When combined with an uncannily matching liturgy (both its cause and its
fruit), the result has been an alienation of many ordinary Catholics-that is,
not those who are experts in this field, or those of an unusually heightened
piety or sensibility, but those who were once regarded as immutable members of
the great body of the Catholic faithful.
Of course, we must be wary of laying all our ills at the door of insensitive
architecture or liturgical ineptitude, for many other factors have also been at
work in luring our faithful away; but whereas we might have used the beauty of
tradition to entice them back, current practice has been to force the door shut
on those souls who waver on the threshold.
The ignorance of Church arrangement and design is made more serious by not
being confined to the artists and designers involved, who might be expected to
work and learn, as had always been the case, under the expert hand of the
bishops and diocesan liturgists. But these too, for the most part, are woefully
unaware of the requirements of the modern Church, and labor under their own
errors and idiosyncratic prejudices, or a vague and inaccurate notion of what
the "spirit of the Council" was aiming at. Any documentary evidence
from the Council against them is either not understood or pooh?poohed as a
reactionary rear?guard action of no relevance. After all, the argument often
runs, the Council fathers sometimes lacked the courage of their own convictions,
and we must make up for this. (The argument is very similar to that used by
feminists who claim that Our Lord was too weak to overcome the social customs of
His time to ordain women as He really wished.)
There are several diocesan liturgy committees in England (and physical
evidence alone suggests that the same situation obtains elsewhere) which are
clearly quite unaware of the liturgical requirements of the new rite, although
these have been set out plainly enough. The English Bishops' Conference has
produced a guide to new and reordered churches, as all conferences were required
to do, which is a clear exposition of the requirements of the Council (including
the clear injunction to make no changes where artistic or pastoral
considerations suggest they would be damaging), even if one may have preferred
certain emphases to be slightly different. Unfortunately, this document has been
out of print for ten years, apparently at the instigation of the Bishops'
Conference. Use is sometimes made of the Irish equivalent, which is also well
produced, considered and moderate, but, from the evidence of new Irish churches
and the draconian reorderings of older ones, presumably nearly wholly ignored at
home.
We have, too, a new cathedral, designed by a nonconformist Protestant
architect of admitted architectural skills, working closely with the Bishop,
which appears to have been designed solely on the premise of overturning every
tradition the Church has clung to for over 1,000 years, while fondly following
architectural tradition, which only emphasizes this rejection of Ecclesia. It is
unrecognizable as a Catholic church, although with fine arcades of classical
columns, and in spite of its architectural uniqueness shares with many new
churches an emptiness of spirit. There is no sanctuary; rather, the table-altar
stands in the center on a few steps, remote from the Bishop's and celebrant's
chairs, and from the ministers, who are reduced to the level of the nave floor,
where the choir sits among the laity, and thus become their equals. Gone is the
presbyterium where the priests serve the holiest, gone are the canons' stalls,
gone the shrines of the saints. The sanctissimum is relegated to an empty corner
of the retained old church, set tastefully in an antique tabernacle displayed
more as an objet d'art than a center of devotion, and the Stations of the Cross
are reduced to a row of architectural medallions, set high up above the arcade
far from the field of vision of the faithful, and incapable of a processional
progress around them. The whole creation is devoid of emphasis or direction, set
in a stark pagan light that, on account of the myriad brass chandeliers that
hang down in place of the crucifixes, baldacchini and lamps of a holier age,
has been compared to a Dutch synagogue. A blow for ecumenism?
All gone. Gone the numinous holiness that even the great Baroque churches, in
their glorious humanist triumph, could never dispel. Gone the sense of awe as we
approach the altar, God's angel whispering to us at every step, "Worship,
worship!" Gone the hierarchy of the Church, that imperfect but divine
reflection of the world which may one day be ours for eternity. Gone that odor
of sanctity, as incense and candle smoke fill the air and filter the colored
light of a painted window. Gone the dark corner welcoming the prodigal son as he
makes his first tentative steps on his journey home.
