liturgical climate that will allow us to reclaim our liturgical senses and sensibilities. He does so while affirming the tradition of the Eastward direction of liturgical prayer and the novelty in the approach taken toward versus populum.

Second, he suggests that any kind of general project of major structural renovation throughout the Church is not best pursued and that general liturgical upheaval, both of which happened following the Council, is also to be avoided — both no doubt informed by the quite negative post-conciliar experience in this regard, which, as he has noted elsewhere, he sees as having been quite damaging. He does not want to see that experience and approach repeated.

Third, in the light of the second point, he also seems to envision the use of the central altar cross as the primary means by which to begin this process of re-orienting ourselves, priest and faithful, within the liturgy; regaining our sense of the liturgy as fundamentally theocentric and not rather about ourselves in dialogue, looking upon one another. But at the same time, if we take his words and actions into consideration, he does not seem to intend to suggest this as the only appropriate means or that there might not also be a secondary means; namely some recovery of the traditional expression of ad orientem liturgicum.

Further, in speaking against the modification of structures, he doesn’t seem to be suggesting a parish couldn’t take simple actions like move a free-standing altar a little further back in a sanctuary to allow for ad orientem (as might be necessary to accommodate the usus antiquior) or that it couldn’t even remove a non-fixed altar where the original high altar remains in tact (as was done in the Sistine Chapel). Neither is he speaking of churches being newly built. Rather, he clearly seems to be speaking against widescale projects to alter permanent and fixed sanctuary arrangements, similar to what followed the Council. I cannot but stress that the Pope’s own decision in the Sistine Chapel speaks to this point quite significantly.

In the end, the conclusion of all this would seem to be that all of the normal considerations that parish priests have been considering and pursuing to date as part of the reform of the reform apply. There is really nothing new in all this and it simply emphasizes again the point that the reform of the reform is a process, and one that requires pastoral preparation and sensitivity in its application

Modernist Church Architecture
(Catholic Dossier) May-June 1997 Author:
Duncan Stroik

The church has not adopted any particular style of art as her own . . . The art of our own times from every race and country shall also be given free scope in the Church, provided it bring to the task the reverence and honor due to the sacred buildings and rites.
-Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 123
If you wish to see great Modernist architecture you must have plenty of time and your own Lear jet.
-Robert Krier
To many educated observers it would seem that the reductivist buildings commissioned for Roman Catholic worship today are the direct correlary of Church teaching, modern liturgical studies and contemporary theology. Of course, if that were so, Modernist architecture would be the officially sanctioned style of the Church and difficult to criticise. Indeed, in the 1960’s after the Vatican Council, there was a great surge of construction of churches which were austere and often resembling commercial or factory buildings, bearing out the belief that they were mandated by the spirit of Vatican II. But these concrete boxes, barnlike shelters and sculptural masses all had precedent in the pre-Conciliar era. In fact, radical new church configurations had been experimented with since the dawn of Modernism in the late 19th century. The idea to model churches on auditoria, Greek theaters, large houses, or theaters in the round grew out of low-church Protestant worship, whereas the reductivism of post-Conciliar churches grew out of the Modernist architectural movement in Europe.

This is to say that current church architecture is not merely the child of modern theology, it is also a child of the “masters” of Modernism: Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Alvar Aalto, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright and others. The Church willingly accepted and even adopted the architecture of the secular realm for its sacred buildings. Yet in promoting this “International Style,” did the Church unknowingly adopt the philosophy of Modernism and unwittingly undercut its own theological agenda?

First of all, it is well understood that the philosophical basis for Modernist architecture can be discovered, like her theological cousin, in the French Enlightenment and German rationalism. What is also of note is the parallel between the architecture of the Protestant Reformation and the iconoclastic architecture at the end of our century. In the Reformation, Catholic churches were stripped of statuary, paintings and traditional symbols. New churches were designed as “meeting-houses,” as if going back to early Christianity when believers met in each others’ homes. Architecture, having lost its ability to signify the sacred, became seen as merely providing for the assembly’s material or functional needs. The concepts of the church as auditorium and theater in the round derive from early Calvinist buildings which were designed to enable people to see and hear the preacher, such as at Charenton, France. Modernism was particularly attracted to the auditorium and theater types because of their scientific claims to acoustical and visual correctness, as well as the belief that the form of a building should be determined by its function. In the Reformation, destruction of altar, tabernacle and sanctuary were commonplace, and often a pulpit or baptismal font replaced the altar as a focal point. The theological proscriptions against images and symbols in the Reformation were taken up by the Modernists in the 20th century, becoming a minimalist aesthetic requiring austerity and the absence of image.

