American Flag in Sanctuary

[vegpotter]

My parish does not have any flag in the sanctuary. My parents’ church does–the U.S. flag is off to one side, the Vatican flag, off to the other. I always thought they were a nice touch; not in your face to distract from the Mass, but as a respectful gesture in the background.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Schabel:

I’m on our parish council, and the question came up about having an American flag (as well as a Papal flag) on display.

It seems that a number of years ago (well before I moved here), our church had these flags hanging from the ceiling. Remodeling and the addition of a new sound system necessitated the removal of these flags, and now an usher and American Legion member has suggested that we return the flag to a place of prominence.

I’m certainly in favor of having an American flag on display; I’m just not too keen on having it actually in the sanctuary. There are varying opinions on the council, and I’d like to elicit other opinions from this group.

I know the USCCB doesn’t have any regulations regarding this.

A question posted on another website () elicited this response (in part):

This was not even a question before World War II when Bishop Fulton Sheen, against any liturgical query or consultation, advised church members to put a flag in the sanctuary to remember those at war. In fact, this only seems to be an American church issue.

The USA Bishops Committee on the Liturgy document Environment and Art in Catholic Worship [1978] advised us for years saying in paragraph 101:

Although the art and decoration of the liturgical space will be that of the local culture, identifying symbols of particular cultures, groups, or nations are not appropriate as permanent parts of the liturgical environment. While such symbols might be used for a particular occasion or holiday, they should not regularly constitute a part of the environment of common prayer.

The current document on liturgical art and norms for the United States, Built on Living Stones, does not address the issue at all.

Suggestions?

The only churches in the United Kingdom to have flags in them, are those which might reasonably be expected to - because of their connections with a regiment, for example.​

To have the flag of any country in a church - especially in a church which is used by members of a supra-national religion - seems extremely strange. After all, Christians are sojourners on earth; our true home is in Heaven. Bringing national flags into a church is just a bit too close to using Christian things as a prop for the State: especially if one lives in a country that separates the two for the health of both.

As for Papal flags in Catholic Churches - that too seems to be a USA thing. ##

 

[Dr.Bombay]

I’m still stunned that anyone would object to having an American flag in the sanctuary. Sounds like political correctness run amok.

More troubling to me, it seems some Catholics have adopted the mindset of the ignorant anti-Catholic bigots who accuse us of “worshiping” statues. As if having an American flag in the sanctuary means we “worship” our country or the piece of cloth that represents it. A flag does not detract in the least from my worship of Christ. In fact we live in a nation that, for the time being, allows us to worship God as we please. We are privileged to come to church every Sunday because of the sacrifice of the millions who fought and died to defend that flag and everything it represents.

I’m happy to live in a diocese that still acknowledges those sacrifices by having flags in the sanctuary of most churches I visit. If a small group of ankle biting malcontents don’t like it, they are free to worship somewhere else. God bless America.

 

[Nathan_Ael]

“We are privileged to come to church every Sunday because of the sacrifice of the millions who fought and died to defend that flag and everything it represents.”

We are privileged to come to church because God has graced us with his love and faith. No mere war can give us those things.

However, I understand the feelings of those who’d like the flag to be displayed in Churches. The flag can represent a lot of noble things - freedom, courage, and love. But I can also understand those who feel that the flag is a symbol of some ‘not-so-noble’ things: abortion, divorce, pornography, and uninhibited violence.

In America, more than one million human beings are murdered before they are even born. America calls itself the “greatest force for good in the world” while it massacres its own children. I will never honor a flag and a country that abandons its most innocent.

But that’s just me. When other people see the flag, they see other things. I happen to see millions of dead babies. Others see millions of dead soldiers. We all have to decide for ourselves whether the flag is a symbol of good or evil, but as Catholics, lets not make the flag a symbol of division within the church.

God bless, and peace.

 

[Benedictus]

I find the idea of having an American flag or Vatican flag in the sanctuary extremely offensive. The sanctuary should be a holy place. It is not a place for symbols of nationalism.

