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PDF versionA church is more than a building, but the building matters, too
by Bill Tammeus on Jan. 11, 2012
Just a few days after Christmas, a historic Presbyterian church in midtown Kansas City, Mo., burned to the ground.
Westport Presbyterian Church had only a few dozen members, but my friend Scott Myers, the pastor, and some members of his aging congregation had figured out how to continue serving the kicky neighborhood that has been the church's home for 176 years.
Westport, besides being a community of faith, became a community center. A day care center, arts groups, nonprofit organizations and others found a welcome home at Westport, and though crowds of young seekers weren't joining, the neighbors knew Westport Presbyterian Church was a jewel.
Westport's fire was a reminder to congregations of all faiths that what makes a church is not a building. Rather, the church is the people. And though we often become emotionally attached to the physical space in which we worship, we do so at the risk of losing sight of the true meaning of church.
I'm not proposing abandoning church buildings and meeting, say, in homes or in tents pitched in city parks (though that wouldn't hurt us now and then).
Indeed, some of the most magnificent holy spaces I know are located within church buildings -- and not just my own Presbyterian congregation's. For instance, I'm always struck silent when I enter the redone sanctuary of Visitation Catholic Parish or the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Kansas City.
Both of them whisper to me of the astonishing grace and beauty of God.
But having written Visitation's centennial commemoration book a couple of years ago, I also know that what makes Visitation a church is not the stunning interior of its building but the beauty of its people.
The day after I watched local TV news showing 30-foot flames flying into the chilly sky from the roof of the 107-year-old Westport building, I drove by to see it for myself. It's a place I know well, having attended many meetings there and even having preached there three or four times.
Even though my intellect knew that the church is not Westport's mostly limestone building, I still felt deep anguish seeing the mess the fire left. I think I know why.
It's at least partly because what happens to us within those sacred spaces is also holy and memorable. And we want to imagine that the space will be preserved in some way eternally so as not to diminish what we've experienced.
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That's why I find it sad that the Illinois church building in which I attended Sunday school as a boy and was confirmed -- the church in which the funerals for both my mother and father were held -- today houses a congregation of another faith tradition.
And it's why, were my congregation's current building, which is nearly 100 years old, to be destroyed, my heart would ache, remembering all important times in my life that were played out under that roof -- the worship services, the funerals, the weddings, the classes, the meetings and on and on.
So, yes, I understand that as people of faith we must drive the stakes of our tents into the ground loosely and be ready to move wherever God would have us go. I really get that.
But I also know that even nomadic people develop a theology of place and space. For instance, to commemorate a God-given victory over the Philistines, 1 Samuel 7 says that Samuel "took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen, and called its name Ebenezer, saying, 'Thus far the Lord has helped us.'"
He was making space holy, just as God there had made time holy.
And somehow we must live in the tension between the holy space we have marked off and places to which God would have us go next.
I sometimes just wish that God weren't so anxious to move us on.
[Bill Tammeus, a Presbyterian elder and former award-winning Faith columnist for The Kansas City Star, writes the daily "Faith Matters" blog for The Star's website and a monthly column for The Presbyterian Outlook. His latest book, co-authored with Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn, is They Were Just People: Stories of Rescue in Poland During the Holocaust. Email him at wtammeus@kc.rr.com.]
Interesting. The NCR faith
Interesting. The NCR faith tradition requires all churches to be ugly. If an ugly church building cannot be built, the interior of the old church must be vandalized to make it ugly. It's a good thing you're Presbyterian. I don't think NCR would allow anybody to say that Catholic churches shouldn't be modernist.
I have subscribed to NCR for
I have subscribed to NCR for many years and can recall no articles qualifying as advocating a "faith tradition" urging the uglification of churches or worship spaces nor the vadalization of them. Provide examples to substiantiate what otherwise is mostly just an opinion, and a boorish negative one at that.
The Los Angeles Cathedral.
The Los Angeles Cathedral. The Oakland Cathedral. The churches in the round. Every church where the altar rail and high altar were ripped out and square blocks of stone and ugly carpeting installed. Virtually every church built in the last 40 years. I think you know what I mean. Followers of the NCR faith tradition call vandalism "remodeling" but vandalism is the more accurate term. Your word, "uglification," would be a good description, too. I thought you guys had stopped defending what you had done to so many beautiful churches since the 1960s. I guess I was wrong.
