In Wellington archdiocese, all of the parishes are looking at the earthquake worthiness of their buildings. Our parish has been told that both churches are suspect; we’re going for a fuller assessment, but it seems at least possible that we won’t be able to afford to bring them up to code. I’ve heard that 80% of parishes are in the same boat – probably New Zealand-wide, not just in Wellington.
The bad news is that we might need to condemn 80% of our churches. The good news is that we have a great opportunity to work together to provide new churches for our parishes.
The Church of Latter Day Saints – for their buildings all over the world – uses a single architecturally designed plan, kitset components, and volunteer labour. Their churches are instantly recognisable, and are fully paid for at the time of erection – both very desirable goals.
The New Zealand bishops could approach a kitset home/barn manufacturer and ask them to design and produce three sizes of church buildings – small, medium, and large. These building could be made to look like a church with the addition of a tower and cross attached to the building or separate. Indeed, when I say ‘look like a church’, we could get away from the Northern European church design mindset and create something that expressed the same trancendent values in a Kiwi idiom.
The kitset manufacturers would develop the architectural drawings, ensure that the buildings met code, and so on. They would also use their current process to develop building instructions to go with the kitset parts.
A bulk purchase would allow maximum discounts, and the bishops are in a position to organise such value.
Each parish that needs to replace a church could then decide what size church they need, and what additions to include (for example, a bell tower; a lean-to porch; a kitchen annex etc) to customise the building for that particular parish and its needs. They could also decide whether to hire a builder, and if so whether that builder will erect the kitset or simply supervise volunteer labour. Each parish would need to organise its own consents and base, and any engineering or construction required for the base.
Later, we might like to commit the money we save on construction to buying a church kitset for an African parish, or sending them to places that have been hit by natural disasters.
I like your idea Judy. It’s much more in keeping with the teachings of Jesus and would detract somewhat from the well-founded criticisms of religion in general and the Catholic Church in particular of being more fond of its possessions than the plight of its followers.
KA
This is a hard comment to respond to. I agree with the spirit/principle of your comment. We are, indeed, called to put people ahead of possessions. I don’t agree that there is an entity called “the Catholic Church” which is separate from and antithetical to a group of people called ‘its followers”. We are the Church. And we like our churches, furthermore.
If you redrafted to say: “members of many parish, diocesan, and pontifical committees and other bureacratic mechanisms being more fond of large and fancy buildings than of services to the most poor and needy” then I’d agree with you wholeheartedly.
That said, I suspect that the argument is more polemical than actual.
I’ve lived in many parishes the length and breadth of New Zealand, and attended Mass in many more, and I’ve been involved in a number of building projects. One of those was a definite case of ‘stone fever’ – building to the glory of the building committee, rather than the glory of God. One was spending a legacy given with very strict instructions about what was to be built with it and where. And one was a blatant example of trying to retain a physical building that was past its use-by date because of the memories it evoked, when another use would have allowed better service to the current community. In all the others I’ve personally experienced, decisions were made at parish level, and they were made with the needs of the community at the forefront.
While I have no doubt that there are many good and great people who belong and have belonged to the many different faiths throughout the world, i would argue that the Catholic Church is the leader in obscene displays of wealth, which becomes even more obscene given that the vast majority of its adherents are living in abject poverty, forced through the Church’s similarly obscene rules to raise families far larger than they can afford. When all the finery and pomp and circumstance has disappeared from the Vatican and all it’s obscene wealth has been renounced in the name of Christ and and humanity, then I might start taking the Catholic Church seriously.
KA
http://www.askacatholic.com/_WebPostings/Answers/2009_09SEPT/2009SeptWhyNotGiveItAllToThePoor.cfm
Very interesting thoughts. Interesting timing on this post too since I was just writing about a specific church in Rome that is “terribly simple.” I believe the greatest caution that anyone can give on modern sacred architecture is to ensure that the focal point is the altar of sacrifice(and the altar holding the tabernacle too). I typically don’t feel as if this is accomplished in Catholic churches that are round; however, that is just my own personal opinion.
Responding to the comments above: Each community has its own pastoral needs. There is a range of what is culturally acceptable in a church. As Catholics, we are proud of our identity and should not be afraid to have biblical scenes or the Stations of the Cross depicted in our churches. Many Catholics find themselves able to pray better and able to reflect on their own conscience better in this atmosphere. Although, icons/statues/stained glass windows/ornate decorations/columns should be so many in number that they detract from the Mass or that they create too many distractions.
