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The only image I care for is the Icon Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Latin Rite's do not refer to the altar as a holy table, the image of the blessed Mother beside St. Joseph is unveiled, the Tabernacle is a borg...the 3 prong thingy on the roof reminds me of the top of the tower in the 2nd Lord of the Rings.

Sorry, I would not be comfortable here...but that is me.

james

I've been to Mass at all 4 Major Basilicas in Rome and visited countless churches there; I've been to Mass and procession at Our Lady's Shrine at Knock, Ireland, I can assure you that the Mass was by the book!

I've been to the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica and myriads of churches in that city and each of those places if the church was traditional looking, the likelihood of having a good Liturgy without abuses was proportional to the beauty of the building.

I've also been to Mass in suburbs of Indianapolis and Chicago where the church was more like a Baptist Church and there were horrible abuses! Yet at the Indianapolis Cathedral the Mass was more traditional because the adornment of the church was more traditional. The churches of Kansas City were the same way.

I went to a Spanish speaking church in Orange County (and was conspicuously out of place!) that was traditional in art and worship.

I also went to St. Mark's in Venice CA and was embarrassed to have my ROCOR friend attend with me.

I've also been to a Catholic Church in Culver City, CA (the one directly across the street from Sony Pictures) and it was very traditional, yet the worship was full of abuses!

I would have to agree that the worship space tends to influence the worship style. But, it's not a hard and fast rule.

Dr. Eric,


I was sort of getting at this. Also, I wanted to see if people might be closer to Orthodoxy. If so, then isn't this an interesting dilemma. To be honest, I am not really sure how to articulate my point.

Does this make any sense?

I agree with your point as I think that you are trying to articulate.

In the Latin American countries, the poor will donate beautiful works to adorn their churches so they are beautiful, I think it's a sign of our decadence that we don't adorn our churches similarly.

God adorned the cosmic temple...why should we, made in His image and likeness, not do the same with the microcosmos?

Gordo

This is an area where the East beats the West hands down. The vast majority of Latin Rite churches constructed in America since V2 have been either plain or hideous, or just plain hideous, while the Eastern ones are still obviously designed with the intention of creating an environment conducive to reverent worship. Hard to believe Sts Volodymyr and Olha in Chicago isn't even 40 years old yet.

St. Malachy is one of the 300 or so parishes of the Archdiocese of Boston, her parishioners counted in the more than 2 million Catholics of the Archdiocese.

The "new" steward of this large Archdiocese is His Eminence, Cardinal O'Malley, who has been reconfiguring the entire archdiocese and who does not, under any indications, countenance any departure from the Catholic faith.

Unless and until St. Malachy and her parishioners are adjudged to be outside of the Catholic Church by competent authority, they are my Catholic brothers and sisters and I am in communion with them and with the more than 19,000 Catholic parishes in the U.S., observations to the contrary notwithstanding.

I am aghast!

"Hideous" is too strong a word for me! Did you have another word in mind?

St. Malachy's Church was consecrated as a house for worship and remains so. Thus, I don't think it (and the majority of Catholic Churches erected after Vatican 2) should be described as odious and despicable!

I'm glad that you said
The one word in 'bold' is down to me Amado . I have seen many new/newish RC Churches that can only be described as bare barns that are hardly conducive to worship . Far too many are just plain ugly

Oh and it's not just in the UK that I've seen them

Dr. Eric,

Good and interesting points!

Regards,
Alice

Check out these shots of St. Mary the Virgin [extendgallery.com] and be shocked it is Episcopalian, seems to be a case of "Taste's Great, Less Filling".

Here's a Lutheran high-altar complete with Saints and Popes.

[Linked Image]

The commentary from the photographer:

Plowing through my photos from the trip to Germany last Pentecost, and ran across this one I took in the great cathedral in Magdeburg. This cathedral is the oldest in Germany, and is the final resting place of the first German emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Otto the Great. The cathedral was taken over by the Lutherans in the Reformation and became one of the chief spiritual home to the Gnesio-Lutherans after Luther's death, the "genuine Lutherans" who preserved the Lutheran confession in the face of those willing to compromise it. What struck me the first time I visited the cathedral, and even more so the second time, is how richly ornamented it was and how all the statuary is relatively well preserved. Lutherans were not iconoclasts. That means, we did not regard "reform" to require "revolution" and destruction of what is beautiful and useful for Christian piety and devotion. You see dramatic examples of the conservative nature of the Lutheran Reformation in the Magdeburg Cathedral. All the existing ecclesiastical art was embraced and used, without skipping a beat. In fact, in the cathedral the most ornate and gaudy art I saw was actually produced as memorial plaques on the wall to honor the senior Lutheran pastors who were in charge of the cathedral in the 16th century! I'll have more to show and say about the cathedral later. But, the photo below is the high altar, made of incredibly beautiful marble, constructed in 1363. It is placed in a sanctuary that features columns brought from the older Ottonian cathedral, on which rest statues dating from 1220 showing the Apostles Andrew, Paul and Peter, then John the Baptist, St. Maurice and Pope Innocent, after 1232. Otto brought the columns from Northern Italy where he tore them out of palaces and villas dating to the Roman Empire. It was one way Otto was claiming, "Hey, I'm the heir of the Caesars!" The columns are constructed from porphyry, marble and granite, some of them have their original Roman-era capitals. If you are ever in Magdeburg, please budget enough time to take a thorough walking tour of the cathedral. They have an excellent English language guide book that explains all the artwork. And, do be sure to pay your respects to Otto. His mortal remains are still there, lying before the high altar. His grave was moved here when the "new" cathedral was finished in the 13th century or so. His tomb dates from 973! A simple single fresh flower is placed on his grave every day. Well, the point with all this is simply to underscore the fact that those who claim that Lutheranism is best expressed through a poverty of visual arts and in a manner that is stark and bare of decoration are simply wrong. Lutherans have always rejoiced in the visual arts and church decoration and ornamentation. [Wait till I show you the Reformation-era pulpit placed in the Magdeburg Cathedral!].

Note the last sentence.

I've been to St. Mary the Virgin (aka Smokey Mary's) in NYC many times. It puts most if not all Catholic parishes to shame. Never forget the year I went for Assumption. It was dreadfully hot, no A/C and the church was packed. Nothing beat the 10 minute procession around the church before Mass with the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham carried high on the shoulders of 4 vested sub-deacons and the walls shaking from the organ, choir and people singing "Hail, Holy Queen Enthroned Above." Gotta love Anglo-Catholics!

Gordo,


Indeed, although it is sad to say. The worst tabernacle I ever saw is in a Catholic Neuman (sp?) Center, a chapel serving the Catholic students of a nearby univeristy. The tabernacle there is a heavy wooden box. Not carved. Not painted. Not in any way beautified. The tabernacle merely looks like a heavy, strong, wooden shipping-crate.



There appears to be a move by Pope Benedict to enact a restoration of decent liturgical norms for the RCC. How well the pope will be obeyed is, of course, another matter . . .

But, as you rightly observed, the key is for pastors to guide their parishioners into becoming more and more the living stones of the living Church. When that happens, the rest can follow.

-- John