Realnly?? NCR had something
Realnly?? NCR had something to do with the decisions regarding the architecture and interior design of the Los Angeles cathedral and the remodeling of very church in the last 40 years? Your comment back to me still did not cite articles proving that the "faith tradition" you say is espoused by NCR has caused the recent trends in church design and the "vandalization" of churches you comment here about with such rancor. Yet your comments do speak volumes to your notions of ecclesiology and liturgy' namely all transcendent "me and God.". Mr. Tammeus commentary talks about the beauty of sacred space not in terms of architecture or art but addresses that which all churches and sacred spaces should be about, the shared life experiences of groups of people who have come together recognizing that there is something much more that we are to be about in our lives, the love of the gracious mystery of God. I am not sure from your angry comments that your heart is open too much to that loving mystery. By the way, I do believe that there are major cathedrals and churches in Rome that are round.
You've got lots of points
You've got lots of points here. I'll take them in random order, and let's see if I hit them all. I don't believe that any church was built in the "in the round" style so frequently used by our prosperous suburban parishes before 1970. If so, I doubt that the building has the characteristic ugliness of those churches. Do you really think that Mr. Tammeus would have written the column he did if the churches of his experience were built in the stark and ugly styles so often used by Liberal Catholics? I don't. You may disagree but I think "NCR faith tradition" is an apt phrase for Liberal Catholicism in the United States. I think you would agree that Liberal Catholicism's leading publication in the United States has always been NCR. I've read the publication off and on for years, too, and it has used the same snarky, whining tone writing about Pope Paul, Pope John Paul the Great and Pope Benedict. I believe that any randomly chosen issue of the newspaper contains more "rancor," to use your word, directed against the person of the current Pope, whoever he was, than I've used in discussing the impersonal topic of architecture. If you want some rancor read what the NCR community has to say about Rick Santorum. It's all over this website. I'm not the person who introduced "rancor" to the NCR garden. I don't mean "recent trends" in church architechture. I'm talking about an old attitude toward church architecture. It's more than 40 years old. The most recent trend is to build churches that are not ugly. See, for example, the plans for the new cathedral in Raliegh.
Now you certainly don't have to give me an answer, but I would love to know what you really think about the "renovations" of beautiful old churches by people who follow what I call the "NCR faith tradition." Were they mostly improvements? Or did it more often happen that they took a beautiful old church, ripped out everything beautiful inside and installed banal, ugly stuff that looked odd when the renovation took place, and has not aged well since. Did that frequently happen, often happen, seldom happen or never happen? Before 1965, an ugly Catholic church was a rarity. After 1970, almost all of them are ugly. This is true even though many of the churches built in the 1950-1965 range were strongly influenced by modernist themes.
I'm not a big fan of hymns written in the style favored by those in the NCR faith tradition, but I can't say they are ugly, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of those songs live beyond the current age. I find that it's not rare to find a person who really likes some of the hymns in the NCR faith tradition. Not many will stick up for the architecture, though, and I don't know that I've ever communicated with anybody willing to defend what people like me sometimes call the "wreckovations."
I'll admit calling modernist church architecture "ugly" has a kind of emperor's-new-clothes quality. You either see it or you don't. I think that a style of architecture appropriate for a shopping mall isn't appropriate for a church, and I bet history will agree with me.
i have been in all kinds of
i have been in all kinds of churches in my lifetime and it sounds like you have also. Some have been astounding to be in such as the Church of All Nations in Jerusalem or the small church in a remote corner of a Native Americn reservation in Montana. Does that make me an expert on their beauty as regards architecture or interior space? Not in the least but I do know one thing that I have experienced and can attest to and that is the beauty of a congregation fully engaged in what has brought them together no matter what the space. And ultimately the space in which they gather is not as important as why they have gathered as Mr Tammeus has so well conveyed. From what you have written and how you have written here it seems to be something you have not consistently experienced and i find that very sad. I have had the great grace given to me to witness the palpable presence of Christ within liturgical celebrations in spaces I would imagine you would probably not approve of. Have you never read about the experiences of mssionary priests or heard them preach of their experiences of saying Mass in third world countries and describe the hovels in which they have celebrated?? Yet the joy and fullness of Christ's presence was never more present than in those Masses for these priests. Kind of makes one wonder if church architecture is really that important at all.
