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triumphguy
Guest
I disagree. I believe we have an inate aesthetic sense. We don’t need to learn what beauty is, why know what beauty is - unless we have it beaten out of us by living in brutal landscapes like the one above.
We are always yearning for the true, the beautiful and the good.
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i_am_a_Catholic
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The fact that people find wrong things as beautiful and attractive is a result of the fall. That being said, the point here is that beauty is not relative. In the philosophical sense, for something to be beautiful, it has to reveal the ontology of it.
What you are suggesting here is that we reduce beauty to an emotional whim of what we feel as beautiful. Such a position is not reasonable.
So in short, the concept of beauty doesn’t need to be beaten out. It might just be distorted for most of us. Hence why people yearn for the wrong things as beautiful. Secondly, beauty is an objective thing. It is not a completely subjective enterprise of the mind.
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triumphguy
Guest
No, you are interpreting what I said as a suggestion that we “reduce beauty to an emotional whim of what we feel as beautiful.” You really shouldn’t put words in my mouth (or ink in my pen or whatever)
Somethings are de facto beautiful, in and of themselves because they are apt, appropriate, perfectly suited, and not whimsical at all.
I’ll give some examples:
- A mother’s smile as she breast feeds her baby.
- A baby’s smile as it sees it’s mother.
- The proportions of an athlete’s body (male or female) (I’m talking beauty here, not sexy!)
- A plate of fresh well presented healthy food.
- A sunrise.
- A view of a wide and varied panorama of nature.
- The smile of a young woman about to be married.
- A field of wheat or barley in the sunlight.
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i_am_a_Catholic
Guest
So what exactly is your point? Perhaps it is good at this point for you to ask why those things are actually beautiful. Some thought will make you realize that they are beautiful because they bring about the ontology of the object/person.
A mother’s smile as breast feeds for an example brings about the ontological truth of a woman (motherhood and the joy of it). I am not going to go through all the examples now but I think you get the point.
So as far as it is needed for this discussion, a church too has an ontological truth it must convey. Beauty of a church is measured in how well it meets that standard. Oh and then there are churches that don’t even care of meeting that standard and are therefore not worthy of being called a church. But again, it all comes down to conveying the truth about itself.
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TimothyH
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triumphguy
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Nice one!
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triumphguy
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In your own words could you explain to me what you think “bring about the ontology of the object/person” means?
and then show me how that is different from what I just said
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Cat
Guest
Thank you for re-reading my post.
Yes, we’re getting there. And I do appreciate what other posters are saying about the “luxury” to watch a video. I’ve been in and out of work and my house for the last week. My husband and I haven’t watched an entire television show in over a week because we haven’t had time. So watching a video on a computer is something that will have to wait until who knows when. Sorry. But I have heard presentations in my parish about “church architecture,” and believe it or not, we talked about the topic in our RCIA classes.
I’m not even talking about “preference” so much as “emotional response.”
As I said in my first post, when I see some of the older churches which are crowded (IMO) with every form of visual aid, including scupture, paintings, murals, and various architectural details (molding, various woods and surfaces, ceiling texture, etc.), I find myself feeling distracted. It’s all too much. I feel like I’m in some kind of museum or theater. It’s busy and cluttered and it makes me “nervous” and crabby. Just too much stuff!
OTOH, when I am in my parish church, which was built in 1972 and consists primarily of bricks and wood with only a few pieces of very pretty sculture, and only one painting (also the Stations, of course), I feel calm. I’m able to concentrate entirely on the Lord and the Liturgy, and I’m not distracted in every direction by artwork and architecture. The lines of the building draw me to Jesus.
I do realize that in many of the older churches, the members who have passed on made donations of the various pieces of art, and I always try to think about this when I am in one of those churches.
Now you might say, “Don’t feel distracted! Bring your thinking into line with Church thinking!”
First of all, I don’t think the Church has made dogmatic statement dictating the “moral and spiritual” correctness of certain architecture. This is not a “Precept of the Church” that we must accept in order to be Catholic and have a hope of heaven. Am I correct? The good man who made the video is just a good man, right? He is not a Pope, correct? He’s just another good Catholic man presenting a viewpoint for our perusal, but it is not Official Church Dogma, is it?
