What should a Catholic church look like?

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Jubilate_Deo

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NB: Please keep in mind that I am playing the devil’s advocate in this post and I do not actually subscribe to the following line of thought, for I am doing this for the sake of learning more about the beauty of the Church. The questions are four-fold.

1.In the context of the liturgy, why must the aesthetics of a given Catholic church (i.e. architecture, artwork, altar, tabernacle location, etc.), look a certain way?
  1. If it must look a certain way, what standards should one follow in building a Catholic church?
  2. Furthermore, can’t we just as easily worship Jesus Christ on the altar in something like the Crystal Cathedral as one could in a gothic or romanesque church?
  3. After all, isn’t the overall focus supposed to be centered on what happens between those assisting at Mass and God who is made present in sacrament of the Eucharist?
Thank you!
 
Jubilate_Deo said:
NB: Please keep in mind that I am playing the devil’s advocate in this post and I do not actually subscribe to the following line of thought, for I am doing this for the sake of learning more about the beauty of the Church. The questions are four-fold.

1.In the context of the liturgy, why must the aesthetics of a given Catholic church (i.e. architecture, artwork, altar, tabernacle location, etc.), look a certain way?
  1. If it must look a certain way, what standards should one follow in building a Catholic church?
  2. Furthermore, can’t we just as easily worship Jesus Christ on the altar in something like the Crystal Cathedral as one could in a gothic or romanesque church?
  3. After all, isn’t the overall focus supposed to be centered on what happens between those assisting at Mass and God who is made present in sacrament of the Eucharist?
Thank you!
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1.) They need not look a certain way but there are specific parameters that must be followed.

2.) It all depends on the individual situation. Here in California, the California Mission Style is very appropriate for just about any church. Even the Mormons use it. It would not be so appropriate in say Vermont in most cases.

3.) Absolutely.

4.) Yes.
 
I think that the building should be as grand as the Parish can afford so as to give greater glory to God. Does God expect that? The first Holy of Holies that contained the Arc of the Covenant was a Tent.

Permission has been granted for the Diocese to purchase the Crystal Cathedral, I think for $54 million. WOW!!!
 
In my opinion, when we build (or buy and remodel) a church building we should be focused on making it a beautiful sacred space, a worthy place for the sacrifice of the mass and the reservation of the Eucharist. As soon as we start thinking about expressing our own culture or being creative, original, modern, etc. we end up creating something that expresses our own human brokenness instead of something sacred. Try to build a great church to honor God and your natural creativity will flow; try to be creative in building a church to honor your natural self and you will most likely create a monstrosity.
 
Jubilate_Deo said:
NB: Please keep in mind that I am playing the devil’s advocate in this post and I do not actually subscribe to the following line of thought, for I am doing this for the sake of learning more about the beauty of the Church. The questions are four-fold.

1.In the context of the liturgy, why must the aesthetics of a given Catholic church (i.e. architecture, artwork, altar, tabernacle location, etc.), look a certain way?
  1. If it must look a certain way, what standards should one follow in building a Catholic church?
  2. Furthermore, can’t we just as easily worship Jesus Christ on the altar in something like the Crystal Cathedral as one could in a gothic or romanesque church?
  3. After all, isn’t the overall focus supposed to be centered on what happens between those assisting at Mass and God who is made present in sacrament of the Eucharist?
Thank you!
Click to expand...
  1. Not True (NT)
  2. NT
  3. Yes.
  4. Yes, but it is not bad idea to built a house to God, no? Bad idea having masses in the open air with a snowstorm or a heavy shower. In these circumstances you cannot focus on the essential !!! So, better have a roof and walls to support the roof and windows to give light and painting to keep the walls well kept. and if the Church is beautiful, why not?
Dont know if I understood your problem but I did my best…
 
Catholic churches have their specific style that is determined according to the time they are built for example churches built before the 1920’s are very elaborate and extremely pretty. Churches built in the 1960 and after tend to be simplier. Up here in Montreal, the older the church, the prettier it is.

I will use my old church as a framework which isn’t Catholic. You build a good base and slowly as money becomes available you add special touches such as stained glass windows, or beautiful comfortable pews. The focus should always be on God as the beauty inside the Eucharist, the rest will come slowly as money becomes available. God always provides. The space should always be respected, and loved as a space of worship, prayer, and fellowship as well.
 
