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Let us not underestimate the achievements of the Duchy of Burgundy. Re the religious inheritance of the same, I am posting an image of Rogier van der Weyden’s triptych of the Seven Sacraments, painted in 1440-1444, which shows you fairly realistically how those wonderful churches operated at that time. As you see, the chancel is completely cut off from the nave by the Rood Screen, outside of which a nave altar has been erected for the faithful. WIthin the chancel, the offices and Mass were attended to by the Chapter of Canons attending on the church. The religious intensity of van der Weyden is clearly conveyed. Let us ot forget either that the low countries were birth place of the devotio moderna, typified by Thomas a Kempis’ little book The Imitation of Christ
And here is a link to a very useful data base containing details of nearly 400 churches scattered throughout Belgium:
The Cathedral of St. Bavo in Ghent
The most remarkable treasure here is the Adoration of the Lamb, painted by the van Eyck brothers.
The Cathedral of Our Lady in Tournai, the largest church in Belgium
Again, the beautiful rood-screen is still intact.
The Cathedral of St. Paul in Liège
The Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp.
The picture ofver the High Altar is PP. Ruben’s Assumption of Our Lady of 1619; as well as as his two famous triptychs of the Raising of the Cross of 1610; and the Taking Down from the Cross of 1610-1612.
St. Savour’s Cathedral in Bruges:
Although slightly off the neo-gothic point, I am posting this link to St. Jamess in Antwerp which has a magnificent rood-screen, stll intact, closing off the chancel from the nave. Clealy, it was not a liturgical “requirement” to demolish it.
It is interesting to note the Roman influences on this 17th century interior: the columns of the High Altar derive from Bernini’s baldachino in St. Peter’s; the organ gallery/porch from Bramante’s Tempietto and the facade of Santa Maria della Vittoria.
Jean-Francois Pluys, nother great exponent of he Belgian neo-gothic. He worked on the restoration of Mechlin cathedral, among other projects:
Oswals, if we are still talking about the same case, i.e. Cobh Cathedral, then quite clearly nothing remains to be decided. As far as the O’Neill mad-hatter scheme is concerned, perhaps the easiest approach is to consider that BINNED as well!!
P.S. It might also be better to avoid the expression “diocesan authorities”. There is only one and we all know who that is.
The mess was created by the Applicants, i.e. the Trustees of St. Colman’s Cathedral.
Oswals, if we are still talking about the same case, i.e. Cobh Cathedral, then quite clearly nothing remains to be decided. As far as the O’Neill mad-hatter scheme is concerned, perhaps the easiest approach is to consider that BINNED as well!!
P.S. It might also be better to avoid the expression “diocesan authorities”. There is only one and we all know who that is.
The mess was created by the Applicants, i.e. the Trustees of St. Colman’s Cathedral.
I am terribly sorry for Tom Babbette that he cannot read Latin. There were several people at the Midleton hearing who had a pefectly good knowledge of it while others present had taught it for over thirty years. What was someone doing trying to sort out this quagmire when he was not even capable of accessing the primary sources. As for audience re-action, who could possibly take that seriously. No one has since Artstophanes sent up the Greek chorus in his frogs! It seems to methat there are horses for courses and courses for horses.
I include among the dafter private liturgical views the submission produced by that liturgical luminary Danny Murphy and accepted by the over educated semi-zwinglian Historical Churches Committee with an unanimity that would have embarrassed the East German Communist Party!!
Thinking of St. Patrick’s in Dundalk and its magnificent sedelia, I hope you notice the superb example in the Heilige Bloedkapel, which is arranged according to the Roman usage.
Some further links on the Heilige Bloedkapel in Bruges:
http://www.catalunatics.com/be/Brg/brg.htm
http://www.trabel.com/brugge/bruges-holyblood.htm
http://www.terragalleria.com/europe/belgium/bruges/picture.belg10483.html
http://cruises.about.com/library/pictures/baltic/blbruges31.htm
By the way Bruges, if you are living anywhere near Bruges/Brugge, you might like to post some photographs of Jean-Baptiste de Bethune beautiful Chapel of the Most Precious Blood (Heilig Bloedkapel) which is as important for the neo gothic revival in Belgium as Cobh is in Ireland!
As a help for Bruges, and anyone else who does not know what the canonical structure of authority in relation to the liturgy in the Catholic Church is, I am posting a few paragraphs from the Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum which sets out that authoriy in the clearest of terms. The document was published in MArch 2003 and I am very surprised that the Applicant in the Cobh Cathedral case – and especially his planning consultant – did not seem to know of it:
[The full text is available here:
Chapter I
THE REGULATION OF THE SACRED LITURGY
[14.] “The regulation of the Sacred Liturgy depends solely on the authority of the Church, which rests specifically with the Apostolic See and, according to the norms of law, with the Bishop.[34]
[15.] The Roman Pontiff, “the Vicar of Christ and the Pastor of the universal Church on earth, by virtue of his supreme office enjoys full, immediate and universal ordinary power, which he may always freely exercise”[35], also by means of communication with the pastors and with the members of the flock.