Second, our “feelings” are extremely difficult to “bring into line.” Feelings have various physical and emotional manifestations that are almost like a reflex because they are deeply rooted in our genetics, physiology (e.g., how much myelin is coating our nerve ends, our hormonal state, especially in women, etc.), family background, life experiences, culture, etc.
Think about those people who experience same-sex attraction. Some of them go through extensive “training” to change these feelings, and in some cases, it works. But for many, the same-sex attraction is there even after years of therapy.
Think about children. When we tel a child to not be afraid, the child won’t stop being afraid. His stomach will still be turning cartwheels and his hands may tremble, and he may be hyperventilating a little.
**We can control our behavior, but not necessarily our feelings. **
In the case of the person with same-sex attraction, they may not be able to expunge their feelings, but they can choose to control their REACTION to those feelings, and make certain decisions about their behavior. They can choose to not act on their feelings and remain celibate.
In the case of the child, if a child is told by someone they trust to not be afraid, the child may still be afraid and manifest the physical symptoms that I mentioned above, but the child can choose to march right into the scary situation, speak up in a bold voice, smile, and do the activity that is making them afraid.
In the same way, when I enter a “busy” church, I may not be able to control my feelings about the situation, but I can do several things with my behavior. I can think about all the good people who have passed on who donated the various pieces in the church, and I can pray for the repose of their souls and for their families. I can close my eyes during the prayers and especially the Liturgy of the Eucharist. I can take notes on the homily so that I am not looking all around and getting distracted. I can fix my gaze on the crucifix and meditate upon it, or if the crucifix is distracting because of its design, I can take out my own Rosary and meditate upon the crucifix.
BTW, I would not consider any pornography “art.” There is “erotic” art, but eroticism is not pornography. Again, everyone will have a different emotional reaction to erotic art–some will be physically repelled by it, while others will think of God and His creation when they see erotic art. Again, we’re not talking preference, we’re talking “feelings.”
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i_am_a_Catholic
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Well, I am not even sure what the purpose of this discussion is. If you agree with me, then that’s good.In your own words could you explain to me what you think “bring about the ontology of the object/person” means?
and then show me how that is different from what I just said
As long as you are in agreement on what I say about a church needing to be a church for it to be beautiful, and that this said criteria are OBJECTIVE, its all good.
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i_am_a_Catholic
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Well, it is also worth noting that the emotional response by itself means nothing. Emotions must follow reason. In the event that it does not, it should be put aside.
One could say that you have not come to appreciate the expressiveness of these objects. You have come to the church for a silent time. That is only part of what a church must be. If you want to have a completely desolate place, then that is what you would have to seek.
But again, if the church is too crammed, then it is a failure in terms of conveying its ontology as well. So your complaint is once again not merely an emotional response. It is a valid reaction to an objective problem with the church.
What I disagree with you is on the point of elevating emotional response by itself to being anything worthwhile, even when it might lack an objective foundation. That I think is not acceptable.
I am honestly not sure I can evaluate the church you said just by its description. Maybe worth mentioning is that if you don’t what something is for, then you can’t appreciate it. If you see flowers and decorations in a church during a feast, if you don’t know why its there, you might think its a distraction or a facade. And you will be wrong.
So I think what needs to take place is for Catholics to rediscover the meaning behind the objects in the church.
So what do you suggest here? The Theology behind the ideas are sound. So unless you want to appeal to being unreasonable, I am not quiet sure what your point is.
My doctor is not the Pope. But when he makes a claim of reason, based on prior established facts, then I accept. Same with a Theologian. When he makes a claim from prior established doctrine, then it is accepted.
Feelings can be brought in to line. It’s difficult does not mean its impossible.
This just means that it is a life long struggle for some.
Again, ones feelings must be subject to REASON. It takes discipline and practice but it can be done and it must be done. Otherwise its like saying, its ok to feel sexually attracted to children but just don’t react on it.
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RogerDeCourcy
Guest
A Catholic church has become a symbol in itself. People have expectations as to what one should look like. When filmmakers want to show a Catholic church, they don’t usually go for the modern sort.
Modern architects, I would guess, get no kudos from designing one like that. Much better to make it look a like a Tudor ship or a flying saucer. Looks better on the CV!