As more and more Catholics are becoming interested in the Tridentine Rite Mass, it may be prudent to build churches that can sustain both Rites from the main altar. The church I was baptized in is octagonal in shape. In the center, there is a long rectangular stone altar that holds the tabernacle. Touching that is another altar from behind that is also the same shape but about one foot higher. This way the priest can celebrate both Rites and during the Novus Ordo, the tabernacle remains the focal point of the church.
Yes; good points. Even though I think that a parish church can be – and should be – very simple in shape and construction, that doesn’t mean it should be devoid of decoration and furniture, or of Catholic sacramental objects. If we rebuild in our parish, we’ll be able to take our tabernacle, our altar, our statues, our stations, our font, our holy water dispensers, and various other items with us to the new church.
Really Judy, that’s the best argument you can provide? I could drive a coach & horses through most of that article!
KA
It lacks facts and figures – but had the virtue that I found it quickly.
However, it is certainly better argued than a categorical statement based on little more than 400 years of anti-Catholic polemic.
I think you dismiss my argument too quickly dear Judy. I have studied the Catholic Church since I started here and I know that there’s more than a grain of truth to what I wrote
KA
In 1978 (the year of the three Popes), the Vatican had to borrow money from an Italian bank to pay for the second funeral and the second conclave. That’s how rich it is.
Yes, it is the custodian of some amazing churches and many beautiful art works. However, there isn’t a market for the churches, and they don’t make any money; tourists visiting St Peter’s Basilica and paying for a candle to light make a small contribution to the maintenance. The Church is, in fact ‘property poor’ – our heritage properties are an expensive liability rather than an asset.
As for the art works, what would you? I’d sell many of the moveable ones like a shot if it was me – even if it did mean they’d disappear immediately into private collections and ordinary people would never get the chance to see them again. No doubt I’m a philistine, but there you go. I’d rather have the money to spend on the Church’s charitable works.
That said – and this displays my own prejudices – I’d keep the Vatican library so that it could remain open to any and every scholar who wishes to study there.
The Vatican states that it regards itself as a custodian of the treasures donated by past generations, not as the owner. It gives this reason for not selling. If it did sell all of its art works, and maybe the contents of the Vatican library, how much money would it raise? Estimates vary, but not a lot compared to what Church organisations already spend every year in every part of the world feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, and teaching the ignorant. For example, it provides the majority of AIDS care in Africa.
The Pope lives in a three room apartment in the middle of a museum. I don’t know a single priest or bishop who doesn’t live simply, often in old, usually run-down, oversized houses that must be a nightmare to heat. Any opulence is reserved for inside the church building – the tabernacle, candle sticks, and sacramental vessels.
I’m not saying that there isn’t waste, and there isn’t ostentation – I’ve seen both. But your reference was to obscene displays of wealth, with the implication that this typified ‘the Catholic Church’. And I don’t believe that is a fair description.
And the pomp and ceremony is marvellous. Wonderful, uplifting stuff.
.
“The bad news is that we might need to condemn 80% of our churches.”
But the good news is that we have another textbook example of God working in mysterious ways!
… and if the picture of the cathedral JP posted the other day is anything to go by – we’d have to ask just how bad the news actually was…
Since we have shifted the discussion, I’ll mention that a South American priest once got into a discussion with me about how uncharitable the US is and how we flaunt our wealth(which I’d love to have a share of, but I don’t!).
I then pointed out to him that many people ask the same about the Catholic Church. It does not matter that it is the largest charitable organization in the world, largest system of educators, largest church providing humanitarian aide. In the United States, one out of every six health care patients are under the Church’s care in a Catholic hospital. There are 1.2 billion members, but the outgroup perception is that the hierarchy is corrupt, dangerous to the youth, and wasteful.
It’s a very easy argument for anyone who not a part of the ingroup to make, especially when one is not invested in the church’s charity programs. The reality is that the Church is so much more than than nice temple’s built to honor God.
The Catholic Church has relief and capacity building workers in the poorest corners of the whole world! And it is without discrimination against religion, gender, age, etc.
How much poorer would the poor be without the Catholic Church?