An essential tenet of Modernism at the turn of the century was the need to break with the past, in order to find a national architecture or an “architecture of our time.” Inspired by Hegel, buildings were seen as a reflection of the spirit of the particular age in which they were built, and therefore distinct from previous epochs and styles. This was confirmed by the “modern man” who because of his uniqueness in history required a unique architecture, preferably abstract, progressive, and scientific. It was made clear by the early promoters of Modernism, such as Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Otto Wagner, that any semblance of historical elements or styles was not of our time and must be rejected. At first this rejection of tradition took the form of subtracting or abstracting traditional motifs in buildings. Later, being inspired by non-objective paintings and sculpture, Modernist architecture sought to end the distinction between floor and ceiling, interior and exterior, window and wall, and sacred and profane, which architecture has historically gloried in.

Aesthetically, Modernist architecture was inspired by works of engineering including bridges, industrial buildings, and temporary exposition halls which were large, economical and built fast. An essential paradigm was the machine: Swiss architect Le Corbusier claimed the plane, the boat, and the car were models for a functional architecture. Just as a plane was designed efficiently for flight, so a house was a machine for living in. Just as the anthropological, spiritual, and traditional aspects of domus for dwelling and raising a family were stripped away in the “house as a machine for living in,” so would ritual, icon and sacrament be purged from the “church as machine for assembling in.”

Drawing on the writings of Viollet Le Duc and John Ruskin, it was alleged by the historian Nicholas Pevsner and others that the modern age required the use of modern materials such as steel, glass, and reinforced concrete, whereas morality required that they be expressed in the building. It was also argued that a modern style grew out of the use of modern materials and that these materials lent themselves inherently to a reductivist aesthetic. This was partially a critique of the ongoing construction of masonry buildings such as St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the National Cathedral, being built in the 20th century, as well as many chapels and churches built by architects in Classical or Medieval modes. In fact at the same time Auguste Perret built a Modernist hall church in concrete in Paris, Ralph Adams Cram and others were building Gothic and Renaissance churches in reinforced concrete (at West Point and California) complete with ornament, moldings and sculpture. Not unlike the ancient Romans who used concrete hidden within the walls and domes of Classical buildings, early 20th century traditionalist architects brilliantly used the most current technology of construction, heating and plumbing all within a humanistic aesthetic.

While the majority of Catholic churches built in the U.S. before 1940 were in traditional styles, many Protestant, Unitarian and Christian Scientist congregations experimented with industrial building forms. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple of 1904 is a cubic auditorium with geometric and floral ornament, while “der liebe meister” Louis Sullivan designed St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in 1914 as an abstracted Roman theater. In Germany in the late 1920’s, Otto Bartning designed Evangelical churches in the round out of glass and steel and concrete with little iconography or delineation. Dominikus Bohm followed his lead by designing a number of expressionistic Catholic churches including St. Engelbert, a circular building complete with parabolic shaped ceilings. Rudolf Schwarz also designed Catholic churches in abstracted rectangles and the flowing space of the “International Style.” Schwarz and Bohm were both associated with the liturgical movement in Germany and produced abstract spaces for Catholic worship long before Vatican II.

After World War II, the Modernist movement was embraced as an expression of technological triumph of the war. Many pastors followed the lead of government and big business by building abstract, asymmetrical and futuristic churches in modern materials. In France, for the rustic church of Notre Dame at Assy, Dominican Father Piere Marie-Alan Couturier commissioned fifteen of the best known Modernist artists to make murals, tapestries, mosaics, and stained glass. Also under the patronage of Couturier, the architect Le Corbusier designed perhaps the two best-known churches of this century: the pilgrimage church at Ronchamp and the Dominican Monastery at La Tourette. Le Corbusier made it very clear from the beginning that he was not a religious man and undertook the projects because he was given the freedom to express his ideas within an open landscape. Ronchamp is the epitome of the church as abstract sculpture and was likened by Le Corbusier to a temple of the sun. La Tourette, on the other hand, is a severely orthogonal building with a tomb-like concrete chapel and a cloister that can not be used. The monastery had many problems, including a high incidence of depression due to its prisonlike cells and oppressive spaces which forced it to close (for a time it became a retreat center for Modernist architects). Fr. Couturier, believing that all “true art” is “sacred art,” argued that it was better to have a talented atheist making Christian art or designing churches than to have a pious artist who was mediocre. This premise was the opposite of the historic view of the church as a “sermon stone,” a work of faith by architect, parish and artisans. For Couturier, the church building was no longer seen as a teacher, minister, or evangelist but rather as a space for functional assembly. Likewise, the architect was no longer an inspired co-creator but a conduit for his own personal expression and the “spirit of the age.”