The Vatican City is an independent state–the descendent of a country that once had its own standing army, and a nation could, in theory, wage a just war against the Vatican City. The Vatican flag is not the flag of the Church, it is the flag of a foreign power.

 

[chicago]

At my parish, modest sized flags of the Vatican and U.S.A. are kept on stands at the back of the vestibule, bookending the doors. I think that works out quite nicely. Occasionaly, on major holidays or for some big event (such as the annual Heritage Day which we once celebrated), they are carried in procession and left in the sanctuary during the Mass.

 

[Dr.Bombay]

Nathan Ael:

We are privileged to come to church because God has graced us with his love and faith. No mere war can give us those things.

However, I understand the feelings of those who’d like the flag to be displayed in Churches. The flag can represent a lot of noble things - freedom, courage, and love. But I can also understand those who feel that the flag is a symbol of some ‘not-so-noble’ things: abortion, divorce, pornography, and uninhibited violence.

In America, more than one million human beings are murdered before they are even born. America calls itself the “greatest force for good in the world” while it massacres its own children. I will never honor a flag and a country that abandons its most innocent.

But that’s just me. When other people see the flag, they see other things. I happen to see millions of dead babies. Others see millions of dead soldiers. We all have to decide for ourselves whether the flag is a symbol of good or evil, but as Catholics, lets not make the flag a symbol of division within the church.

God bless, and peace.

Spare me the “let’s not make it a symbol of division within the church” argument. Anything can become a symbol of division within the church if a tiny group of malcontents and bomb throwers decide they want it thrown out because they don’t like it, i.e. statues, altar rails, stained glass windows, confessionals, incense, candles, kneelers, etc.

These people need to be told, in charity of course, to go pound sand. There’s been enough kow-towing to the loud mouths.

Offended by the flag in the sanctuary? As my dad used to say, “Too bad. You’ll get over it.”

 

[krokal]

I suppose you’re one of those ‘love it or leave it’ types Dr. Bombay?

Spare me the “let’s not make it a symbol of division within the church” argument. Anything can become a symbol of division within the church if a tiny group of malcontents and bomb throwers decide they want it thrown out because they don’t like it, i.e. statues, altar rails, stained glass windows, confessionals, incense, candles, kneelers, etc.

Those objects represent absolutely nothing controversial, while the US flag represents a variety of things, such as oppression and freedom. Not everyone sees the American flag as a glorious symbol like you do Dr. Bombay.

 

[Nathan_Ael]

Dr. Bombay:

a tiny group of malcontents and bomb throwers

I hope I’m not a ‘malcontent’ for seeing the flag as a symbol of a nation that murders over one million human beings every year.

Our nation pours hyper-sexuality upon its children, divorce upon its families, and pornography upon everyone else. And then it kills the children that are conceived from the resulting lust.

I don’t think this makes us ‘bomb throwers’ for not being comfortable with a symbol that honors a nation that does such things.

Offended by the flag in the sanctuary? As my dad used to say, “Too bad. You’ll get over it.”

But as Paul says, “Then let us no longer judge one another, but rather resolve never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.”

God Bless, and peace.

 

[Vox_Borealis]

gnat:

Those objects represent absolutely nothing controversial, while the US flag represents a variety of things, such as oppression and freedom. Not everyone sees the American flag as a glorious symbol like you do Dr. Bombay.

I think this is the wrong approach, whether the American flag stands for freedom or oppression or whatever. The more important issue, in my mind, is what sorts of objects are appropriate in the sanctuary. I’m a big Yankees fan (sorry), but I don’t think that a picture of the team or the interlaced NY are appropriate in the sanctuary. This is an extreme example, of course. But I too am uncomfortable with the US flag in the sancuary–and I am pretty patriotic and certainly not “PC”. The flag strikes me as almost inherently and overt political symbol that does not belong on regular display in the santuary. I could see it being placed there for a specific mass, but not on a regular basis.

I am not, however, bothered by the Vatican flag because while it is the flag of sovereign (and foreign) state, it also contains the symbol of the papacy, to which we are all faithful.