It should not look like Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles which is the ugliest most unholy building I’ve ever seen. 😦
 
Aelred_Minor said:
In my opinion, when we build (or buy and remodel) a church building we should be focused on making it a beautiful sacred space, a worthy place for the sacrifice of the mass and the reservation of the Eucharist. As soon as we start thinking about expressing our own culture or being creative, original, modern, etc. we end up creating something that expresses our own human brokenness instead of something sacred. Try to build a great church to honor God and your natural creativity will flow; try to be creative in building a church to honor your natural self and you will most likely create a monstrosity.
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I agree with this completely. :yup:
 
First and foremost, JESUS NEEDS, NEEEEEEDS, to be front and center in the Tabernacle. He should be the main focus, every eye needs to see Him.

Second, statues and stain glass – and lots of them! Those inside should be able to focus on the Truth of the Catholic Church (Her Husband), and look anywhere and ask, “Who is that?” and not, “What is that?”

It should look like, for lack of a better way of putting it, a Catholic Church. We know what they look like, we’ve seen them in movies. We know ugly. If you think it looks like a library, or a community center, or a spaceship, it is objectively ugly and it doesn’t look like a Catholic Church.
 
fall_fox said:
I think that the building should be as grand as the Parish can afford so as to give greater glory to God. Does God expect that? The first Holy of Holies that contained the Arc of the Covenant was a Tent.

Permission has been granted for the Diocese to purchase the Crystal Cathedral, I think for $54 million. WOW!!!
Click to expand...
It’s not just about cost… a nearby parish recently built a new building, went way over budget, and with rather poor results. Everyone wanted a “classic” style church. Only problem is one person wanted some Gothic, another wanted Romanesque, another wanted Mission style, and they got it all, in other words it is an architectural jumble. And inside is a hodgepodge of art of all different styles. Meanwhile nobody paid much attention to details like lighting and sound so you have a dim, poorly lit space with poor acoustics. But it cost a fortune. Definitely makes the case for hiring and sticking iwth a good architect and consultant, vs the changing whims of the parish building committee and a succession of pastors with different visions.

Also I’m reminded of Oakland’s new Cathedral. Also way over budget. Part of that is the timing of construction. Some people like it, some people don’t. But I suspect they could have built a perfectly nice, “classic” style cathedral for quite a bit less. But they’ve strapped the faithful of the diocese with a lot of debt and now the diocese is considering a second capital campaign in a bad economy to help pay off the cathedral.
 
adstrinity said:
First and foremost, JESUS NEEDS, NEEEEEEDS, to be front and center in the Tabernacle. He should be the main focus, every eye needs to see Him.
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Is that really a “neeeeeed,” though? As I detailed here, the the rule in place before Vatican II (specifically, in 1905) were these:
  1. In parochial and other churches the tabernacle ought to be regularly placed on the high altar (S. C. Episc. and Reg., November 28, 1594, and Rituale Rom., Tit. IV, Cap. I, de SS. Euch. Sacramento, No. 6), but not necessarily (S. R. C., May 18, 1878, n. 3,449 ad I).
  2. In cathedrals and very large parish churches it should (valde opportunum est) be placed in a side chapel, so as not to interfere with the pontifical or other solemn ceremonies (Caeremoniale Episc., Lib. I, Cap. XII, no. 8). If the tabernacle is placed on the high altar, the Blessed Sacrament is to be removed to another altar before the pontifical or other solemn services begin (ibidem).
    In other words, let’s please not get carried away about the significance of tabernacle placement. There are certainly many good effects, in many churches, to having it front and center, but the Church herself has certainly never claimed this to be a rule or a “need.” In large churches, it has always been disfavored.
 
domandcarols said:
It should not look like Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles which is the ugliest most unholy building I’ve ever seen. 😦
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Have you ever toured the inside and the outside of COLA? I suspect you have not. I know, I know, you saw some pictures here on the web…

To judge a building to be “unholy” seems more than simply extreme. I don’t care for the exterior myself but the interior does many things better than any Catholic cathedral I have ever been in. The use of light is amazing. The entrance ambulatory is wonderful. The acoustics are great as are the sight lines. So is the pipe organ. The list of good things is long and they are completely unknown to those who have never taken the time to visit and study COLA.
 
adstrinity said:
First and foremost, JESUS NEEDS, NEEEEEEDS, to be front and center in the Tabernacle. He should be the main focus, every eye needs to see Him.
Click to expand...
The Catholic Church itself says differently in many cases…
 
Aelred_Minor said:
In my opinion, when we build (or buy and remodel) a church building we should be focused on making it a beautiful sacred space, a worthy place for the sacrifice of the mass and the reservation of the Eucharist.
Click to expand...
Do you understand that what you describe is largely subjective?
 