Interestingly, other than Wright in the U.S. and Aalto in Finland, few of the Modernist “masters” were interested in designing churches or synagogues (Le Corbusier refused other commissions). Part of the belief in “modern man” was that religion was something unscientific, and hence churches were irrelevant to contemporary needs. While most of the Modernists came from Protestant backgrounds, the majority were known atheists or agnostics. Mies van der Rohe and Aero Saarinen designed churches which were seen as sublime objects, yet when imitated by others the originals lost their iconic power, which came from being a unique expression of the architect. The Benedictines in the U.S. were the equivalent of the Dominicans in France, being great patrons of Modernist art and architecture, as well as being liturgically progressive. At Collegeville, Minnesota they hired Marcel Breuer, originally of the Bauhaus, and at St. Louis Airport, for new abbeys. These buildings were sleek, non-traditional and critically acclaimed by the architectural establishment.

Contemporary with these buildings, the documents of Vatican II were being developed. While short in length, the chapters pertaining to the arts are poetic, inspiring and alive to the artistic tradition of Catholicism. However, in spite of the intention by the Council to reform and recover liturgy, particularly early Christian liturgy, there was little interest shown by architects in the recovery of early Christian architecture. The Council’s acceptance of styles of the time and rejection of any particular style can be seen as a careful opening of the window to Modernism. The architectural establishment, by this time thoroughly cut off from its historical tradition, opened up the “window wall” and came in like a flood. At this point a few architects and designers such as Anders Sovik, Frank Kaczmarcik and Robert Hovda made an effort, following Schwartz and Couturier, to argue for a modern architecture imbued with a Christian theology. Partially based on the studies of Jungmann, Bouyer and other scholars they promoted a “non-church” building emphasizing the assembly, without hierarchical orientation, fixed elements, or traditional architectural language. These architects’ rejection of most of Christianity’s architectural and liturgical development, coupled with their promotion of an abstract aesthetic, seems to baptize, confirm and marry Modernism and the Church. These principles of modern liturgical “spaces,” later embodied in the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy document of 1978 (Environment and Art in Catholic Worship), are essentially the iconoclastic tenets of 1920’s Modernism.

Interestingly, at the same time the Catholic Church was reconciling Herself with Modernism in the early 1960’s, the architectural profession witnessed the beginning of a serious critique of heroic Modernism. Architects Robert Venturi, Louis Kahn, and Charles Moore in their buildings and writing proposed a new old architecture of memory, symbol, and meaning, spawning what became known as the “Post-modern” movement. They also inspired the work of numerous other architects including John Burgee, Michael Graves, Allan Greenberg, Philip Johnson, Thomas Gordon Smith, and Robert Stern who willingly embraced humanistic urban planning and a variety of architectural styles.

While there still continues to be allegiance to the Modernist style, many of its philosophical beliefs have been questioned and criticized during the past thirty years. The preservation movement, repentant Modernist architects, architectural historians, and structural disasters all have exposed the limitations and failures of Modernism. The liturgical design establishment on the other hand has barely acknowledged the critique of Modernism and continues to promote Modernist revival or even “deconstructivist” church buildings as witnessed in two recent international competitions for a church in Rome and the Los Angeles Cathedral.

And while most architects trained since World War II do not know how to design Classically there is an ever increasing number of architects practicing in traditional languages all over the world as well as a number of architecture schools teaching humanistic alternatives to Modernism. Of great inspiration to architects, pastors and laity alike are the chapters in the Catechism of the Catholic Church devoted to the Universal Church’s teaching on sign, image and the church as a visible symbol of the Father’s house. In recent decades we have seen new or renovated Catholic churches which express these aims and those of Vatican II through a restoration of sign, symbol and typology. These include the renovated St. Mary’s church in New Haven, the renovated Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City, parish of San Juan Capistrano in California, the church of the Immaculate Conception in New Jersey, the church of St. Agnes in New York, and Brentwood Cathedral in England. These and other buildings indicate that the future of Catholic architecture will go beyond the narrow confines of the Modernist aesthetic to the broad and vital tradition of sacred architecture.