[16.] “It pertains to the Apostolic See to regulate the Sacred Liturgy of the universal Church, to publish the liturgical books and to grant the recognitio for their translation into vernacular languages, as well as to ensure that the liturgical regulations, especially those governing the celebration of the most exalted celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass, are everywhere faithfully observed”.[36]
[17.] “The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments attends to those matters that pertain to the Apostolic See as regards the regulation and promotion of the Sacred Liturgy, and especially the Sacraments, with due regard for the competence of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It fosters and enforces sacramental discipline, especially as regards their validity and their licit celebration”. Finally, it “carefully seeks to ensure that the liturgical regulations are observed with precision, and that abuses are prevented or eliminated whenever they are detected”[37]. In this regard, according to the tradition of the universal Church, pre-eminent solicitude is accorded the celebration of Holy Mass, and also to the worship that is given to the Holy Eucharist even outside Mass.
[18.] Christ’s faithful have the right that ecclesiastical authority should fully and efficaciously regulate the Sacred Liturgy lest it should ever seem to be “anyone’s private property, whether of the celebrant or of the community in which the mysteries are celebrated”[38].
This text is a normative text. It has been issued by a public juridical body with authority to publish it. This represents the objective structure of liturgical authority in the Catholic Church.
1. Just to be clear about things: there is and never was any such thing as a “Victorian” liturgy.
2. The liturgy of the Catholic Church underwent little change between the publication of the Missale Romanum, of St. Pope Pius V in 1570, and the publication of the revised version of that Missal by Pope Paul VI in 1969.
3. It would also be useful to bear in mind that the Rite of the Mass in both editions of Missale Romanum is and remains substantially the same. There is no radical rupture between the Missal of Pius V and that of Paul VI.
4. Talking of a “Victorian liturgy” is simply ill informed. You could speak of the liturgy as celebrated in the Victorian era i.e. 1837-1901; just as you can speak of the same liturgy being celebrated in the post conciliar period, i.e. 1965-2006.
Well, Bruges, “idolatry” is a value term indicating religious blame and hardly appropriate here.
1. The point at issue in Cobh was rather simple. The official requiremenets of the Catholic liturgy can be accomodated without wrecking the historical interior of the building.
2. What is oficially required for Catholic worship is stipulated in the Canon Law of the Catholic Church.
3. The Canonical discipline of the Catholic Church does not exclude State intervention in the regulation or preservation of historical churches. Indeed, it stipulates that ecclesiastical authorities are bound to adhere to the civil law (conservation law) . No where does it suggest that such civil provisions are an enchoachment on freedom of worship.
There has been a bit of shrill on the subject of freedom of worship in the aftermath of the Cobh decision. This is eye-wash. Read your Constitution and you will see that the right to freedom of worship in Ireland is not an absolute right. It is conditional on “public order”. [On this subject, the guardians of the faith would want to be concerning themselves with an award for discrimination made to a person on the basis that his name was not included on a confirmation list. It was reported in yesterday’s newspapers. The implications of this for freedom of worship are much more grave and begin to sound like the communist set-up in Czecoslovakia. Admission of candidates to the sacraments is no one’s business but the Church’s.]
4. The Rabbit report did not go into the liturgical question. Indeed, its treatment of the liturgical question was fairly basic if not inadequate. Little or no attempt was made to ascertain what the official liturgical requirements of the Catholic Church are. [And by this I do not mean recourse to the over educated semi-zwinglian Historical Churches Commission]. In so far as those requirements were made available to Mr. Rabbit, he made no attempt to distinguish them from the personal liturgical assertions of various persons present at the oral hearing, nor even to distinguish between the serious and the dafter personal liturgical asertions that were made (though, I would have to concede that his task in this matter was at times rather difficult). Had Mr. Rabbit made the fundamental distinction bewteen the public objective liturgical norms of the Catholic Church and the private subjective opinions also advanced, he would have cleared a good deal of fog.
5. The liturgical problem with the trustees’ application in the Cobh case was that they had bought into a certain liturgical theory which is not an official position of the Catholic Church. To portray it as such is mendacious.
6. In so far as political considerations are concerned, I think that it should be noted that the Irish Bishops were consulted as an interested party on the present Act before its enactment. They appeared not to have had any problems with the provisions of the act.
The guidelines on which so much ink has been spilled is another example of a Martin Cullen gubu. Curiously enough, the famous guidelines were worked out by the minister and the Bishop of Cloyne – who may have thought that he was a getting a package tailor made for the Cobh scenario. Gubu prone as Cullen is, he did manage not to mention to the good bishop that although he might have been a legislator, his was not the interpretation of the law.
As I was at it, I could not resist this:
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/italy/orvieto/cathedral/duomo.html