I am not sure why you brought up music to try to make a point, but I agree with you that many songs will be remembered in years to come. As to whether history agrees with you or me on any point is really not important. God has only given any one of us now.
I only made one point. I do
I only made one point. I do not like being accused of criticizing poor people. Of course Mass in an inadequate building or under difficult circumstances is of inestimable value. I’m not criticizing people doing the best they can with what little they have. That’s all any of us can do. Chartres Cathedral is not an appropriate place for Mass because it is objectively beautiful enough. It’s an appropriate place for Mass because the people who built it did their best for God. They did this so well that it is a source of wonder for people down through the centuries, but that does not mean that other people must match it no matter how limited their resources. I said nothing bad about poor people. My one point is that the NCR faith tradition imposed a particular architectural vision, a vision of ugliness, on Catholic churches. When the elites did not have the resources to build an ugly church they took the interior of a beautiful church and made that ugly. They did this no matter how much people may have loved that church, the way Mr. Tammeus loves the churches he wrote about. The NCR faith tradition does not allow people to live with beautiful churches. That’s the point I made. It’s just true. You want to talk about other things. You want to diagnose me has having all sorts of problems. My point is still true.
Here’s the relevance of the music discussion. You accuse me of saying that these churches are ugly for some ideological reason. I don’t like the music in the NCR faith tradition either. But I don’t falsely call it ugly. Even I think that some (a few!) of these songs will outlive the NCR faith tradition. I know that some people like this music more than I do. They actually like it and will defend it. That’s true, too. I’m not misrepresenting the truth about the music because of my inferior belief system. Very few people, though, say anything in defense of the shopping mall/Holiday Inn/public school architectural style of the churches built in the last forty years. And no one defends the wreckovations. For a while there it seemed like you were going to, but you didn’t. You don’t have to be an expert to see that they were uglifications, a word I may use in the future. I can go back to saying that I’ve never communicated with anyone willing to defend them.
"The most recent trend is to
"The most recent trend is to build churches that are not ugly."
Actually, the most recent trend is to abandon the beautiful Churches in the cities, along with the poor and those the Church should be serving, to build something pretty on the outside for the wealthier neighborhoods that the "Church" can fleece to feed the appetite of fat bishops with expensive taste for the material rather than the spiritual, with a liturgy of garbled language that breeds chaos & misunderstanding rather than build up the Faithful on solid ground and solid meaningfulness. No doubt, you will not grasp this anymore than you've grasped or grappled with truth from the word of God in the New Testament.
There are many ways to build a Church, but without love all the best of art cannot mend the spirit of broken hearts and broken dreams. The great Church or Cathedral that you need to find is deep and hidden within you. From what you've shared by your words, you have not found that heaven that is within or Christ's peace within either. Hence, all your bickering over nothing, accomplishing nothing to do with love, trampling on your fellow Catholics who you claim vociferously and contentiously and wildly contemptuous of what you have self-defined as an "NCR faith tradition." Man, you are a lost sheep. May you be found by the Good Shepherd and enjoy the true spirit of Christ's peace one day soon. Spare those who suffer with Christ and try to live in His Peace in a world that loves to war from the audacity of your hateful and arrogant speech.
Also, to define the Church by the internal politics of the Church in such narrow terms, such as you have done, is to reduce the significance of God and increase the so-called significance of your own ego desires, which is the definition of selfishness, not the building up of your Faith in God.
What song are you currently singing in your writing? I've heard this song before. It's a wrecking ball song if I ever heard one, from words that clang for war. What will historians say of your attitude and the song you sang to your fellow Catholics when you were alive and had the chance to sing, had the chance to bring some love and beauty into the world? Are you bringing something beautiful into the Church by your attitude?
That's not a recent trend,
That's not a recent trend, either. That's a trend of the last forty years. We'll see what the future will bring. Before Liberal Catholics took over the Church's institutions, the world criticized the Church as being for the poor and ignorant. Even when it was at its most vibrant, Liberal Catholicism seems only to have had the power to inspire people from high bourgeois backgrounds. Once it's out of the way the Church may be able to talk to everybody again.