Duncan Stroik, A.I.A. is an architect and an associate professor of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE GLORY?

by Henry Hardinge Menzies

__________________________________________________________________
Liturgical architecture and the sacred arts can mightily reinforce
the sense of God’s presence with the beauty of their design.
__________________________________________________________________

I. The Trashing of the Sacred

Years ago when I was being interviewed for an architectural job to do
a seminary and a chapel for a religious order, I met with a bishop of
that order. In the course of the conversation,I asked him what he
expected from me in the design of the chapel. After a few moments, he
said, “Make us pray!” I have often thought of those words, and have
realized that indeed architecture, as well as the other arts, does
indeed have a tremendous impact on us…particularly on how we pray.
Good art can help us to pray and bad art can can turn us away from
praying.

Of course the purpose of Church architecture has always been to make
us pray. The Church building has always been considered a sacred place
where the People of God go to worship him through participation in the
Holy Mass, to confess their sins, to pray before the tabernacle, to
attend Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, to be baptized, to get
married and to die…the most intimate acts which any person performs in
life.

The Church was the kind of place that aroused the kind of devotion
expressed by a Protestant years ago. He was making a his first visit to
a Catholic church with a Catholic friend. After entering the front door
and looking around, the Protestant expressed admiration for the beauty
and warmth of the Church. He noticed that up at the far end there was a
“table” which appeared to be placed in a position of importance. Over
the table was a crucifix…and on the table was a gold box…with
candles on each side…it appeared to be the focal point of the
decoration. He turned to his Catholic friend and asked, “And what is in
that box down there on that table?” And the Catholic answered, “That is
called a tabernacle and we believe that Jesus Christ himself is really
present in that box.” Stunned silence followed. Then the Protestant
said, “If I believed that, I would go down that aisle on my knees!”
The Church was a sanctuary. In every Sunday bulletin of the First
Presbyterian Church in a southern city where I grew up, there was this
quotation: “I came here to find God because it is so easy to loose Him
in a busy world.” I don’t know how the Presbyterians are faring these
days, but I do know that today in many churches things have changed.
There are many Catholics who come to church looking for God and are
disappointed and dismayed because he doesn’t seem to be there anymore.

They find themselves entering into what appears to be a department
store, a school auditorium or a hotel lobby or a combination of all
three. They have difficulty in finding where the Blessed Sacrament is
located. They are bewildered by the loud talking immediately after Mass;
they are put off by parishioners attired in jogging suits and tennis
shoes; they are disappointed with bare walls and lack of any
recognizable liturgical art or candles. They find no quiet, devotional
spot in which to kneel and pray. They find the atmosphere similar to the
secular spaces of their everyday life, devoid of any sense of devotion
or sanctuary. They wonder what happened to that sacred place they used
to know, and they ask, “What happened to the glory?”

It is no wonder that devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and
confessions are way down, since the tabernacle is hidden away somewhere,
and the rooms of reconciliation are completely out of sight. Why
shouldn’t people chatter away after Mass, appear in jogging outfits, or
seldom dream of kneeling in prayer, if they don’t feel as if they are in
a sacred space but in a school auditorium? Blank walls, abstract art,
banners and chairs are poor objects for devotion.

There are possibly two reasons for this great loss of the sense of
the sacred. The first is that the designers, in their zeal for change,
have so twisted the established norms that they have created only
secular art while eliminating the sacred. At the same time, they have
used “Vatican II” as a warrant for taking these liberties. Secondly,
they have done this by utilizing bad art to the point of producing works
which, in the words of one Vatican II document, “are repugnant to faith,
morals, and Christian piety, and which offend genuine religious feeling
either by depraved forms or by lack of artistic work, mediocrity and
pretense.”1

Many Catholics wonder if this loss of the sacred is what the “Post
Vatican II Church” intends? desires? mandates? Fortunately the answer is
NO. Initially many reforms to the sacred liturgy were set in motion by
several Vatican II documents. A few of these were:

