Church interiors reverting to traditional look

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I know of at least three in my area that were renovated and look more traddy now. Also two new ones that were built in a nice traddie style.

I’m all for it. 70s begone!

My parish was built in 1975, and while it is somewhat plain, it used to have truly gaudy and inappropriate material used. Literal orange carpeting on the walls. Naugahyde somewhere (says legend). So it’s better than it used to be, but I spend a fair bit of mental effort redecorating in my dream world.
 
It would have been hard to keep the sparkle painting there once they had removed the back wall. It’s nice that they just re-positioned it, and it gives you something pretty to look at as you exit.

I like the stone work behind the statues and the tabernacle.
 
Maybe over the high altar, in a sanctuary with closed gates? That would deter casual thieves.
 
Our parish moved from free standing cushy chairs & moveable pillows as kneelers in a cement-floored gym-type building… into a gorgeous church with vaulted ceilings, statues, stained glass, mosaics, and gold. I walked into it for the first time & my jaw hit the floor. It feels like a place where God lives. :pray:t2: Deo Gratias!
 
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I absolutely love that church’s renovation @Tis_Bearself! The stones behind the statues and tabernacle are such a nice touch! The glitter paint from before was definitely a product of it’s time, I’d say, very hippy dippy style!

My parent’s parish in West Chester had it’s sanctuary actually built from the ground up, except they went even LESS traditional which is such a shame. The original (albeit outdated) sanctuary was too small for a parish that size, so they made the sanctuary an auditorium or something for their school, and built a huge monstrosity of a building, which looks (I’m sorry to say) less like a church and more like an auditorium, concert hall, or some sort of business facility, especially with it’s nicely upholstered pews and kneelers! (photo below)

You’ll see they kept the nice wooden crucifix from the old sanctuary and all the statues, and did this contemporary interpretive stained glass to remind us all of the elements of the bread and wine…just isn’t enough though for a space that size , imho. :((Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
Hey I recognize that church. I used to have an apartment across the street from it 🙂 still go there a lot. I give it a B+ for architecture, B- for music, A- for homilies, A for pastor, A- for Mass times, and A+ for having Adoration 5 days out of the week (hope they can keep it up, COVID is making it hard). The stained glass in the Adoration chapel is great.

I’m sure you or your parents likely know right where the renovated church is too, since it is close by.
 
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Oh I agree, it’s gorgeous stained glass in there! It was in the original sanctuary, iirc.

Yes I think I know which church you originally posted about. 🙂 Years ago, I used to be a member of the Catholic young adults group in the main town… your church, mine, and the older one by the courthouse all had huuuge representation in it.

I’m being vague with names just for identification purposes. 🙂
 
I mostly split my time between the courthouse one and the one you posted. But there are three more and the Newman Center within a short distance and I’ve been to them all, plus about 7 or 8 more to the south and a half dozen more to the east, and four more to the west. We sure got enough Catholic churches around here…and almost none of them have a daily Mass after 9 am!

Even if I just want a noon Mass on a weekday I need to drive 15 miles north. I used to drive 15 miles south to Joe Biden’s parish, but they’ve cancelled noon Mass since the COVID reopening because they had too many weddings and funerals and confirmation and first communion, etc to catch up on and not enough people to clean the church, or so they said.
 
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Ours is off to the side.The Adoration Chapel is on the other side of the wall where the Tabernacle is.
 
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Episcopalian said:
I absolutely love that church’s renovation @Tis_Bearself! The stones behind the statues and tabernacle are such a nice touch! The glitter paint from before was definitely a product of it’s time, I’d say, very hippy dippy style!

My parent’s parish in West Chester had it’s sanctuary actually built from the ground up, except they went even LESS traditional which is such a shame. The original (albeit outdated) sanctuary was too small for a parish that size, so they made the sanctuary an auditorium or something for their school, and built a huge monstrosity of a building, which looks (I’m sorry to say) less like a church and more like an auditorium, concert hall, or some sort of business facility, especially with it’s nicely upholstered pews and kneelers! (photo below)

You’ll see they kept the nice wooden crucifix from the old sanctuary and all the statues, and did this contemporary interpretive stained glass to remind us all of the elements of the bread and wine…just isn’t enough though for a space that size , imho. :((Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
Click to expand...
The thing about churches like this is that the attention is drawn to all the elements on the ceiling. So I see a lot of the expanses of natural brown wood, those enormous white beams, those lighting fixtures which look disproportionately small and also look like residential fixtures. Crucifix, altar, all the ecclesiastical elements seem completely dwarfed. IMO
 
Here, they would have to rip out a half acre of carpeting, and a ton of sheet rock for starters.

I wonder what will become of all the grim, levitating statuary (with molded-in tooling marks) should this trend continue.
 
This is too much for me. And that is just the altar.
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Shakuhachi said:
This is too much for me. And that is just the altar.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
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It looks a little out of proportion maybe, like the altar is a bit too tall for that niche sanctuary. The carpet needs to go as well. But I bet it’s nicer than whatever was there before. Do you have a “before” photo?
 
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