I'm always surprised to read bitter attacks on the bishops on Liberal Catholic websites. Institutions controlled by the bishops provide most of the support for Liberal Catholicism. Certainly there are some bishops who think like me, but there are many, many more who think like you. That's why the church bureaucracies are filled with people who write documents that read like slightly toned down NCR editorials. Orthodox Catholicism (you can call it conservative, if you like) has survived for forty years without the support of the institutional church. We'll see what happens, but I expect that when Liberal Catholicism is no longer supported by the institutional church it will dry up and blow away.
Where you err is that you
Where you err is that you blame an entire architectural movement on "liberal Catholics", and I guess by extension, the bishops of Vatican II.
Church architecture at the time was always, and continues to be, a reflection not just of theology, but of the time, place and needs of the people who built them.
The trend toward spare -- you call it "stark" -- styles of worship space actually predates the '60s by many, many decades. I can show you many, many churches built in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, which are quite unremarkable in their architectural style, as minimalism was the trend across many medium of art, including music and architecture.
And then we get to the post-war years, the suburbanization of cities, and especially the baby boom. It is not unusual, nor is it to be condemned, that parishes first took care of their children --- they build schools first, with a multi-purpose space attached that would serve as a worship space until the parish could afford to build a church. In other words, they spent their wealth and attention on their kids first, and themselves and their worship space second. This was the overriding issue with many of those spaces built between 1950=75 that you decry as "modernist."
We are now in a period of neo-traditionalism in architecture. Look at the new baseball stadiums that have been built since Camden Yards broke the mold in the early '90s. They are all built to look like "old" traditional ball parks, but unfortunately, many of them are beginning to look the same as the same style is duplicated over and over.
This is also the trend in today's church architecture. Even new churches are being built to look like "old" churches, but inside they are very much built to accomodate liturgy as it exists today. There are no altar rails.
"Before 1965, an ugly Catholic church was a rarity." Really? I could show you multiple examples of some pretty pedestrian church architecture, from just about every era you want to cite.
"Pedestrian" and "ugly."
"Pedestrian" and "ugly." These two words have different definitions. A badly designed old church will be pedestrian, and may even have some tendency toward ugliness. You may think that some get over the line. Churches designed in the NCR faith tradition are all right in the middle of ugly. As if they were designed by someone who usually designed Holiday Inns, but was told to make sure the church wasn't as attractive as a Holiday Inn. I specifically defended the modernist churches built between 1950 and 1965, and you're right that modernist influences were there even before 1950. I think the ugliness is a Liberal Catholic ideological statement. There is really no other explanation for the wreckovations. A Liberal Catholic renovation rips out everything beautiful, and replaces it with stuff that is similar, but ugly. I think it's the same with new construction. The Los Angeles cathedral, for example, was made extra ugly, compared to the ordinary run of current architecture, and I believe it is a reaction against our desire that churches be beautiful. That looks like an architect whose best work was in shopping malls was told to experiment in brutalism. I blame nothing on the bishops of Vatican II. The beliefs of the people misrepresenting the documents of Vatican II is something else again.
Mr. Conley, Your writing
Mr. Conley,
Your writing conveys a very close-minded attitude, not unlike the Pharisees in the gospels. It seems that you are fixated on the notion that unless a church was built prior to Vatican I or meets your ery subjective notions of beauty, it is not deemed worthy of being called a church. I will take a guess and say that your beliefs about God and liturgy are as fixated on one narrow set of ideas and I will guess that you are equally fixated that your set of beliefs are THE one and only truth. It is almost impossible to carry on any meaningful conversation with you as you continue t o come back to one set of phrases. I think you will be wonderfully surprised at the end of your days to find out that God does not fit into such a narrow notion of church. I prefer to enjoy that wonderful surprise everyday in my life.
I wrote about architecture
I wrote about architecture making one specific point. It was pertinent to the theme of the article, whose title, after all, is "A church is more than a building, but the building matters, too." When challenged I defended my observation by pointing out facts that are mostly in our common experience. You've responded with a series of comments in which you diagnose my spiritual failings. You have certainly convinced me that you find my observation extremely annoying. You apparently think that you are annoyed because my incorrect religious beliefs result in an attitude "not unlike the Pharisees in the gospels." I disagree, but even if you are right about me, the vandalization of all those churches is still wrong.