(1) Pulling the main altar away from the back wall and placing
it closer to the congregation in order that the people could see and
participate more fully by “gathering around” the altar,2

(2) seats for the celebrant and ministers were to be provided,3

(3) the Blessed Sacrament was to be reserved either on the altar or
in a side chapel or other suitable place4 and

(4) the number of sacred images was to be moderated.5

These liturgical reforms began to be reflected, quite naturally, in
the design of new church buildings and in the renovation of existing
churches. Altars facing the people sprang up as the “wedding cake”
marble ones disappeared; altar rails vanished; tabernacles traveled to
side niches, columns, walls, and tons of decorations vanished; pews
circled new altars; handsome pulpits were abandoned or eliminated;
confessionals disappeared or were relocated; and baptisteries and
sacristies switched places.

Many of these liturgical reforms have produced good results in their
architectural solutions. Unfortunately, however, many of them exceeded
the established norms to the point where the sacred dimension was
eliminated altogether. This trend was basically a reflection of the
“secularization” and “desacralization” underway in those days. For
instance:

(1) The highly desirable idea of placing the main altar in a more
central location became an excuse to turn the church into a mere
auditorium or public meeting room.

(2) Seats for the celebrant and ministers were not always
satisfactorily arranged…sometimes the “president’s chair” looked more
like a throne, even though this was specifically prohibited by these
norms.3

(3) The re-location of the tabernacle from the “old” back altar to
some other, undistinguished place without nobility or decoration has had
a disastrous effect of an increasing disregard for the Sacrament
itself, although this was certainly not the intention.4

(4) The moderation and the relative positions of sacred images has
resulted in eliminating most if not all sacred art leaving blank walls,
though the norms5 indicated that at least some should be maintained.
Some proponents of these changes used “Vatican II” as a warrant for
these excesses. However, nowhere do Vatican II documents mandate any
change of purpose much less desacralization. Quite the contrary, they
speak of “turning men’s minds devoutly toward God.”6 By 1970 it became
necessary for Pope Paul VI to warn that, “Liturgical reform is not at
all synonymous with so-called desacralization, and is not intended as an
occasion for what is called secularization. Thus the liturgy must keep a
dignified and sacred character.”7 Still the trend continued until seven
years later the same Pope stated, “The course of these recent years
shows that we were on the right path (with liturgical reforms). But
unfortunately, in spite of the vast preponderance of the healthy and
good forces of the clergy and the faithful, abuses have been committed
and liberties have been taken in applying liturgical reform.”…”As for
those who, in the name of a misunderstood creative freedom, have caused
so much damage to the church with their improvisations, banalities and
frivolities, and even certain deplorable profanations, we strongly call
upon them to keep to the established norm; if the norm is not respected,
grave damage could be done to the very essence of dogma.”8

II. Retrieving the Sacred

How can we retrieve the sense of the sacred in sacred art? We are not
speaking here of the liturgy per se. This is a subject beyond the scope
of this article. We are speaking of the architectural and artistic
expressions of the liturgy in our churches.

We can and should follow the advice of Pope Paul VI in keeping to the
established norms which aim at “turning men’s minds devoutly toward God”
by instilling a “dignified and sacred character” in the design. One way
to accomplish this is to start insisting on “good art,” that is,
excellence in design. There is no substitute for excellence. We should
return to the idea that Our Lord deserves the best we have. Not that
excellence alone will bring back the sacred, but if we challenge the
artists to acquire a deep understanding of the liturgy and imbue them
with the idea that essentially sacred art is meant to give God glory by
fostering real piety in the faithful,9 then much progress can be made.
Excellence means having faith in the arts and artists of our own day.
Many people have the romantic notion that if we could just retreat to
the old days, we will somehow recapture the sacred. They want to copy
the old, “safe” styles, whether Gothic or Classic or Romanesque. But
this position ignores the discoveries and needs of this contemporary age
to which the Church must always speak. It is the ghetto mentality of
retreat. If this had been the mentality of the Abbot Suger in Paris, he
would never have had the creative courage to “invent” pointed arches,
usually supposed to mark the breaking point from the Romanesque to the
Gothic…and the Church of that time would never have approved them even
if he had!

The fact is that the Catholic Church had always been the mother and
patron of the “contemporary” art of every age in its history.10 Every
“style” was “contemporary” in its own time. If this had not been the
case, there would have been no creativity at any time; and all Catholic
churches today would be at best Roman basilicas or at worst, caves.

