Modern Churches

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Maybe it’s the architects of the period and not only the Churches either. Look at the newer buildings in New York, for example. Look at the World Trade Center towers. Were they anywhere in the style of the Empire State Building or the Chrysler Building? What about the ballparks built in the 70’s and now have been replaced by more traditional ballparks each with some more distinguishing features and personalities? The newer Churches, many of them in the suburban areas, do seem more modernistic in style, but there again, the schools of architecture have been influenced by modernism as well.
 
You can’t beat Gothic: The Dom Cathedral IN Koln france: Case in point. It took 400 years to complete! :eek:
 
You are 100 pct correct in your obsevations, Warrenton.
Beauty in the eye of the beholder ? OK then, my throwing buckets of paint at the wall creates a more beautiful piece of artwork than a Rembrant or DaVinci.
 
Seamus_L said:
You are 100 pct correct in your obsevations, Warrenton.
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                                 Beauty in the eye of the beholder ? OK then, my throwing buckets of paint at the wall creates a more beautiful piece of artwork than a Rembrant or DaVinci.
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:rotfl:
 
Seamus_L said:
You are 100 pct correct in your obsevations, Warrenton.
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                                 Beauty in the eye of the beholder ? OK then, my throwing buckets of paint at the wall creates a more beautiful piece of artwork than a Rembrant or DaVinci.
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Another very weak argument.

Yes some think the Modernist movement in art surpasses Rembrandt and DaVinci.

Personally I do not think so but there are a lot of art critics who disagree with us.
 
The new cathedral in Los Angeles, Our Lady Of The Angels is the ugliest thing I have ever seen. Behind the altar is a huge tapestry of ----a --map—of----Los Angeles! Yey! yey! yey! That is really showing honor to our Lord. Not really. The cathedral is more like a amphitheater than a church and is all monotone beige. Boring and huge. On the other hand, the new parish church of Mission Basilica San Juan Capistrano, was built in 1986. The church is designed after the church was destroyed by the great earthquake of 1812. The ruins of the Great Stone Church are located on the Historic Mission grounds, and are open for tourists. The new basilica is gorgeous, built in the old Spanish mission style. The beauty of the church seems to encourage prayer.

olacathedral.org/
missionparish.org
 
aurora_borealis said:
The new cathedral in Los Angeles, Our Lady Of The Angels is the ugliest thing I have ever seen. Behind the altar is a huge tapestry of ----a --map—of----Los Angeles! Yey! yey! yey! That is really showing honor to our Lord. Not really. The cathedral is more like a amphitheater than a church and is all monotone beige. Boring and huge. On the other hand, the new parish church of Mission Basilica San Juan Capistrano, was built in 1986. The church is designed after the church was destroyed by the great earthquake of 1812. The ruins of the Great Stone Church are located on the Historic Mission grounds, and are open for tourists. The new basilica is gorgeous, built in the old Spanish mission style. The beauty of the church seems to encourage prayer.

olacathedral.org/
missionparish.org
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lol I actually like the design of the Cathedral in LA 🤷
 
aurora_borealis said:
The new cathedral in Los Angeles, Our Lady Of The Angels is the ugliest thing I have ever seen. Behind the altar is a huge tapestry of ----a --map—of----Los Angeles! Yey! yey! yey! That is really showing honor to our Lord. Not really. The cathedral is more like a amphitheater than a church and is all monotone beige. Boring and huge.
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Well, when the funding comes from prominent people like Bob Hope, Robert Murdoch, and Roy Disney, do you really expect high altars to be built there?

And as to beauty being in the eyes of the beholder, may I suggest some heavy prescription glasses for some of these folk who adore these modern churches?
 
ProVobis said:
Well, when the funding comes from prominent people like Bob Hope, Robert Murdoch, and Roy Disney, do you really expect high altars to be built there?

And as to beauty being in the eyes of the beholder, may I suggest some heavy prescription glasses for some of these folk who adore these modern churches?
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So you denigrate people who disagree with your opinion.

:eek:I find that hard to believe that this is happening in this subforum.🤷

What ever happened to stating your opinion and leaving others with their opinions rather than attacking them for not agreeing with you?
 
ByzCath said:
Yes some think the Modernist movement in art surpasses Rembrandt and DaVinci.

Personally I do not think so but there are a lot of art critics who disagree with us.
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This argument is frustrating and amounts to a passive resistance. I have been puzzling over how to meet it without being overly confrontational, which is the best way to meet passive resistance. I have come up with two ideas.

The first is “procedural.” We are debating ugly churches: but you say there are none because ugly and beauty are totally subjective and hence cannot be defined. While I question whether you really believe this, based on your response to my suggestion for a new crucifix in your church, let’s assume you really do look with a benign equanimity on everything that passes your eyes.

Given your refusal to define beautiful and ugly, you just don’t have a dog in this fight. You despaired of the debate before it began. If it is all the same to you whether we set up fourteen fire hydrants and call them stations of the cross, or whether we get Albrecht Durer to carve them in wood, why debate at all? What can you add?

The second is substantive. Given your identification as a Byzantine, I sought a response “beyond the pale.” Lo and behold, a star has indeed risen in the east! Let us see what the great seer Tolstoy says.

Tolstoy critisizes the idea as unchristian that art is simply for pleasure. He states that the old Orthodox still believe in art as a mediium of communication, not pleasure. This seems promising, da?

All art, says Leo T, is communicative, and to the extent that it communicates its message, we can call it “good.” Do modern churches, communicate? They do. In arranging things in a circular pattern, they say that the gathered people are more important than the sacrifice of holy mass. In their mishapen crucifixes, they say that the passion is obscure. In their hidden tabernacles, they say that the Blessed Sacrament is unimportant. In their non-existent or minimalist stations, they say the via crucis is a legend. In their complete departure from tradition, they say the faith of our ancestors is unimportant, a myth, to be discarded. We could go on, but you get the drift.