It is very difficult for many traditional Catholics to put forward with
confidence the arguments which can and must be used if we are to fulfill that
work of charity, the opus Dei, of striving to serve our fellow man and correct
his error; difficult because we often feel that in so doing we are adopting that
very lack of humility, that celebration of self and intellect that we recognize
to be the enemy. However we do so not on our own authority or preference, but
within the framework of the teaching of the Church, contained in tradition and
within the documents of the Council; for the abuses of the last decades have
come about not because of, but in blatant disregard of that framework. Those
involved in the work of building and reordering churches, and those who are
called to give advice, have an obvious duty to acquaint themselves with these
texts.
What we must strive for is to maintain and reinstate the Catholic atmosphere
of the sacred, the numinous, by architectural means of light, color or space,
and particularly by means intrinsically Catholic, the juxtaposing of various
spaces and elements in the timeless hierarchy common to all church buildings,
whether Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque or modern, to create one of the
sweetest essences of true Catholic character, that of belonging, as an
individual being, to a greater whole. Every element must be subordinate to
things around it, throughout the cosmos, for only God Himself is independent of
His environment. Even in the smallest chapel, this visible hierarchy should be
maintained, not necessarily by aisles, arcades and chapels, but still by levels,
windows, color and decoration, so that it may fulfill that role of reflecting
the celestial realms, as the earthly liturgy should reflect that eternity of
praise and adoration where its Creator dwells.
The starting point for the reform of liturgical architecture is beauty and
order. They are characteristic marks of the Catholic faith and, consequently, of
authentic Catholic worship. Beauty and order, therefore, should determine the
nature of the sacred spaces in which the liturgy is enacted.
These qualities transcend all styles and periods of the Church's history, and
reflect the beauty and order of the heavenly realm. They are, of course, one
quality, since one flows from the other. Both are reflections of God. just as in
Heaven God presides over the heavenly court which is perfect beauty and in which
perfect order reigns, so in a Catholic church Our Lord presides in His true Body
and Soul from the tabernacle, and it is our duty to surround Him (for here it is
within our power to do Him honor or to withhold it), with that reflection of the
heavenly hierarchy from which will emanate the beauty that lifts our souls to
Him. To all those to whom this responsibility is given I would say: remember
that your place in Heaven depends on where you place God in this world.
Consider, then, for a moment, the General Instruction of the new Roman
Missal, dealing with this proper hierarchy:
The people of God assembled at Mass reflects an organic and
hierarchical arrangement, expressed by the various ministries and actions for
each part of the celebration. The general plan of the building should reflect in
some way the image of the congregation.... The priest and his ministers have
their place in the presbyterium or sanctuary. This part of the church shows
their hierarchical position as each one presides over prayer.... While these
elements must express a hierarchical arrangement and the differences of office,
they should at the same time form a complete and organic whole which clearly
expresses the unity of the people of God. The beauty of the space and
appointments should foster prayer and show the holiness of the mysteries which
are celebrated (GIRM 257).
This is a description of Heaven, as well as of the natural order of creation,
and should pervade the spirit of everything we design and build in our churches.
In the matter of the liturgical plan there is frequent ignorance. The
obsession with the free?standing altar to celebrate versus populum seems to be
the only point most priests have really grasped, and all the rest of the
richness of the liturgy is laid aside. This is in spite of the fact that an
altar which prohibits celebration facing east was wholly unforeseen by the
Instruction on the Pauline Missal and by its rubrics.
At the center of our churches, as of our lives, should be Our Lord. This is
the teaching of the Council documents. If the tabernacle is not set at the
center of the sanctuary, it ought to be placed (in busy churches with many
distractions) in a worthy and dignified chapel where He may truly be the center
of all that is around Him.
In recent years many churches in Europe, previously reordered, have had the
tabernacle restored to a central position in the sanctuary; and indeed the
Bishop of Dijon, France, has recently recommended this throughout his diocese,
saying that this is the only worthy location, and a reflection of the place
which Christ should occupy in the lives of the faithful.