 

[chicago]

Vox Borealis:

I am not, however, bothered by the Vatican flag because while it is the flag of sovereign (and foreign) state, it also contains the symbol of the papacy, to which we are all faithful.

The Vatican flag contains the dual symbolism of heaven and earth with the white and yellow parts. In a certain sense, I suppose that one could argue it is most appropriate in a Church (and even a sanctuary, then) as it is here that heaven and earth meet. Though, personally, I’d still feel a little uncomfortable with even that flag in the sanctuary as a norm.

 

[chicago]

Nathan Ael:

I hope I’m not a ‘malcontent’ for seeing the flag as a symbol of a nation that murders over one million human beings every year.

You’re not our of step Charlie there. I think that there are a lot of people, including myself (a quite patriotic person), who see the flag in this way. Indeed, I perceive the red stripes as representative of the blood which has been poured out through abortion under the herald of our flag in the name of the U.S.A.'s “Freedoms”. The flag will always represent this to me and I hope that meaning will never be lost upon future generations for it is a sad, but all too real, part of our history and tradition which must never be forgotten.

However, I also see the white in the flag as a symbol of hope. For the U.S. is a nation which has often enabled us, as a people, to strive for a greater good, and provided opportunity and possibility of overcoming evil and promoting human rights. It is this hope which I cling to, confident that I will see the day when we shall overcome the present trial.

 

[Nathan_Ael]

chicago:

You’re not our of step Charlie there. I think that there are a lot of people, including myself (a quite patriotic person), who see the flag in this way. Indeed, I perceive the red stripes as representative of the blood which has been poured out through abortion under the herald of our flag in the name of the U.S.A.'s “Freedoms”. The flag will always represent this to me and I hope that meaning will never be lost upon future generations for it is a sad, but all too real, part of our history and tradition which must never be forgotten.

However, I also see the white in the flag as a symbol of hope. For the U.S. is a nation which has often enabled us, as a people, to strive for a greater good, and provided opportunity and possibility of overcoming evil and promoting human rights. It is this hope which I cling to, confident that I will see the day when we shall overcome the present trial.

What a great post! Thank you for sharing.

God Bless, and peace.

 

[Dr.Bombay]

gnat:

I suppose you’re one of those ‘love it or leave it’ types Dr. Bombay?

No, hate it and stay. I don’t really care one way or the other.
gnat:

Those objects represent absolutely nothing controversial, while the US flag represents a variety of things, such as oppression and freedom. Not everyone sees the American flag as a glorious symbol like you do Dr. Bombay.

Really? You haven’t spent much time in contact with one of these progressive types infused with the “Spirit of Vatican II” have you? Nothing controversial about altar rails, statues and anything else that smacks of a peculiarly Catholic identity??? WOOOO, I could write a book.

I attend Mass every Sunday in a church that does not have flags in the sanctuary. It’s never bothered me and I’ve never felt inspired to agitate to have them placed there. Most of the churches in my diocese, however, do have flags.

I think some people take it to an extreme when they disparage the flag in church because abortion is legal in this nation. There’s nothing wrong with patriotism and to claim that honouring our country’s flag somehow detracts from our worship of God is an extremist position which has no foundation in Church teaching. Let’s not try to be more Catholic than the Pope.

I believe the Vicar of Christ, Pope Pius XI, drew the proper distinction between patriotism and wrongheaded “my country right or wrong” jingoism:

*“Patriotism - the stimulus of so many virtues and of so many noble acts of heroism when kept within the bounds of the law of Christ - becomes merely an occasion, an added incentive to grave injustice when true love of country is debased to the condition of an extreme nationalism, when we forget that all men are our brothers and members of the same great human family, that other nations have an equal right with us both to life and to prosperity, that it is never lawful nor even wise, to dissociate morality from the affairs of practical life, that, in the last analysis, it is “justice which exalteth a nation: but sin maketh nations miserable.” (Proverbs xiv, 34)” --**UBI ARCANO DEI CONSILIO, 1922

*To take the position, “Thank you, God, for not making me like these sinful fellow Americans” is modern day Phariseeism. Engage the culture and try to change it. Don’t lock yourself in your ivory tower and sneer at a nation going to hell in a hand basket.