Today’s artists are capable

Contemporary designers are just as capable of bringing forth the
sacred as the designers of the past. We should not make the mistake of
thinking that “contemporary” means only “Bauhaus,” the glass-box
architecture parodied by Tom Wolfe. It is a much richer and varied
affair than that. In this age of “postmodern” architecture, there is a
well-founded freedom of creativity, utilizing many new technical
innovations. Certainly today the design field has gained a great deal of
experience which does speak to our times. We should, of course, preserve
the best of the past, especially objects of sacred art, and use them,
if sparingly. The Church has always had constant care for great art.11
Just witness the wonders of the Vatican Museum alone. An historical
church such as ours certainly believes in guarding the arts of its
history!

Excellence is the key

But the key is excellence in design, whether contemporary or of any
ancient “style.” There are Gothic churches poorly designed and some
“contemporary” ones that are well designed, and vice versa. There are
criteria of good design, no matter what the style. If these criteria are
not followed, we get the “depraved forms, lack of artistic worth,
mediocrity and pretense” which the Vatican II Constitution warned
against.

Perhaps one reason why so many have been turned off by the “modern”
is because they have only seen mediocre or bad examples. There are so
few good examples because the top architects, artists and craftsmen have
been largely ignored and have not been invited to work in the liturgical
field. The competent liturgical craftsmen have either died or gone into
some other business.

When we do study the past, we are amazed at the geniuses the Church
employed to build and adorn the churches with magnificent paintings,
murals, sculptures, tapestries, stained glass windows and mosaics. But
where do you find a Michelangelo today? Since there are so few examples
of good work in the U.S., many still look to Europe for good art. But
after 200 years of existence, why do many Americans persist in believing
that only European art is good? The point is that this country does
possess many talented architects and artists who are capable of doing
excellent work, but they are not given the chance. And if they are given
that rare opportunity, they are expected to do their work practically
“gratis.” Today they are employed to produce their best for office
buildings, museums, bathrooms with saunas, mansions, banks and Disney
Worlds…and our churches are left with barren walls and mediocrity.
Ultimately this demand for excellence, and the generosity to pay for
it, must come from the faithful themselves. When we, the faithful,
acquire a really deep, practical faith, then we will generously put our
money where our heart is.

And finally, what did Vatican II say about all of this anyway? “Very
rightly the fine arts are considered to rank among the noblest
activities of man’s genius, and this applies especially to religious art
and to its highest achievement, which is sacred art. These arts, by their
very nature, are oriented toward the infinite beauty of God, which they
attempt in some way to portray by the work of human hands; they achieve
their purpose of resounding to God’s praise and glory in proportion as
they are directed the more exclusively to the single aim of turning
men’s minds devoutly toward God.”12

If we are daring enough to push ahead in demanding excellence at the
source of the design process, we can can go a long way to salvage the
sacred. We can recapture the glory of the church as a place of
sacrifice, presence and beauty. Liturgical architecture and the sacred
arts can mightily reinforce the sense of God’s presence with the beauty
of their design. And when we do sense his glory in his church, we’ll
come closer to him, and we’ll want to fall on our knees…and pray.

Notes

1. (Constitution on Sacred Liturgy) Vatican
II. Dec. 4, 1963. Chapter VII.124.
2. (Instruction of the Sacred Congregation of
Rites on Putting into Effect the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy)
Sept. 26, 1964. Chapter V. I. 90. “In building new churches and in
repairing or adapting old ones great care must be taken to ensure that
they lend themselves to the celebration of divine services as these are
meant to be celebrated, and to achieve the active participation of the
faithful.” 91. “It is better for the high altar to be constructed away
from the wall so that one can move around it without difficulty, and so
that it can be used for a celebration facing the people. It ought to
occupy a central position in the sacred edifice, thus becoming naturally
the focal point of attention for the whole congregation.”…”The
sanctuary must be large enough to allow plenty of room for the
ceremonies.”

3. Chapter V. I. 92. “Taking into account the general shape
of each individual church the seats for the celebrants and for the
ministers are to be so placed as to be easily seen by the congregation.
The celebrant when seated should appear as truly presiding over the
whole gathering. At the same time, if the seat for the celebrant is
behind the altar all appearance of a throne must be avoided, since that
belongs only to the bishop.”