This is perfectly clear from the relevant texts: "The place in a church
or oratory where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved should be truly prominent ...
so that the faithful may easily and fruitfully, by private devotion also,
continue to honor the Lord in this Sacrament." (Eucharisticum Mysterium,
1967, 553). "The Blessed Sacrament should be reserved in a solid ...
tabernacle in the middle of the main altar, or on a side altar, but in a truly
prominent place" (ibid., 554). The new Missal and the Code of Canon Law (in
canon 938 52) repeat this, and the new Catechism quotes Paul VI in Mysterium
Fidei (1965) as calling for the Blessed Sacrament to be reserved in churches
"in a most worthy place with the greatest honor."
To anyone brought up in the culture of the Catholic world this clearly
excludes anything off-center, since symmetry is central to our understanding of
beauty. It should be noticed too, that an altar is expected as a worthy support,
not a pillar of pagan association, and apparently never a room without an altar,
where Mass cannot be said and the visual connection with the Eucharist may be
lost.
Clearly this must be set against certain regional traditions of elaborate
Sacrament houses at the side of the altar, but since these do not come from, but
pre-date, the introduction of the Roman rite, they are not relevant in new
churches elsewhere. Hanging pyxes are still used in France in unbroken
tradition, often in the form of a dove, and may be very worthy places,
notwithstanding matters of security and convenience.
We have spoken of the tabernacle and, if in the sanctuary, of the primary
place it must occupy. It should, if space allows, be so arranged as to share its
prominence with the altar (for these two are also one) without dominating it or
appearing to be ignored during Masses versus populum.
The altar too should very clearly take its place above everything else in the
sanctuary, and this is so clearly explained in the rubrics that it is a great
mystery why the custom has developed of setting it at the same level as the rest
of the sanctuary, with the seats, lectern, credence and other things. The altar
should always be raised up on a step, or predella, which sets it above and apart
from the rest. It is, we must remember, not only the place of Sacrifice, but
also the sign of Christ Himself (cf. Eucharisticum Mysterium 524 below).
The greatest difficulty-and this is unique to the new liturgy-is giving due
prominence to the celebrant's chair (I shall not refer here to a bishop's
cathedra or a faldstool). Most people seem to get this wrong, and so often it
resembles the throne so clearly prohibited by the rubrics: a natural consequence
of cushions and steps. Under no circumstances should it be higher than the
altar, as this is clearly confusing; and this would seem to preclude placing it
behind, if the priest is to be seen. The rubric calls for a "central
position," and one "facing the people" (GIRM 271). This is,
however, difficult to achieve if everything else is to be in its proper place.
(We must remember that the new rubrics were created; they were not an organic
development, and therefore can contain inconsistencies. Interpretations must be
made in the light of tradition.)
It is worthy of note that at Notre Dame in Paris, hardly a bastion of
traditional liturgy, when the choir altar (the old high altar) was reordered,
the sedilia was placed facing across on the south side. This brings us to the
forgotten matter of hierarchy, the organic relationship between altar, priest
and people. These are interdependent, and neither link should be exaggerated or
diminished in relation to the other. One thinks of the recent disastrous
"restoration" of Puglia's Birmingham Cathedral, where the internal
arrangement of the sanctuary is fine, but the whole thing is raised on a vast
flight of steps which completely breaks the link between priest and people, and
converts the liturgy into a piece of theater on a stage. The opposite error is
more widespread in liberal circles, and visibility, once so highly prized, is
sacrificed to egalitarianism, the sacred being wholly ignored. To quote Eugen
Egloff:
The priest is, in a real sense, the head of the Church when he
stands at the altar, and the faithful are the mystical body of the Church: the
basilica form of plan is hence an expression of the Body of Christ. The
gathering of the people around the altar masks this polar arrangement, and
should be avoided (Liturgie und Kirchenraum, Zurich, 1963).
The use of arches, changes of volume and the judicious use of steps by our
forbears, never laid down in rules, was adjusted organically to suit the scale
of the particular building to maintain this relationship, seemingly
unconsciously. This must be possible again today.