That churches were
That churches were "vandalized" is just your narrow and subjective opinion.
I cite Mark 8:18 in support
I cite Mark 8:18 in support of what I say about the vandalism. And I notice that you're not even willing to say that it's a nice suit that the emperor's wearing, even though you continually insist that it's only my subjective opinion that he's not wearing clothes.
First of all, NCR has no
First of all, NCR has no control over the Bishops decisions on architecture. Neither conservatives or liberals have any say at all in the Church regarding anything. We have absolutely no say at all in our own Church, especially women and gays. That is what is truly wrecking the Church. You can hem and haw all you want and blame liberals for everything but that will not help the Church at all by your doing so.
The early Church was formed in small communities with people having Mass in their homes. The Church was not the huge institution it is today with a Pope dictating to everyone what they should believe or not. It was more humane. Perhaps if local Churches with the faithful who really had a say we might all truly learn the faith and appreciate it more and create a real Church that aided us in our Faith. That seems more important than the points you have made which are just whining and make no helpful change at all.
In every post you have written here you speak about the NCR as if it was a faith in itself. NCR is a forum for people to discuss what is happening in our Church and in the world. It is Our Church that we were baptized into and it seems to me that Faith should bring us together to be closer to God and more loving in spirit as a result of our practicing our Faith.
Also, you are attacking an entire group of people you have subjectively decided are "liberal" and I take that to mean you have issues against "liberals" and well, again, it only leads to a circular argument that not only is unhelpful but can just lead to bitterness and alienating all those you seem to want to condemn.
Thank you, butterfly, for
Thank you, butterfly, for helping me to express the points I have been trying to convey to Mr. Conley. And God bless both of you.
I want to respond to what you
I want to respond to what you say here, but first I want to explain how I got involved in this. I made a comment about architecture and religion in response to an article entitled "A church is more than a building, but the building matters, too." This is a great article about the relationship of Protestant congregations with their church buildings. Catholics can't have that kind of relationship with their church buildings because the elites that came into control of the institutional church in the late 1960s and early 1970s insisted on changing them. You guys get mad when I say they made them ugly, but you're also not willing to say that I'm wrong. You seem to be saying that I just shouldn't say it, no matter how true it may be. Everything else I've said here has been defensive. Accusations were made against me and I answered them.
"NCR has no control over the bishops . . . " Of course NCR has no control over the bishops. National Review has no control over conservative politicians, but it is still a conservative magazine. It's not control, but agreement. When there were prominent Liberal Catholic bishops like Hunthausen, Weakland and Bernadine NCR supported their initiatives, praised them and attacked their critics. (There are still plenty of bishops who believe what those men believed, and find people like me just as annoying as you do. They just think they're more effective if they're quieter.) National Review disagreed with Ronald Reagan more often than NCR disagreed with Cardinal Bernadine. NCR did not control Cardinal Bernadine. Cardinal Bernadine did not control NCR. They agreed. So, as happened all around the country, hundreds and hundreds of times, when the people in control of the church said Vatican II requires ripping everything beautiful out of a certain church and the installation of a lot of ugly stuff, the Liberal Catholics supported the effort. People who subscribed to the Wanderer might have signed a petition asking that their church be protected. NCR subscribers and "Spirit of Vatican II" supporters did not. You think we have "a Pope dictating to everyone what they should believe or not." That's the way people in the NCR faith tradition say it. That's what Liberal Catholics believe. People who agree with me don't say it that way. We think the Holy Spirit protects the Holy Father from error. We don’t think we accept his teaching because we’re doing what we’re told. We think we believe it because it’s true. You get to decide what you want. But we think that he’s right, so we think that people who disagree are wrong. The oldest Christian document we have outside the New Testament is St. Clement’s Epistle to the Corinthians. St. Clement was the third pope (the second after St. Peter). In his epistle he’s telling the Corinthians what to do. Popes have been telling people what to do forever. They’re going to do it till the end of time. You’re going to have to figure out a way to deal with it, because they’re not going to stop.