4. VI. 95: “The Blessed Sacrament is to be reserved in a
solid, burglar-proof tabernacle in the center of the high altar or of
another altar if this is really outstanding and distinguished. Where
there is a lawful custom, and in particular cases to be approved by the
local Ordinary, the Blessed Sacrament may be reserved in some other
place in the church; but it must be a very special place, having
nobility about it, and it must be suitably decorated.”

5. , Chapter VII. 125. “The practice of
placing sacred images in churches so that they may be venerated by the
faithful is to be maintained. Nevertheless their number should be
moderate and their relative positions should reflect right order.”

6. 122.

7. (Instruction of the Sacred
Congregation for Divine Worship on Correct Implementation of the
Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy), September 5, 1970, 1659.

8. Address of Pope Paul VI to the Secret Consistory on the Present
State of the Church, June 27, 1977. 1945 & 1946.

9. Chapter VII. 125. “all artists who,
prompted by their talents, desire to serve God’s glory in Holy Church,
should ever bear in mind that they are engaged in a kind of sacred
imitation of God the Creator, and are concerned with works destined to
be used in Catholic worship, to edify the faithful, and to foster their
piety and their religious formation.”

10. 123. “The Church has not adopted any particular style of
art as her very own; she had admitted styles from every period according
to the natural characteristics and circumstances of peoples, and the
needs of the various rites.”

11. 123. “Thus, in the course of the centuries, she has
brought into being a treasury of art which must be very carefully
preserved. The art of our own days, coming from every race and region,
shall also be given free scope in the Church, providing that it serves
the sacred buildings and holy rites with due reverence and honor;
thereby it is enabled to contribute its own voice to that wonderful
chorus of praise in honor of the Catholic faith sung by great men in
times gone by.”

12. 122.

<Henry Hardinge Menzies, AIA, a registered architect, is a
graduate of the University of North Carolina and the School of
Design at North Carolina State. He was a Naval officer for four
years during the Korean War. Born a Presbyterian, he converted to
the Catholic Faith in 1955. He has practiced architecture with
extensive experience in liturgical design in Boston, New York
City and New Rochelle since 1964. He is a member of the American
Institute of Architects, holds an NCARB certificate, and is a
biographee in _Who’s Who in the East_.>

The latest update on the Cobh Cathedral debacle:

Just last Sunday week, an announcement (hot on the heels of the Ballincollig liturgy/heritage confernce) was made at all Masses in Cobh that plans and proposals had been submitted to the Planning Authority for the repair of the mosaic floor at the entrance to the Cathedral as well as for the repair of the enttrance screens.

Some pretty picures then appeared in a closed notice boarrd at the back of the Cathedral and that was that.

A letter to the Cobh Town Council produced the interesting answer that NOTHING had been received by the Cobh Town Council – please note the careful phrasing here- and that they knew nothing at all at all abput submissions or plans or anything else.

Letters to the Restoration Committee were kore evasive and merely referred to the notice board at the back of the Cathedral in an imperious tone that clearly has forgotten nothing and learned nothing – just like Louis XVIII.

Praxitetes is now suggesting that writs for discovery be applied for – it appears to be the only way to see what is being cooked up bewteen the Retoration Committee, the hapless Cobh Town Council and the Cork County Conservation Officer.

A piece of glorious Google serendipity:

the “full, conscious and active participation of revelers” at the service.

Reverels: thats the word I have been looking for to describe the liturgical pranks of the 21 century liturgy in the 21 century sanctuary. Liturgical revelers!!!!

Thank you Google!!

Let us be fair about this:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055402224&highlight=Cobh

The survey could have beenc arried out in respect of the filth and dirt that is to be found all over the Ctahedral itself. Perhaps it was to this that those interviewed were referring!

An example of French transformation:

http://dailymotion.alice.it/video/x1o9as_la-metamorphose-dun-autel

Some views of one of the great Cathedrals of theworls: that of Ciudad de Mexico:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-rzca0AUQE

Some more infr on E.W: Pugin:

http://www.pugin-society.1to1.org/LL-gazetteer.html

There is an excellent downloadable essay on St. James’ Ramsgrange, Co. Wexford, which is now regarded as another of A.W.N. Pugin’s early works in Ireland:

The essay can be found on the last line of the right hand column

http://www.puginfoundation.org/reading/