As to the content of our churches, so often we are subjected to objects
clearly designed or chosen by those who either have not studied, or have chosen
to reject, the tradition in Christian art. Not only the artistic styles (which,
of course, are rightly subject to constant development) but the subject matter,
in terms of iconography or symbolism, is often chosen in opposition to our
tradition. However well meant, this can only serve to create a confusion between
the teaching of the Church in Scripture and homiletics and the visual images
that are intended to support it. Church art is not decoration, in the manner of
secular buildings, but throughout history has had a didactic or devotional
purpose. The words of Sir Ninian Comper, that great and sensitive architect,
written in 1947, are still all too appropriate:
The man who sets to work to design an aeroplane or a motor car has
no self-conscious strivings to express himself or his age, like the pathetic
artists and architects of today. His one business is to make it go .... and he
would not be so mad as to think he could do this without knowing the tradition
of all that went before. Moreover, if he fails, there is no question of his
failure; he cannot hide behind fine words and theories (Of the Atmosphere of a
Church).
Sometimes the motivation is not just one of ignorance, but malice, and
priests and laymen are often deceived in their desire to be modern and relevant.
Although he writes about music, the following words of Cardinal Ratzinger are
appropriate to art in general, and particularly to that brutal modern art-often
expressed in concrete or transient modern materials, devoid of the natural
decoration common to all civilizations-which we are told celebrates the modern
age:
... satanical cults and satanical types of music are constantly
spreading today whose dangerous power intentionally to wreck and eradicate the
person has not yet been taken seriously enough.... Since rock music seeks
redemption by way of liberation from the personality and its responsibility, it
fits very precisely into the anarchistic ideas of freedom that are manifesting
themselves more openly all over the world. But that is also exactly why such
music is diametrically opposed to the Christian notions of redemption and
freedom, indeed their true contradiction. Music of this type must be excluded
from the Church, not for aesthetic reasons, not out of reactionary stubbornness,
not because of historical rigidity, but because of its very nature (A New Song
for the Lord, pp. 123-24).
Stern stuff-and the same might be said for rock music equivalents in
painting, sculpture and architecture.
So the fittings of our churches are expected to be art, reflecting Christ and
His creation, not just a furnisher's decorations, and they are to be Christian
art?that is, firmly rooted in our tradition, both spiritual and cultural. This
inherently excludes any transient fashion or the adoption of inappropriate
secular styles.
Great caution is always advocated in dealing with existing artifacts (both
true works of art and designed objects). In the English-speaking world, with our
Protestant history, the Catholic Church has few ancient possessions, compared to
Catholic Europe. For this reason, the strictures imposed by the authorities
should be more widely applied, not less, for even the humdrum products of the
nineteenth century, which may be deemed of little worth in a Tuscan city, are
often amongst the oldest things in any community, and have a valid role as a
link to the tradition of the Fathers, whose artistic styles they frequently, if
imperfectly, emulate.
But let my words be seen not as advocacy of the rigorous application of
rules, as if slavishly obeying rubrics could ever produce either art or
sacredness, for these things can never be dictated. I quote again from Sir
Ninian Comper:
No observance of rules even in these important details ... can ever
produce an atmosphere.... [In Spain] in 1744 a national school for architects
was founded. A royal decree prohibited the erection of any public building the
plans of which had not been approved by the Academy.... The authorities of St.
Ferdinand's Academy become a sort of artistic police force. All freedom of
design was lost, and with it those most precious gifts, originality and
vitality.
This problem already recurs in our own time with the civic planning and
heritage authorities. Let all diocesan liturgy and art committees beware of
falling into this trap, and killing what little inspiration we still possess.
Historically, ours has been a cautious Church. Not for her the hasty and the
rash: that path leads to endless dead ends and fatal errors. Through the ages
she has frequently been criticized for acting too slowly, and we find ourselves
in this situation todayThe errors come about by putting aside this tradition of
caution: this is the Devil's way, and we shall rebuild by returning to the path
of caution. Siren voices call for sweeping reforms, but we must not heed them.
Let us, each in his own way, follow the path that the Church's history shows to
be right. In that way will tradition be restored-not by decree, but by example-
and our children shall again know that beauty of holiness which we have been
promised forever. "This is the house of God and the gate of Heaven; and the
gates of Hell shall never prevail against it."
Anthony Delarue is a London architect. (©) Oriens
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