"The early Church was formed in small communities . . . " If you think that the congregation is the key element of the ecclesial organization, there are many millions of people who agree with you. They are Protestants. You teach the ecclesiology of liberal Congregationalists. Catholics have been writing down what they believe for many centuries. Bishops are in charge of local churches and the Pope has governing authority over the whole Church. That's what Catholics have taught forever. You can argue that it wasn't clear in the year 100. Maybe you can argue it wasn't clear in the year 200, although I think it was. But for a long, long time it has been very clear. We moved out of houses and into churches as soon as it was legal to do so. You agree with (some) Protestants on church organization. That's fine, but the Catholic Church is going to continue on with this organization until the end of time. You might as well get used to that, too.
"In every post you have written here you speak about the NCR as if it was a faith in itself." I don't why I should pretend that people who actually agree with each other don’t agree. NCR stands for something. The Pope teaches certain things. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches certain things. Orthodox Catholics have always taught certain things. Some people think that the Pope and the Catechism are wrong about things. Say, for example, women priests, or that congregations and committees should run things and not the Pope and bishops. There are two groups with different beliefs here. I’m open to suggestions. What should I call the religious beliefs of the people who write for NCR? Aren't they indistinguishable with the beliefs of the writers at America and Commonweal and US Catholic, and many people who work for church institutions? You tell me. Give me a name for people who say they're Catholic but teach against the authority of bishops and the Pope and against Humanae Vitae and in favor of women priests and in favor of the "presider" saying whatever he (or she) wants when "presiding" no matter what the missal may say. I'm open to suggestions. But in order to talk about religious differences we need words. I can’t talk without words. Tell me the words that you'll accept.
“Also, you are attacking an entire group of people you have subjectively decided . . .” It’s just true that a bunch of people falsely taught that Vatican II, or “the Spirit of Vatican II,” changed everything. They were wrong. One of the things they did while they were in charge was vandalize a lot of churches. These are just true facts. To talk about these true facts I need words. The people who did the vandalizing agreed with one another. They had a belief system that required the vandalization. What do you want me to call that belief system? Do you want me to say that it was just a coincidence? Nobody here is willing to say that what I call “wreckovations” were improvements, but assume for a minute that they were improvements. We can still ask: Who did them? Why were they done? What is the name of the belief system that required them?
I wrote a lot here. But I’m on defense. My true observation was met with “explanations” attacking me on lots of different topics. I think that’s because what I originally said was just true.
"You guys get mad when I say
"You guys get mad when I say they made them ugly, but you're also not willing to say that I'm wrong."
OK, I'm willing to say you are wrong. Are you willing to admit that some people might consider the cathedrals in LA and Oakland to be beautiful? Or have you appointed yourself the sole arbiter of beautiful?
No. Not the sole arbiter.
No. Not the sole arbiter. But a person with a right to speak.
And there are two separate things here. New churches and the wreckovations. You can have a conversation about the new churches. I don't find anybody defending the wreckovations. Above I have a rather restrained description of the wreckovations: "Every church where the altar rail and high altar were ripped out and square blocks of stone and ugly carpeting installed." "[T]hey took a beautiful old church, ripped out everything beautiful inside and installed banal, ugly stuff that looked odd when the renovation took place, and has not aged well since." If you're defending that process, if you have in mind some church you know where that process went well, then I'm surprised.
As to new churches, especially very expensive new churches, that's something else, again. I'm not a fan of the LA cathedral. I find that people who defend it tend to hedge. They want to talk about some aspect of it that they like. They tend to say things like if you stand at a certain spot and look at a certain thing you see something good, or interesting, or effective, or something. Mostly I think it's a failure. I think ugly is a pretty accurate description. I'm not sure that I've heard anybody use the word beautiful about it before. I do think it's an interesting building, even if I think it's a failure. But I don't think the builders of a cathedral should be shooting at "interesting." I think if that's the goal then you don't understand cathedrals. I wish I was a better writer, and I'm trying to express something that's not part of my main point, but I'd like to know why it's such a failure. (You might phrase the question as why it's my opinion that it's such a failure.) I don't think it's a good cathedral. I don't even think it's a good brutalist cathedral. I think it's an attempt to discuss what a cathedral is, using modified, watered-down brutalism. (Not that I think you should take your brutalism straight.) Anyway, that's my opinion of what the architect was up to. But even if I'm wrong about the intent, and wrong about why there's interesting things about it, I think it's not a good cathedral. In summary: it's way uglier than it has to be. I could put here my speculation for why the archdiocese went with this design, but I'm in enough trouble here, already.