IMHO, It’s a dumb move to mess with a successful formula. Use traditional ideas so the church can teach people just from what it looks like and what’s in it.
Modern architects, I would guess, get no kudos from designing one like that. Much better to make it look a like a Tudor ship or a flying saucer. Looks better on the CV!
IMHO, It’s a dumb move to mess with a successful formula. Use traditional ideas so the church can teach people just from what it looks like and what’s in it.
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OraLabora
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There is no reason why modern architecture can’t fit the traditional design of a church. However you have to also keep in mind that some things in a “traditional” Catholic church are now redundant (I’m not talking communion rails here).
A good example is in the monastic design of churches. Prior to Vatican II concelebration was not possible at the conventual Mass. So the conventual chapel was designed with many alcoves to house side altars, where the priests who weren’t the main celebrant that day, would offer their daily (obligatory) private Mass. There could be many Masses going on at the same time.
All Benedictines and Cistercians are 100% faithful to the Holy Father. Most therefore now celebrate the OF Mass. There are a few exceptions… monasteries that came back into communion, monasteries who have permission to celebrate the EF… but the vast majority celebrate the OF.
In the OF, concelebration is allowed and therefore the priest-monks concelebrate at every Mass, fulfilling their daily obligation to celebrate Mass. As such, the monastery’s church no longer requires all those alcoves for side altars, and any monastery church built after Vatican II is unlikely to have them. That is evident in the OP’s Cistercian chapel. It would be architecturally redundant, and liturgically redundant, and add unnecessary expense, to design a modern abbey church with the alcoves. The two modern abbey churches I posted don’t have them.
On the other hand having the tabernacle in a side chapel is in fact part of the Benedictine heritage that is still relevant today, so the churches have tabernacles in side chapels.
Since the traditions of the church are dynamic and fluid, the architecture has to follow suit to remain relevant.
But there is still ample room to make a church look like a church, and look like a church attached to a particular tradition (e.g. monastery). A monastery church will by necessity be plain, and likely made with local materials (local granite features in the abbey I’m associated with), and will feature few decorations and statues. For example at ours, there is a statue of the BVM with child, one of St. Benedict, and another of his sister St. Scholastica. That’s it. Local flowers and plants are used to decorate the sanctuary. To suggest that a monastery church be made to look like a parish Church of 500 years ago, or even to look like a monastery church from 500 years ago, is folly. For one thing, the cost to build something like this 11th century cloister with all the intricate details would be prohibitive today:
Instead we build cloisters that look like this:
or like this:
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i_am_a_Catholic
Guest
I think everyone agrees that there is a place for all architecture, both modern or ancient, eastern or Western.
The important point here is that there are certain unchanging aspects about what it means for a Church to be a Church. That cannot change with time and these standards must be adhered to in all generations, times and places. The same standards would provide for the scale of measuring the relative beauty between churches.
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OraLabora
Guest
OK so let’s be objective: what are these standards? Many have posted pictures of various modern and not-so-modern churches here, with those standards in hand we could better critique them.
Here’s a… well it’s hard to say “modern” since it was started in 1882… church that I find absolutely hideous:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sagrada_Familia_01.jpg
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i_am_a_Catholic
Guest
The standards were mentioned in the video. Church has to foreshadow heaven i.e. by expressing heavenly and spiritual realities (watch video for more information).
As for the church in that picture, I have only seen it from the outside and it seems incomplete. Looking at what the complete model is to look like
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Sagradafamilia-model_background_adj.jpg
it does seem to be identifiable clearly as a church.
Anyway, are you trying to say that there are no objective standards? Have you seen the video?
EDIT: The reason why I posted those videos was exactly because they gave objective standards for discussion. Nearly every discussion seems to be otherwise arbitrary and some even think that it is just how it is. What that video gives are objective things to look for in a church and show that it is an objective exercise rather than a purely subjective issue dependent on the need of the congregation.
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triumphguy
Guest
You were telling me I was wrong
I think we agree with each other…
However, I’m also saying that the appreciation of beauty is innate to human.
Beauty, not fashions. All cultures have (used to have) their own ideas about what was fashionable (see 1970’s clothes
), but we retain the same idea of what beauty is.