So, according to Tolstoy, you are right, the modern churches are “good art.” Indeed, they communicate quite volubly, which enables me and other Catholics to hate them. Can their message be squared with Catholicism? No, the message is anti Catholic, heretical, and blasphemous.

Thus, to Tolstoy, these modern churches, while good art, are also blasphemous and unChristian. The elegance of Tolstoy’s argument is that we don’t need to delve into subjectivity at all.

The modern churches are simply very good anti Catholic art.
 
aurora_borealis said:
The new cathedral in Los Angeles, Our Lady Of The Angels is the ugliest thing I have ever seen.
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I read with interest the links you provided. I was surprised that the archdiocese could print such self contradictory lies in their literature about the cathedral. On example suffices: it is said the cathedral adopts no ethnic style, then it says a few lines later the color immitates native Mexican adobe. Obviously, the writers either think the reader too stupid to remember what was written two or three lines previously, or the writer just doesn’t care what we think.

It also says the thing is designed to last 500 years. Hopefully, this is also a lie, and it will be gone well before then. As I have written, I think the faithful will destroy these things well before then.

The basilica, on the other hand, proves the point. We can build churches just as inspiring as ever, when we put our minds and hearts to it. Deo Gratia!
 
hxcCatholic413 said:
Does anyone here like the Sagrada Familia Basilica in Barcelona?
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Yes, I like Sagrada Familia. Why? Because it is a cathedral, and follows the form of a cathedral. It is recognizable as such. In contrast, I vehemently deny the assertion that anywhere a bishop sits, there a cathedral be.

If that definition applies, then many unsavory places are, ipso facto, cathedrals.

Compare the LA thing to Sagrada Familia. The differences would be apparent to a child.
 
ByzCath said:
So you denigrate people who disagree with your opinion.
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Traditional Catholics perceive the design of a church to be deeply sacramental; it is a statement of faith. What you call denigration is a reply to what these Catholics see as an assault on the faith, just as much as if someone denied the efficacy of prayers to the Mother of God, or denied the primacy of St. Peter.

In other words, it is not a debate over “mere opinion,” but a debate on a matter of the faith.

If I fail to convince, then I hope at least to make the issue at least intelligible.
 
Oneofthewomen said:
I have been thinking about the churches that are within a 10 mile radius of my home. There are many,(at least 20 off the top of my head)
and they run the gamut from gothic style to ultra-modern,
albeit,* “modern”* in the 1960’s-70’s style.😛

My diocese has also renovated (or* “wreckovated”*, as some in my community say)
quite a few parishes, as well as the Cathedral, to very mixed reviews.

We have a few churches, that are very old, and were once the center of ethnic neighborhoods in my city, that are full of what I call (affectionately 😉 *),“Catholic eye-candy”, *the beautiful side altars, carved wood, lots of marble, frescoes, beautiful stained glass.

Most are what I would call *“simply Catholic”, *modest in decoration, a couple of stautes, usually a tabernacle behind the altar, a prominent crucifix.

And then there are a few that are, IMHO, just plain awful. Usually done in “the round” or some variation, modern style crucifix done in the abstract style, giant “jacuzzi style” baptismal fonts and fonts with waterfalls set up for the Easter season!:eek:

And as I thought of all of them, The one church I dislike the most, as far as architecture, and that even I find to be not very orthodox in it’s liturgy or leadership
(which is saying something! 😉 I am far from what most on this sub-forum would consider orthodox, but I am starting to see the error of my ways!😛 )
is the only one that has Perpetual Adoration! :hmmm: :whistle:
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Judging from your comment about the “wreakovation” of the cathedral and you being from Western NY, I can only assume you’re from Rochester. Join the club, I was too young at the time of the renovation to really know what was going on aside from the fact that it was being renovated, but now, I look at the before and after pics and feel like crying at how awful the new cathedral looks.
 
Warrenton said:
What you call denigration is a reply to what these Catholics see as an assault on the faith, just as much as if someone denied the efficacy of prayers to the Mother of God, or denied the primacy of St. Peter.
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Denigrating one’s opinion when it is at variance with your own is hardly the same as denying the Communion of Saints or the position of the Bishop of Rome.

This is the quote in question: “*And as to beauty being in the eyes of the beholder, may I suggest some heavy prescription glasses for some of these folk who adore these modern churches?”
*

This is a response to an assault on the faith?
Warrenton said:
In other words, it is not a debate over “mere opinion,” but a debate on a matter of the faith.
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Actually, it is. To denigrate someone’s opinion because they do not hold the same as you is childish and the antithesis of being intellectual.
Warrenton said:
If I fail to convince, then I hope at least to make the issue at least intelligible.
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Fail.
 
Timothysis said:
Denigrating one’s opinion when it is at variance with your own is hardly the same as denying the Communion of Saints or the position of the Bishop of Rome.

This is the quote in question: “*And as to beauty being in the eyes of the beholder, may I suggest some heavy prescription glasses for some of these folk who adore these modern churches?”
*

This is a response to an assault on the faith?

Actually, it is. To denigrate someone’s opinion because they do not hold the same as you is childish and the antithesis of being intellectual.

Fail.
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Amen!

Not only it is a Fail, it shows a lack of maturity and the weakness of one’s own opinion when the only way for you to feel good is to personally attack a person because their opinion is different from yours.

As for this being a “matter of faith”, that is another opinion that is not fact as the Church does not Teach this. Trying to raise a personal opinion to a dogma is very wrong.
 
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