If I'm wrong about the LA Cathedral I haven't caused a problem. It's out there where everybody can see it. I can't fool anybody. This is the point I tried to make with my discussion of music above. If I had said that the post-Vatican II music that was pushed on us was ugly, it wouldn't bother anybody. You'd know I was wrong. You wouldn't have to post anything. To get you mad about music I'd have to say it shouldn't have displaced our musical heritage. It's too pedestrian, and insuficiently elevated, and way too often theologically wrong or meaningless. But if I said it was ugly, I wouldn't have gotten a rise out of anyone.
I don't find the Oakland Cathedral to be an interesting building. I like it less than the LA Cathedral. Maybe the are people in Oakland who like it. Do you have any insight on that? Maybe there's plenty of stuff out there that I've missed, but I've never read anything interesting about it. I think about it what I think about the Crystal Cathedral, except more so. I've thought about it much less than I've thought about the LA cathedral, so I'll just leave you with my conclusion.
I know that there are going to be great cathedrals built by architects using new styles that I can't imagine. I don't think we're going in the right direction, though. Should I mention again that I think there were successful church designs in the 1950-1965 period heavily influenced by modernism? I think that those great cathedrals in new styles are a long way away. We're going to have to learn how to build just regular cathedrals first, but maybe I'm too pessimistic.
The Holy Father teaches the Hermeneutic of Continuity. Vatican II did not change everything. I think the elites who took over the institutional church under cover of the "Spirit of Vatican II" need a Hermeneutic of Disruption to justify what they're up to. So old churches must be uglified. Regular churches must be ugly. Some special churches can be ugly in expensive and sophisticated ways.
One more thing: You don't say
One more thing: You don't say you think these buildings are beautiful. You only say "some people might consider the cathedrals in LA and Oakland to be beautiful." You're only willing to say hypothetically that some other person might think so. So you, too, are in the category of people who don't like what I say but you're not willing to say I'm wrong. You're only willing to say that someone else might think I'm wrong.
Dear Sir, I have never
Dear Sir, I have never visited the cathedrals in Oakland or LA, so I am in no position to render a judgment on them.
You, on the other hand, certainly couldn't know how every single church in the United States was adapted for Vatican II liturgy, but you still have the hubris to claim that all of them were "wrecked" and "vandalized."
Again, those decisions varied widely depending on the particular community and pastor involved.
True, some of them stripped things down, while other went to great pains to preserve them and to make them even more beautiful.
And proclaiming that ALL churches renovated and built post-Vatican II are ugly is where you are most definitely both wrong, but willfully ignorant.
I think you're not paying
I think you're not paying attention. You can't name one new church that isn't ugly. You say: "those decisions varied widely depending on the particular community and pastor involved." No they didn't. They did the same uglifications again and again and again.
We live in the age of the internet. Google images has a very large numbers of church pictures. Give us a link to a photo of a church than was renovated, but not made ugly.
And yes, of course you are "correct" on one thing. If a church was just restored and not renovated then it was not made ugly. That's not news. Of course that's true. Anybody can see that. I didn't say there were zero restorations. I said all the renovations resulted in an ugly church. All the new construction is ugly. That's just true. Anybody with eyes can see it. You say I'm "willfully ignorant." You say that I "certainly couldn't know how every single church in the United States was adapted for Vatican II liturgy." So you think that may just be one tasteful job done by church architects who worked in the NCR faith tradition, BUT YOU CAN'T NAME ONE. Not one. Even if there was one, that would not disprove my main point. The post-Vatican II elites made many, many church ugly. They built many, many new ugly churches. If their batting average was 99% and not quite 100% do you think you've refuted me?
The people willing to sign a name had a much more intellectually honest argument. In your "new" (new in 1968, that is) Church I'm not allowed to give my honest opinion on Church architecture. It's a good thing that very, very soon "futureChurch" will be gone forever. It's a religion that cannot build a beautiful building, and cannot inspire the young.