Right now, we are safe from true poverty sitting behind our computers. But if we were out in the fields of the Ghor Province of Afghanistan, we would see where the Church employs locals to work alongside Catholic volunteers to help facilitate and build the capacity of organizations working with the UN’s World Food Programme. Or perhaps we would see Catholic Relief Services employing locals in Pakistan where they are rebuilding schools and roads in areas affected by natural disasters.
Any operation can be developed further, and I’m glad that the Catholic Church has a fervor for doing so. Our charities are not for public relations, they are for the people who need it. That is our mission and our calling. So it does not bother me that we also have nice temple’s built to honor God, because the people attending Mass inside of them are called to be just as Catholic outside and bring God’s love to those who need it most.
.
It would be a tragedy if the Church sold off its “moveable” works of art, I think. That’s probably just selfish because I hugely enjoy going round Cathedrals and churches in places like Pamplona, where I visited last week.
They are not free to enter, as JP believes, (not in Spain at least) although they don’t generally cost much – about 5 US dollars normally.
And I doubt that pays for much more than a bit of on-site security.
They are nowadays museums chock full of artistic wonders (often sadomasochistic, and none the worse for that) – I think.
Paintings of saints having their buttocks cut off with red-hot scissors – that sort of thing. How the kids love it!
(But then I have come to regard crucifixes as sadomasochistic, these days, and I’ve counted as many as15 of them in one church.)
This is our cherished Catholic cultural heritage we’re talking here – Santiago brandishing his sword, as the decapitated, gaping-mouthed, heads of Moors roll around between his Great White Steed’s terrible hooves!
Sell that off to private collections to buy a measly bit of porridge for some starving “Moors”?
Not this Toad!
Not Benedict, either. ¡Ojala!
Overnight, Mark Shea has responded to someone who comments on the pomp and ceremony of pontifical ceremonies with this comment:
“the style thing actually comes out of Jewish liturgical practice. Note the (typically neglected) prescriptions for liturgical dress in Exodus. The priest’s garment are “for glory and for beauty” (Exodus 28:2). Liturgical garb performs a revelatory function, as all liturgy does. It’s not for the comfort of priest (and when you think about it, it’s quite cumbersome). It’s for the benefit of the worshipper. Chesterton remarks on this wisely:
“Clothe yourself in Christ” is precisely what is happening in the vestments a Pope or any priest wears, because he stands in the place of Christ. Likewise, with the ring and such like, it’s very much like when you go to receive communion and bow: you aren’t bowing to the priest, but to the Host. Likewise, to kiss the ring is to honor the office established by Jesus. And the Popemobile? Even St. Peter didn’t *try* to get himself killed. When he escaped from prison, he skipped town and didn’t wait to be re-arrested and killed. The Pope is under no obligation to make himself a target for assassins. Nor, to be honest, is the Swiss Guard a particularly formidable force should somebody really decide to lay siege to St. Peters.”
.
“…the style thing actually comes out of Jewish liturgical practice.”
That’s right – blame the Poor Old Jews again! What about the Masons? They probably were just as guilty!
“The priest’s garment are “for glory and for beauty” (Exodus 28:2). “
Yes, just like lady Gaga – and not even a teeny bit gay!!!
(Well, not very)
.
“The man who disliked vestments wore a pair of preposterous trousers. ”
Nobody in the world ever wore a more preposterous pair of trousers than Fat Boy Gil.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to get them on.
🙂
.
Yes, The Pompous, Pontificating, Old Porker would have looked, as he more or less admits, far less awful wearing a tent – or failing that – “vestments,” than he did in trousers the size of a barrage balloon.
Pity he didn’t have the cojones to do it.
No wonder he spoke with such feeling, then.
.
“Speaking with feeling” was, in my opinion, the last thing GKC generally did, JP. Mostly, like here, he presents a straw man (Modern Man in this case) then stuffs him full of idiotic opinions, like here – then says “See how silly Modern Man is.”
And all the time I can hear him thinking, “300 words and they want 450. What else can I add to pad out the numbers?”
Probably just an old hack’s cynicism.
Still, Gil, is really all the Papists have got as a “heavyweight” literary intellectual. It would seem.
So they keep digging him up and dusting him off, a hundered years later..
Seeing as they wisely steer clear of Greene and waugh.
“Probably just an old hack’s cynicism.”
Quite possibly, Toad.
In this case, I quoted GKC because I’ve seen the attitude he lampoons. Is it a caricature? Yes. But it is a caricature of something real.
.
“But it is a caricature of something real.”