 

[catholicanarchy]

U.S. Bishops’ statement on flags in churches:

www.ewtn.com/library/BISHOPS/ZFLAGS.HTM

While the bishops acknowledge that the decision is up to the local bishop, they encourage that flags NOT be placed in the sanctuary.

I am of the mind that the sanctuary is NO PLACE for national flags of any kind.

 

[rwoehmke]

Until we built our new church about 15 years ago the flags were in the sanctuary. Now they are in the gathering area on either side of the statue of our church’s patron saint. As far back as I can remember about 1940 the flags were in the sanctuary of every parish we belonged to. Perhaps the complaints of the “Know Nothings”. KKK, etc. have some basis in fact today, people who think it inappropriate to be Catholic and fervent Americans with a love of our adopted country. America until the 1850’s was basically a protestant country who saw Catholics as a threat to freedom. It took two world wars and than some to prove that Good Catholics are Good Americans. I suppose it is politically correct for our Bishops to prefer no flags in the sanctuary and be slow to admit that we have a pedophile problem in our priesthood. That has turned out to be a disservice to our priests, our Church, and our children. Shepherds?

 

[Chris_Jacobsen]

It’s an extremely good idea to keep an American flag (along with a Vatican flag) in the sanctuary during times of war.

This was extremely common during WWII. Some suggest that this tradition was begun in the US by ABp. Fulton J. Sheen – much to the irratation of Francis Cardinal Spellman (because he didn’t come up with it first.)

The flag reminds us at every Mass that our troups are at war and that both they and the enemy need our prayers. It’s very easy to forget for example that there is a war going on in Iraq. Many in fact already have here in the USA.

To blindly support war, including unjust war, is perhaps the very worst reason to keep a flag of any country in the sanctuary of a church. A flag in the sanctuary clearly shows that the clergy would gladly defy the laws of God in order to support the civil authorities in waging unjust war against helpless civilians in other countries.

In country after country the clergy have supported soldiers attacking Catholics other countries. Catholic priests and bishops in one country encourage Catholics to massacre Catholics in another country. And Catholic priests and bishops in the opposing countries do the same thing. Priests and bishops on each side claim that their side is just. Wave a flag in front of clergyman’s face and the clergyman cannot tell the difference between right and wrong. A flag makes the clergy despise the laws of God and to encourage Catholics to all kinds of evil against each other.

Can a Church whose leaders encourage its members to do such horrible things to each other be from God?

 

[catholicanarchy]

rwoehmke:

Until we built our new church about 15 years ago the flags were in the sanctuary. Now they are in the gathering area on either side of the statue of our church’s patron saint. As far back as I can remember about 1940 the flags were in the sanctuary of every parish we belonged to. Perhaps the complaints of the “Know Nothings”. KKK, etc. have some basis in fact today, people who think it inappropriate to be Catholic and fervent Americans with a love of our adopted country. America until the 1850’s was basically a protestant country who saw Catholics as a threat to freedom. It took two world wars and than some to prove that Good Catholics are Good Americans. I suppose it is politically correct for our Bishops to prefer no flags in the sanctuary and be slow to admit that we have a pedophile problem in our priesthood. That has turned out to be a disservice to our priests, our Church, and our children. Shepherds?

Connecting the “no flags in the sanctuary” statement w/ pedophelia cover-ups? Please…

 

[Melanie01]

I too was quite shocked when I went to a sunday service in a country town in New South Wales,and lo there was an Aussie flag, but no tabernacle to be seen. I thought I havd stumbled into a Baptist church by accident but no; there was a big sign outside claiming to ber St Joseph’s Church.

The sanctuary of a catholic church is dedicated to God not to mankind. Memorials can be located around the church but I personally thought this was zany.:yup:

 

[catholicanarchy]

When I was teaching religion at a Catholic high school, each morning the principal would come on the PA system and we’d all say the pledge of allegiance before we would even say an opening prayer. I think flags in the sanctuary are a similar abomination.