The first Mass was held in an attic (upper room) around a table. For many years, Masses in Rome were held in burial chambers.

Over the centuries, we have changed the liturgy from time to time and we now have rules as to how churches should be arranged. We also expect churches to look like the one we were brought up in. Up to the age of 11, I went to a church built in 1910 to a Byzantine pattern. Then we moved house and for the next 12 years, my Parish church was a temporary wooden hut with a roof that leaked. After that, I’ve been fairly broad-minded about church design, provided it keeps the rain out.

It’s not appearances that are important, it’s what happens in the church and in the souls of the participants.
 
jimrob said:
The first Mass was held in an attic (upper room) around a table. For many years, Masses in Rome were held in burial chambers.

Over the centuries, we have changed the liturgy from time to time and we now have rules as to how churches should be arranged. We also expect churches to look like the one we were brought up in. Up to the age of 11, I went to a church built in 1910 to a Byzantine pattern. Then we moved house and for the next 12 years, my Parish church was a temporary wooden hut with a roof that leaked. After that, I’ve been fairly broad-minded about church design, provided it keeps the rain out.

It’s not appearances that are important, it’s what happens in the church and in the souls of the participants.
Click to expand...
Appearances are important, especially to inquiring non-Catholics. As a convert, the only thing that made me even vaguely interested in Catholicism to begin with was the outward stuff, like the architecture, statues, and what I (wrongly) perceived to be widespread use of Latin. Of course, as a Catholic now, my reasons for still being interested in the religion go far deeper than that, but still.

If Catholicism didn’t “look” different than Protestantism, then I can honestly say that I probably wouldn’t have even given it the slightest thought, as it wouldn’t have been interesting at all, and thus wouldn’t have converted.
 
Aeolian said:
Do you understand that what you describe is largely subjective?
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Of course the attitude I described is subjective- it pertains to the subjects involved, the people designing the Church. The result I described, a beautiful church, is something objective, something outside those subjects which was made by them to honor God.

I purposely didn’t advance architectural styles of the past against any kind of innovation. If the Church had locked herself into her first architectural styles and rejected any innovation after the first functional church buildings were made we would never have reached the classic Romanesque style, much less Gothic. And there would be no Hagia Sophia, Basilica of St. Francis, St. Peter’s Basilica, Sistine Chapel or Duomo either, not as we know them. Then again if we had not enshrined innovation and enculturation as ends rather than means we wouldn’t have the various monstrosities we see in much modern church architecture (it’s probably best to avoid giving specific examples of that).
 
Jubilate_Deo said:
NB: Please keep in mind that I am playing the devil’s advocate in this post and I do not actually subscribe to the following line of thought, for I am doing this for the sake of learning more about the beauty of the Church. The questions are four-fold.

1.In the context of the liturgy, why must the aesthetics of a given Catholic church (i.e. architecture, artwork, altar, tabernacle location, etc.), look a certain way?
  1. If it must look a certain way, what standards should one follow in building a Catholic church?
  2. Furthermore, can’t we just as easily worship Jesus Christ on the altar in something like the Crystal Cathedral as one could in a gothic or romanesque church?
  3. After all, isn’t the overall focus supposed to be centered on what happens between those assisting at Mass and God who is made present in sacrament of the Eucharist?
Thank you!
Click to expand...
What should ever Catholic Church look like? Easy answer: Saint Peter’s Basilica.
 
domandcarols said:
It should not look like Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles which is the ugliest most unholy building I’ve ever seen. 😦
Click to expand...
I agree. Being a philistine and all, I think it looks like something out of an Indiana Jones movie.

The problem I have with most “modern” architecture is that it’s focus is on the architect. Not on the transcendent. Not on the Eucharist. Not on God. Not even on beauty or pleasing symmetries. Architects’ work nowadays is, in effect, their “conversation” with the world of architecture. Modern art is very much the same in that respect. It’s for those “in the know” who understand all of their arcane meanings and symbolism. What the ordinary beholder thinks is of no concern to them whatever.

For a hilarious treatise on this, I recommend “From Bauhaus to Our House” by Tom Wolfe. Wolfe is convincing, at least to me, and I don’t think anyone who reads it will ever think of architects’ “monuments to ego” like the “Crystal Cathedral” quite the same way again.
 
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