How Catholic Church Architecture Is Losing Its Identity

The Bulletin ^ | 6/4/2010 | Tom Nickels

[Last Dakotan]

Do you have any photos of the painting of Weakland himself on the ceiling?

[SnakeDoctor]

>> You can walk into an older, more classically designed church and “feel” the holiness. It is obviously a sacred place and instantly removes distractions and gets you focused on God. Even atheists tend to speak more reverently in those sorts of churchs [...] Now walk into one of the modern destroyed churches and you feel no “presence” at all. They are simply big meeting rooms.

The presence of God is not in architecture ... and mistaking architectural power for God’s presence is also problematic in itself. People feel architectural awe at all kinds of places that are ENTIRELY unconnected with the Almighty ... the Taj Mahal, the Kremlin, the White House. There are some fairly impressive Mosques out there. Reverence-inspiring or not, this stuff is just irrelevant.

>> The Catholic churches inspire a reverence that I have not found in any protestant church.

God Himself was born in a humble stable in Bethlehem. His presence is not connected to the beauty of the building. If people’s reverence is dependent on the look of the building, is it really God they are experiencing ... or just run-of-the-mill architectural awe?

To boil the presence of God down to the look of the building is to take away from what His presence really is. His presence is just as likely to occur in a mud hut in Africa, in my bedroom in suburban Houston, or in a run-down Methodist church in central Texas as It is in an ornate church in Europe.

SnakeDoc

[ichabod1]

It does. Trust me. And having a glass sided swimming pool halfway up the wall of your auditorium to serve as a dunk tank, right between the giant flat screen television monitors, strikes me as excessively ornate, as well as in poor taste.

Church is not beautiful in order to be pleasing to God, though that would be a worthwhile purpose. They are to be beautiful in order to inspire worship and sacredness.

And one more thing — many of those ornate parishes were not built with money from Rome. They were built through gifts of the congregation and the sweat of their brow. These iconoclasts had no RIGHT to throw out what previous generations had sweated and died to create, all in the name of communism and modernism.

[WVKayaker]

John 2: 13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!"

17 His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me."

18 Then the Jews demanded of him, "What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?"

19 Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."

20 The Jews replied, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?" 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

23 Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in his name.[ 24 But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. 25 He did not need man's testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man....

...

John 4: 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

...

Acts 2: 2They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.

44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

The finest idolatry in the world... Catholic churches want to keep crucifying God and try to put Mary on His level with adoration of a creation! JMHO based on my knowledge of Scripture... and an education in Greek, latin, Hebrew, and/or English versions thereof since 1954. Protestant, of course. Father and Grandfather are/were Episcopal Priests. I long ago left that sewer.

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[John O]

The presence of God is not in architecture ... and mistaking architectural power for God’s presence is also problematic in itself.

True.

People feel architectural awe at all kinds of places that are ENTIRELY unconnected with the Almighty ... the Taj Mahal, the Kremlin, the White House. There are some fairly impressive Mosques out there. Reverence-inspiring or not, this stuff is just irrelevant.

Untrue. I feel no reverencial awe of God in any of those sort of places. (White house or any of our historical buildings etc) I only feel that sense of awe in a building dedicated to the worship of God (Jesus). A church has a different feel to it.

>> The Catholic churches inspire a reverence that I have not found in any protestant church. God Himself was born in a humble stable in Bethlehem. His presence is not connected to the beauty of the building.

True (but redundant with your first paragraph)

If people’s reverence is dependent on the look of the building, is it really God they are experiencing ... or just run-of-the-mill architectural awe?

See my second paragraph.

To boil the presence of God down to the look of the building is to take away from what His presence really is. His presence is just as likely to occur in a mud hut in Africa, in my bedroom in suburban Houston, or in a run-down Methodist church in central Texas as It is in an ornate church in Europe.

You missed the point. Yes God can manifest His presence anywhere at anytime (A burning bush perhaps?). BUt a building that is dedicated for worshipping Him aids us in experiencing His presence (That is, in getting rid of all the day to day distractions and actively being in His presence).

During most protestant services we sing praise and worship before the sermon. Why? To give God the glory He is due, but also to prepare ourselves to receive from Him by clearing our minds of distractions. The building can be a part of this process. Unless of course you don't think people can worship God with the creations of their hands and skills.

[SnakeDoctor]

>> [...] But a building that is dedicated for worshipping Him aids us in experiencing His presence (That is, in getting rid of all the day to day distractions and actively being in His presence).

It seems to me that architectural grandeur IS a day-to-day distraction. If the grandiosity of the building is drawing attention ... it is drawing attention away from the Almighty toward the building.

>> Unless of course you don’t think people can worship God with the creations of their hands and skills.

Designing and building the church may very well have been an act of worship toward God. Basking in the glory of the building seems to be an act of worship for the building.

SnakeDoc

[Lorica]

Agreed. Churches have to put their money where their mouth is on this stuff. God does not want us to build Him palaces while poor people suffer or His Word stagnates.

Have you read the OT specifications for the temple, given by God Himself? He was quite specific. Just as God was present in a different way in the temple then, He Himself is made present in the Eucharist now; which means that the church is a temple for Him, and God is worthy of the best that man can offer.

Also recall Matt. 26:11, when the woman poured the precious ointment on the head of Jesus, and Jesus said the poor you will always have with you? Well, the Catholic Church has managed to have both beautiful churches (until the last 50 years, that is) and be the largest charitable organization in the world.

Our campuses are large and expensive — but they are functional, not ornate, and they serve a purpose of spreading the message and doing the work.

Give me beautiful architecture which reminds me of God over plush seats and diamond vision screens; give me the natural acoustical qualities of a vaulted, soaring nave which lifts the heart and mind to God over the latest in audio-visual electronics!