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nordskoven
Guest
With all due respect this Texas Cistercian chapel doesn’t get it right and prima facie evidence is the un-modern upholstered chairs for the priest and altar servers. Every schlub who rips a hip off on those hard-edged corners should sue the architect. It is, in short, inhuman and not viable to stable a donkey for all the pokey edges.
I suggest the fundamental misfire in analyzing modern church architecture comes in not recognizing Gnostic elements actively incorporated with the congnoscenti hiding their bogus theology in plain sight, tweaking the noses of the masses at Mass. Pat Peterson, Kansas City conservative activist, first noted this to me and I have indeed seen this in many places in the Kansas City metro area.
Gnostics are gnow-it-alls, claiming insider knowledge that contradicts all God has revealed about His nature and His will to the Chosen People and their spiritual heirs. Gnostics includes Freemasons and derivatives like Mormonism. Gnostics represent a kind of Babylonian Mystery Religion which is generally just the active contravention of orthodox revelation.
Gnostics claim Jesus wasn’t crucified, but a ringer was killed in His place. So Gnostic art and architecture can have visually decapitated crucifixes, or ones with another head like Salvador Dali’s crucifixion painting with his noggin, not Christ’s. Visually this is accomplished at Kansas City’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception with the new-ish glassed in “cry room” opposite the entry with the Franciscan crucifix having the head visually cut off by a beam. Low beams and ceilings instead of vaulting interiors are themselves Gnosticky.
Twin pillars seen in front of Masonic Temples symbolize Gnostic duality, good and evil, not evil being the absence of good, a reactionary void. This duality is seen in twin zones or panels behind the altar, and the offset crucifixes showing up in relatively recent remodels or newly-built churches. The offset crucifix, with the opposite wall being a visual blank suggestive of another “force” paralleling the importance of Christ, can be seen at the chapel of the Little Sisters of the Poor nursing home in Independence, Missouri; and in the side chapel of the Holy Spirit church in nearby Overland Park, Kansas. St. Mary’s Catholic church in Independence has twin panels behind the altar, with the crucifix in one and a woven half-arc, monotone rainbow in the other and includes a low-beam addition that induces claustrophobia.
The priest/presider’s chair beside altars in post-Vatican II remodels will often be on the order of the ponderous Grand Master’s throne present in Freemasonry Lodges. These are generally so out of proportion as to be gasp-inducing.
I suggest the fundamental misfire in analyzing modern church architecture comes in not recognizing Gnostic elements actively incorporated with the congnoscenti hiding their bogus theology in plain sight, tweaking the noses of the masses at Mass. Pat Peterson, Kansas City conservative activist, first noted this to me and I have indeed seen this in many places in the Kansas City metro area.
Gnostics are gnow-it-alls, claiming insider knowledge that contradicts all God has revealed about His nature and His will to the Chosen People and their spiritual heirs. Gnostics includes Freemasons and derivatives like Mormonism. Gnostics represent a kind of Babylonian Mystery Religion which is generally just the active contravention of orthodox revelation.
Gnostics claim Jesus wasn’t crucified, but a ringer was killed in His place. So Gnostic art and architecture can have visually decapitated crucifixes, or ones with another head like Salvador Dali’s crucifixion painting with his noggin, not Christ’s. Visually this is accomplished at Kansas City’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception with the new-ish glassed in “cry room” opposite the entry with the Franciscan crucifix having the head visually cut off by a beam. Low beams and ceilings instead of vaulting interiors are themselves Gnosticky.
Twin pillars seen in front of Masonic Temples symbolize Gnostic duality, good and evil, not evil being the absence of good, a reactionary void. This duality is seen in twin zones or panels behind the altar, and the offset crucifixes showing up in relatively recent remodels or newly-built churches. The offset crucifix, with the opposite wall being a visual blank suggestive of another “force” paralleling the importance of Christ, can be seen at the chapel of the Little Sisters of the Poor nursing home in Independence, Missouri; and in the side chapel of the Holy Spirit church in nearby Overland Park, Kansas. St. Mary’s Catholic church in Independence has twin panels behind the altar, with the crucifix in one and a woven half-arc, monotone rainbow in the other and includes a low-beam addition that induces claustrophobia.
