” the vitality that flows from firm Catholic identity and its enduring visible expression”
I’ve never agreed with these temples of wealth. I don’t think Jesus would approve of the untold riches used to build them. The poor the church should be serving could better use the resources.
Jesus Anointed at Bethany
…9”For this perfume might have been sold for a high price and the money given to the poor.” 10But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you bother the woman? For she has done a good deed to Me. 11”For you always have the poor with you; but you do not always have Me.…
Yet the poor can go in to any church and be as welcome as anyone, look at the beauty which Hod provided and men turned into art for the glory of god and you would say no lets all take a vow of poverty
The Catholic Church feeds more people, clothes more people, and educates more people worldwide than any faith in the world.
I love when people purport to know what Jesus would say or do or approve. The Catholic Church does more for the world’s poor, sick, hungry and elderly than any other religion or government. Many of the most magnificent churches in this country were built by Catholics with their own money and their own labor and materials donated. If you don’t like the ‘temples of wealth’, don’t go to one. Traditional Catholic churches were built out of reverence to Providence, not as a showy display of wealth. They were designed to awe and humble those who entered out of respect for God.
...I have never agreed with these temples of wealth...”
Untold riches, etc. The catholic churches in the Northeast were built on the blood sweat and tears of the blue collar immigrants.
Myth - temples of wealth.
Christians were illiterate. Revelations 21 caused the people to understand how to build.Heaven has great high walls (again Revelations 21) and they did their best to make this happen.
The human mind works by association. Lofty architecture = heaven for the illiterate folds.
The Son of Man had nowhere to lay His head.
Funny how I see so much criticism for non-Catholic mega churches and ones like the Crystal Cathedral, and yet when it's a Catholic church, well, they're just wonderful in spite of the massive amounts of money spent on them.
The poor are often the ones giving their money to support having a beautiful church. They need the hope and inspiration such churches provide as much as they need anything else.
I was just thinking about your comment about how the poor need us to sell off the churches and take care of their needs.
I can see where you're coming from, but I don't think it quite meets the reality, which is more complex. Back where I came from, an old Snow-Belt Rust-Belt Catholic Industrial city (Erie, PA), the big, beautiful churches were built by the poor, 100 - 140 years ago, and they were their pride and joy.
I'm not taling about the welfare-EBT card poor: those things didn't exist. I'm talking abnout the immigrant-poor, the Irish, Slavs, and Italians, who moved to Erie to work in the industries: Hammermill Paper, National Forge and Steel, General Elecric, National Sterilizer. They shook $5 bills and $10 bills out of their thin, thin wallets to build those churches.
Italian stonecutters made the altars. German woord-carvers made the altar rails. Construction trades people worked all day at their jobs, but worked evenings and weekends on the church. Catholic cops and waitresses, nurses and laundry workers (like my father) were glad to blow a week's wages at the annual Church Festival to pay down the building debts.
Back in the day, this expressed people's sense of propriety, their idea of the "fittingness of things,": they provided the ebst they had, to build the most beautiful churches for the love of God.
Do not make the mistake of thinking that people of modest means, necessarily would rather have free sandwiches for their picnics, than stained glass windows for Christ Our Lord.
Auction off old, consecrated church buildings --- to whom, a Saudi prince? --- so you can give the money to the panhandlers in the city park, and the Saudis can install minarets on a gutted, whitewashed, deconsecrated Church of the Blessed Sacrament??
The architecture and art treasures are, in a sense, a public trust maintained by the Church for our common use and enjoyment (that is, not set up for public tours for a cash admission charge!) --- and not readily convertible to liquid assets. If all that were converted to cash, and given away, it would be gross cultural vandalism, unethical alienation of property, and a violation of fiduciary trust --- or I should say, rather, the unethical violation of the sweat and labor, and hope and intentions of the people who raised those churches, and their children and grandchildres, for whom --- in God's name -- they raised them.
The Catholic Church is selling of dozens of churches annually in the East and Northeast. Instead of evangelizing the neighborhoods on which those churches sit. It's a crime and a sin.
Why?
Doesn't God deserve the best that we can give to Him in terms of worship?
Recall the incident with the woman who perfumed the feet of Jesus.
And the fact that the Temple was lavishly adorned.
Finally, skimping on a Church, which is open to all parishioners, both rich and poor, has been called "stealing from the poor."
I agree. We were visiting Rome, and there were beggars, whole families of them, with small children, homeless & hungry, all around the vatican. The Vatican is filled with trillions and trillions of dollars of art. They could sell that stuff and get enough money to house and feed all the homeless in Italy. But they just put the money into the buildings. We go to a church that has plain glass windows and folding chairs for seats, and it has the warmth and beauty of a loving caring church.