Agreed. The Protestant
Agreed. The Protestant tradition is that money raised should go to the poor/charity only. Anything more sophisticated than a cow barn is "waste of funds and idolatry."
It burned down. So what? Given that, "..the church [was] home to arts organizations and social-service groups that serve the larger community." there was no need for a church.
A simple, sterile cinder block government building will do nicely for what really goes on there.
“It [was] one of the oldest remaining churches in Kansas City,” implies that churches in KC are few and dwindling fast. A commentary on what the public knows and wants. Remember, god is Imaginary!
Kudos to Bill Tammeus for a
Kudos to Bill Tammeus for a very insightful perspective on the truly intrinsic value of a church building itself. I think of all the small rural parishes in states like Wisconsin, where the church itself is the most prominent structure in the area. The early pioneers proudly established numerous Ebenezers as a testament to their deep faith and profound hope in the future. Those buildings truly were pivotal in their lives, as they were baptized, received First Holy Communion, were strengthened in Confirmation, were married in love or celebrated First Masses, and often concluded their inspirational lives in an uplifting funeral. Words often seem empty when trying to describe those emotions, but Bill's commentary is spot on!
I enjoyed reading this
I enjoyed reading this column. A few years ago our almost 75 year old church building needed remodeling. There were parishioners who would like to have razed the buidling and started over. OThers had family members who had helped haul the limestone from nearby hills and they were very much against touching the exterior of the building.
We heard from many, as you wrote, about memories of weddings, baptisms, funerals - all those precious memories that were tied into the physical space.
Unfortunately, the discussion turned into a bitter argument with letters to the editor of our small newspaper and lots of angry talk around town.
In the end, the original outline was retained, additions were put on the east and west ends (with limestone) and the interior was remodeled.
There are those who think we spent too much and those who think it's the most beautiful space they've ever seen.
We truly are more than a building but, just as truly, the building matters deeply.
Very good article. Space
Very good article. Space matters greatly.
"....Samuel "took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen, and called its name Ebenezer, saying, 'Thus far the Lord has helped us.'"
He was making space holy, just as God there had made time holy."
Spaces are intrinsically holy. Placing stones or markers are just signs that we recognize the holiness that is already there.
Those moments in space and time that we create church buildings is when we co-create sacredness.
hey, how about that crystal
hey, how about that crystal cathedral
55 million
ostentatious consumption or what?
while Joe and Maria sleep out back in the cold water animal's shack, waiting for the baby to come
the only real church building is the one that shelters the homeless
that grants sanctuary to the undocumented
that homes the homeless
I think it was a good idea.
I think it was a good idea. It's not an appropriate building for a Catholic cathedral, of course, but using it as one for the next ten or twenty years was the best alternative. If the diocese hadn't bought it, it would have built a new cathedral that might have been as ugly and as expensive as the Los Angeles or Oakland cathedrals. By buying the Crystal Cathedral the diocese is saving money over building a new modernist building, and the Crystal Cathedral, while it may not be in the best of taste, isn't replusive like those other buildings. Then, in ten or twenty years, when the Reform of the Reform is well underway, the diocese can build an appropriate church to use for a cathedral. Maybe it will be even more beautiful than the churches that were built before people in the NCR faith tradition took over the church bureaucracies.
Readers: A point of
Readers: A point of clarification. I said in this piece that Westport Presbyterians Church has only a "few dozen" members. Westport people tell me that's an accurate count of worship attendance but that formal membership is closer to 80. Whatever the number, my congregation, Second Presbyterian Church of Kansas City, has been honored to provide worship space in our chapel for Westport during January.
My word, Bill, you are
My word, Bill, you are scrupulous. 80 would be six and a half dozen. I think that is a "few dozen."
Mr. Tammeus: I loved your
Mr. Tammeus: I loved your reflection, and I feel ashamed that it has served for one more "parochial war". I understand perfectly what you feel. When I visited a small and ruined convent built during St. Francis life, and that was being used as a wharehouse, I felt my heart pierced. Everything there spoke about humbleness, poverty and Franciscan spirituality, after all those centuries. I would like to share your pain to see your church burnt. Big or small, magnificent or not, the prayers, hopes, sufferings and the faith lives of generations remain, like an almost tangible perfume. And I think that is holly, too.
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