German Cardinal Marx inaugurating his new style altar in the Baroque Church of St. Lorenz…

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And it only cost about 285,000 dollars (they said the “restoration” in total cost 4 million–I’d hate to see what the rest went to…looks like it may have been to whitewash the ceiling ornamentation…).

I am convinced modern art is mostly an “Emperor’s New Clothes” style scam. I’m all about spending money on what is beautiful for God, but if we’re going to do something that looks cheap and ugly, we should get something cheap and give rest to the poor.

In any event, as St. Bernard put it, “what is the point of this ridiculous monstrosity, this shapely misshapenness, this misshapen shapeliness…Good Lord! If we aren’t embarrassed by the silliness of it all, shouldn’t we at least be disgusted by the expense?”
 
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Is it possible it represents, like… a local river? They’re going for some kind of ‘water of life’ symbolism, plus three sections to point to the Trinity?

Or do I just project meaning onto everything.
 
I rather like it. Yes, it’s not traditional…neither were traditional styles when they were first introduced. I think it’s clean and simple while being abstract. I would agree that people will either love it or hate it with very few in the middle…but art always does that.
 
Of course the German Church is incredibly wealthy… they’re swimming in cash. So I’m fine with them spending significant money on art… i just don’t see why this particular piece would be valued at nearly $300k.
 
I was going to point out that the money spent is a blip in the German church budget and then you basically wrote the same thing!

Is it worth it? Hard to say as worth is as much in the eye of the beholder as beauty is. To those that love it, it’s worth it. To those that don’t, of course it was a rediculous price! 🤷‍♀️
 
Price tag aside, I don’t dislike it, even though it reminds me a bit of Montreal’s crumbling infrastructure…

They’re presently dismantling the old Champlain Bridge in Montreal, they might have been able to find something very similar at a fraction of the cost from the detritus 🤣

Although the dismantling of the old bridge is no paragon of well-managed money either. It will apparently cost $400 MILLION to dismantle the old bridge.
 
Was just doing some settlement building last night. Beats the old, beat-up desks I usually have to use as an altar in the parishes I build.
 
Raxus said:
Not what I asked. Can you make one like that?
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No but I can probably track down someone in my diocese who can make an improved version:

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That’s the new altar at my diocese’s cathedral.

It’s supposed to represent a tomb opening up and revealing the Light:

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Now whether the sculptor who made it can do it cheaper than the one in Germany, I have no idea 😉
 
OraLabora said:
No but I can probably track down someone in my diocese who can make an improved version:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

That’s the new altar at my diocese’s cathedral.

It’s supposed to represent a tomb opening up and revealing the Light:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

Now whether the sculptor who made it can do it cheaper than the one in Germany, I have no idea 😉
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Okay, I’ll concede the point. That’s effing beautiful. (I still don’t mind the other one, but this is awesome in the tradition sense of the word.)
 
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Even a wooden table would be better than this monstrosity.
 
Raxus said:
Okay, I’ll concede the point. That’s effing beautiful. (I still don’t mind the other one, but this is awesome in the tradition sense of the word.)
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I must say I was surprised when I saw the pics on our diocese’s website. The weird thing is, I have never been to my diocese’s cathedral. By a quirk of geography, I live on the limit of the neighbouring diocese, and it’s cathedral is in the city where our Gregorian schola sings. So I’ve been to it numerous times. Although the neighbouring cathedral is 9 km farther, it’s on a 4-lane autoroute whereas my own dioceses’s cathedral takes at least 20 minutes more to reach on winding 2-lane roads that pass through numerous small towns in spite of the shorter distance.
 
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I’ve been to 5 of the 6 Catholic cathedrals in BC… the only one I’m missing is the cathedral of my original home diocese where I was first received into the Church… the cathedral is in a small out of the way town. The bishop and his Curia are now literally hours away in a bigger centre (Kelowna). Why the actual see hasn’t been transferred I do not know. Until it is, I suspect I shall always be one cathedral short of visiting all in the province.
 
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These modern altars look a bit silly surrounded by traditional trappings and I am guessing that when one of the young clerics of today’s generation who prefers traditional things gets to be old and in power, this stuff will go.

Having said that, did this new altar replace an old altar? Is there a picture of the old altar? I would rather have the new altar than some of the super plain tables I see going around. Except that the new altar reminds me of a great big piece of marshmallow nougat (the kind that used to come in the shiny cello wrap that almost looked like it was part of the candy) so it’s making me a bit hungry to look at it.
 
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