Well, it would be a bit difficult to caricature something unreal would it not, JP?
What would a caricature of, say, Donald Duck look like?
Fair point.
H/T to Being Frank for this story on Christchurch Cathedral.
I am a little late arriving at this pow-wow.
The “holy trinity” of Catholic theology has always been Beauty, Truth, and Goodness. It was only in the reformation that the first of these three was seperated from the other two. And this brought about the wholly new belief that beauty was something essentially frivolous, something expendable rather than essential.
JP is thoroughly protestant sometimes.
Simplicity and beauty are not opposites, Jerry. I think any church we build should be beautiful. That doesn’t mean it has to be expensive. As for selling art works, I don’t expect a lot of agreement on that – but to my mind a healthy child is far more beautiful than any number of gold bowls.
Toad said: (absurdly) Well, it would be a bit difficult to caricature something unreal would it not, JP?
JP said: (inexplicably) fair point
How is that a fair point?? I could produce a caricature of Gandalf for example. Couldn’t you? It’s perfectly possible to caricature a fictional character, and other unreal things.
Jerry, are you saying that Gandalf is unreal!
Seriously, I took Toad – who went on to use Donald Duck as an example – to mean that it is not possible to caricature something that is already a cartoon. I should have taken him up on his actual words, since turn about is fair play. Thank you, Jerry, for doing it instead.
Toad ays it’s impossible to caricature Donald Duck. Well Michael Voris would be un uphill battle as well. But Gandalf and Donal Duck are “real” in exactly the same sense.
I’m not sure about that. One could argue that, in the sense of moral worth and character development, Gandalf is more real than Donald Duck. I’m half way through writing a post on fiction and realism, which deals with the question of whether a fictional character can be less or more true – and whether a ‘true’ fictional character is more real than an ‘untrue’ one.
Michael Voris does an excellent job of caricaturing himself.
Chesterton, on the other hand, was real, and Toad caricatures him all the time.
Simplicity and beauty are not opposites, Jerry. I think any church we build should be beautiful. That doesn’t mean it has to be expensive. As for selling art works, I don’t expect a lot of agreement on that – but to my mind a healthy child is far more beautiful than any number of gold bowls.
A large scale sale of our movable art, even restricted to Rome, would reflect an attitude to that art wholly antithetical to that of those who produced and preserved it. Any visitor notices that the majority of what we see in Rome now dates from the period when Northern protestants were stripping churches and, not incidentally, stripping liturgies and eliminating sacraments. Rome is a treasurehouse of Catholic expression, its art should be preserved intact as a multi-layered expression of the faith. Inviting vocations and stirring souls.
‘
A child is more beautiful than a gold bowl. But that is a parody of the issue. No one off cash sale, even with the funds given to charity, justifies such iconoclsm
A large scale sale of at least some of our movable art, done with the clear and stated purpose of (for example) funding a programme to eliminate female illiteracy in Africa would reflect an attitude to people wholly appropriate to our faith.
Iconoclasm is the deliberate destruction of art works. I’m proposing sale, not destruction.
Yes, we can be custodians of past glories for the sake of future generations. But that’s not our primary role. Our primary role is to feed the hungry, care for the sick, and bring the Gospel to all mankind.
Yes, we can be custodians of past glories for the sake of future generations. But that’s not our primary role. Our primary role is to feed the hungry, care for the sick, and bring the Gospel to all mankind.
They aren’t past glories. That would be the view of a BBC art docummentary. The great Christian works of art in Rome are exactly what they were when the marble dust was still in the air and the paint was still wet. We saturate certain places in beauty because their beauty functions as a sacramental sign of their spiritual reality. The Vatican city (for example) is not simply “itself” with beauty tacked on, the Vatican’s purpose is reflected in the beauty of its form, and the beauty of its form turns our souls back to its purpose.
If you think of this as preserving the past you are missing the point
.
Toad didn’t say it would be impossible to caricature Donald Duck, just that he has great difficulty in imagining what such a caricature would look like.
Maybe others don’t.
Nor does he caricature GKC. Merely points out some objections to some of the more ludicrous aspects of man’s writing, as he sees them.
(But he does also gently tease him for being very fat, to be sure.)
There’s precious (and I use the word advisedly) little modern church “art” worth preserving, as far as I can see.
But that’s another story.
Hard task you’ve set yourself, JP.
Is Anna Karenina any more or less real – or “true” – than Sam Weller?