There is an automotive maintenance garage where mechanics in the church do free repairs to the cars of the poor. There are dozens of Bible Study classrooms. There is high-tech broadcast equipment for spreading the message worldwide. Parking and seating alone for a 50K-member church is daunting ... and that money needs to be spent to keep membership growing.

This is a false dilemma where one must choose between beauty and utility. The beauty is for God. The utility is for man.

[pepsi_junkie]

I am Baptist, not Catholic. I go to a HUGE Baptist Church in Houston. We have over fifty-thousand members, several large campuses throughout Houston, and an international television broadcast of weekly sermons. Our campuses are large and expensive — but they are functional, not ornate, and they serve a purpose of spreading the message and doing the work.

Every denomination has it's own identity, what a marketer would call a brand. The brand identity for Catholicism has been rooted in the concept that the Catholic church is an age old institution, never changing and rooted in the authority granted to St. Peter by Jesus himself. With this ancientness came a set of fixed and never changing rituals and prayers.

In this way, Catholics could feel a connection to the ancient past, to the history of the Church and it's roots with the apostles. There was a sense of awe and majesty for the institution of the church and it's role as gateway to Christ. Certainly people can disagree that this is good or desirable, the reformation saw a direct repudiation of all that with the formation of denominations such as the Calvinists. But if you didn't like the "brand" of the catholic church you could go be a Baptist or a Lutheran or whatever church you felt best fit your idea of what a church should be.

In the 1950s onwards, the Catholic Church systematically destroyed it's own brand. They got rid of majestic churches, they demolished the separation of priest and congregation, they eliminated compulsory mastery of catechism, in essence they took everything that supported their claim to be the one, true, immutable church, and they made it all flexible and soft and changing. And when they lost their brand, they lost much of their flock. Hardly anyone actually goes to Sunday mass now.

The closest real-world consumer analogy I can think of is the Cadillac Cimmaron. Prior to that, Cadillac was a luxury brand, the place where you got special and unique styling, the latest innovations, and the best materials and workmanship. Then some genius at GM decided that if you took a generic Buick and you put in leather seats and fake wood trim, you could call it a Cadillac. It wasn't and people weren't stupid enough to think that a junky Buick with fancy trim was a real cadillac. Sales plummeted. Substitute "Cadillac" for "Catholic Church" and you get the summary of this article.

[WILLIALAL]

You can walk into an older, more classically designed church and “feel” the holiness. It is obviously a sacred place and instantly removes distractions and gets you focused on God. Even atheists tend to speak more reverently in those sorts of churchs

“Now walk into one of the modern destroyed churches and you feel no “presence” at all. They are simply big meeting rooms.

I am Penetcostal, but I was raised Catholic. The Catholic churches inspire a reverence that I have not found in any protestant church (sadly).”

AMEN. Very well said.

[John O]

If the grandiosity of the building is drawing attention ... it is drawing attention away from the Almighty toward the building.

The building does not draw attention from God, it focuses attention on God.

Basking in the glory of the building seems to be an act of worship for the building.

No one basks in teh glory of the building. Buildings have no glory. But they can set a stage where God's glory is more easily discerned.

[GonzoGOP]

Designing and building the church may very well have been an act of worship toward God. Basking in the glory of the building seems to be an act of worship for the building.

Having attended Marquette, a good Jesuit University, I once had the privilege to attend mass in the Joan of Arc chapel. For those who don't know the story when they wanted to build a larger church on the location where Joan of Arc supposedly was inspired by God to throw the British out of France they moved the original building stone for stone from France to Milwaukee. Now the building is small, fairly dark inside, unembellished and made from crudely dressed stone. And yet i felt more of a connection in that tiny building than I ever did in the cathedral just across the lawn from it. I just kept playing in my mind, if I got that call, how would I answer.

Christs presence is not in the church but in the hearts of Christians. No building no matter how ornate or simple can capture that spirit. No dictator can suppress it. And the derision of a Comedy Central show can not destroy it.

[SnakeDoctor]

>> Christs presence is not in the church but in the hearts of Christians. No building no matter how ornate or simple can capture that spirit. No dictator can suppress it. And the derision of a Comedy Central show can not destroy it.

Precisely.

SnakeDoc

[afraidfortherepublic]

As I remember, WEakland is not depicted on the ceiling. I don't remember anything on the ceiling. There is a row of circular paintings around thel main worship space -- portraits of all the Archbishops who have served in Milwaukee. He's there. But, just in case you miss him, he also commissioned a bronze sculpture of himself protecting children, as when Jesus said "Let the children come to me."

Ironic, isn't it?

[redhead]

Go HERE. Get this. READ.

[redhead]

"The New Order churches look more like aircraft hangars than sacred houses of worship!"

The ones I saw out in MN looked mostly like gyms or basketball courts.

[IbJensen]

Ugly As Sin. A most appropriate title.

[IbJensen]

Snake Doc.

Nice handle.

[SnakeDoctor]

Thanks. I like it.

SnakeDoc

[A.A. Cunningham]

Catholics(sic) churches are as gilt as whorehouses...

No doubt you've spent much more time in the latter than the former.

[Antoninus]

JMHO based on my knowledge of Scripture... and an education in Greek, latin, Hebrew, and/or English versions thereof since 1954.

Color me totally unimpressed by your appeal to authority. St. Jerome knew all of that--and then some. Yet, he was not an iconoclast. That particular heresy sprung from Islam and infected eastern Christianity. Sadly, it is still around today.

I long ago left that sewer.

So sad that you call the Church that Christ himself founded a "sewer". You will see those words again at the last judgment and you will be deeply ashamed of them. Repent.