The priest/presider’s chair beside altars in post-Vatican II remodels will often be on the order of the ponderous Grand Master’s throne present in Freemasonry Lodges. These are generally so out of proportion as to be gasp-inducing.
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robertericleech
Guest
Is that the guy who thinks the Denver Airport is a Satanic temple?
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OraLabora
Guest
I got through more than half the video but stopped. To be honest I found it a bit tedious. It’s one man’s opinion and attempt at setting objective standards, but he seems to get into a level of detail that is beyond what the average person in the pews will notice or care about.
And with respect, getting all those details “right” IMHO isn’t what makes a place seem holy. For me they are in fact a distraction. So again we get down to what I said at the start, this is a very subjective issue. And you can’t divorce the emotional response from the supposedly “objective” elements that Dr. McNamara mentions in his video.
As a student of Benedictine spirituality, I find overly-decorated churches, even older traditional ones, often a distraction that prevents me from entering into the right contemplative mindset. The fact that many monastic churches avoid those distractions makes me suppose that I might not be alone in feeling this way.
It’s hard to describe the feeling… but I would say that the best description is that the church imparts a sense of stillness, a place that calms, soothes, seems safe, and gives us a sense of God’s embrace. Many of the artistic depictions in the video are supposed to give us a sense of being in heaven; but in fact to me they are simply man’s depiction of what his imagination thinks heaven might look like. The fact is that we do not know. God is so much greater, and heaven more beautiful than the limits of our earthly depictions. These depictions send my gaze outwards, instead of focusing it inwards, and inwards is where true conversion exists and where, on this mortal coil, we can meet and sense God at work in us.
A couple of years ago, I had the good fortune of visiting the monastery at Montserrat, near Barcelona. The monastery is a national monument; they have a world-famous boy’s choir and it is a major tourist destination. Watching the monks perform the liturgy I felt profoundly sorry for them, it was like watching goldfish in an aquarium, they were on display. I wondered how that fit with Benedictine spirituality. I was with a group of oblates and we were invited into the monastic enclosure. There was a palpable sense of stillness and peace, and I wasn’t the only one that felt it. The decor was plain and simple. I understood then how the monks “survived”. They created the necessary stillness within their enclosure. For a monk, that sense of stillness of the place contributes to the stillness of the soul, a deep requirement for the vow of obedience, stability and inner conversion.
I find it hard to worship in a church that doesn’t capture that sense of stillness, of deep silence, and of minimal distraction. Most parish churches no matter how beautiful take it down a notch, and the more ornate the church the less at ease I am.
On that same trip I visited a monastery in France, that had its conventual chapel temporarily moved to the old chapter room while the abbey church was undergoing renovations.
Here, in Montserrat, I could not get settled down at Mass or the Offices:
Yet here at the temporary abbey chapel, I felt that stillness that characterizes an abbey church:
Another church, very ancient and simple (and no longer Catholic) that did give me that sense of stillness and separation from the worldly (and it’s a parish church too…)
Getting back to the Cistercian church in the OP, two people here have said they dislike it, one purportedly a student of Dr. McNamara’s viewpoint. An architect loved it. Presumably, for the monks, it works for them. It matches their spirituality and fits their liturgy.
So in a sense I guess I’m saying that I disagree with you; church architecture is subjective beyond having the basic form of a church (I’m not talking about a glorified hotel conference room-style church here) and for me the only thing required of a church, architecturally, is harmony and keeping the basic form and layout of a church (sanctuary, choir, nave, etc.); but when you get down to the level of detail that Dr. McNamara does… well it makes for interesting study, but is thoroughly subjective in its ability to instill a sense of the presence of God in someone… simply because it would appear it does in you, and that it has the complete opposite effect in me, because no doubt we are attached to different traditions within the same Church.
And that’s the beauty of Catholicism… it embraces all of those traditions and charisms under a single roof rather than forcing a split into a new Church. So in fact neither you, nor I, am correct. I have migrated to a spirituality that works for me, and you, towards one that works for you. This rather makes arguing the issue pointless. We can only state what moves us and why. It is therefore subjective.
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