www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization Church Architecture

Serge,

Here is a link:
http://www.stmarysrockledge.org/new_church.htm

I just checked it and I know it works.

Columcille,

Looks like the current appearance of my dream-project church (see the "I have a dream today...' thread), but on steroids! Cool. And the confessional blends in perfectly.

http://oldworldrus.com

[ 02-04-2002: Message edited by: Serge ]

Columcille,

That is a house of GOD! I know where I am when I go inside that building! WOW! You are so lucky to have such a beautiful church!

Everyone,

Might I add, "The architect, who is best known for his award-winning public buildings and modern line of appliances sold at Target, agreed to plan St. Mary's as the first church he has ever designed."

Obviously, this was the first Church this guy built. Futher, I might add that when I talked to the priest about the Church he said it was based on a book that HE WROTE about Church aritecture. So, it looks like this priest go togther with a well known architecture and decided they were going to preach there personal views with aritecture!

Here is the quote: http://www.google.com/search?q=cache :p LYQPDX27iIC:www.americancatholic.org/Features/DailyNews/default.asp+st+mary%27s+catholic+community+rockledge+florida&hl=en

aRC@W,

Thanks — it worked!

When I saw "community' as part of the church's name I went to alert status Defcon 3.

My take, straight up: not necessarily heterodox (though perhaps iconoclastic?) but really butt-ugly architecture, like stuff actually built in France and Germany in the 1950s. (Or a Target or an Ikea store.) Word up: this ultramodern junk is as dated as car fins. Postmodern, with some touches of class like brick and Georgian details, is in. (And for that I'm glad.) Some of these designs are imaginative but unconsoling: that Blessed Sacrament chapel looks like a cross between a sauna and that space in the good dystopian '70s sci-fi film Logan's Run where the 30-year-olds were vaporized.

I wrote some of this, edited for tact and brevity, in the site's guestbook.

http://oldworldrus.com

I am sure we all have our opinions on church architecture. And certainly a group of Byzantines randomly assembled over the the internet are unlikely to be an ideal audience to intellegently respond to Roman church design.

But if I may speak personally. For myself, I cannot imagine leaving my parish no matter what architecural changes were made. I would no more leave my parish because of even the most horrid renovations any more than I would cease having Sunday Dinner with my parents and siblings because of their tacky furniture, plastic slipcovers, stained carpet, art featuring dogs playing poker and '69 Chevy up on blocks in the driveway.

I mean, ITS MY FAMILY, for goodness sake.

K.


Kurt,

Thanks for suggesting that such sensitive decisions are the business of the members of the family.

In most families there is some dissension. Members feel that their taste in art is pretty good, even when other members of the family decide that it is pretty bad. I agree with you that the fact that some family members don't agree with the taste of other family members is not a good reason to break from the family.

I find it interesting that sometimes non-family members suggest that it is.

Steve
JOY!

I would vote against it. If I was in the minority, I would remain a member of the parish.

The community and friends I have in the parish are more important. Find a beautiful church and treat my friends and family members as disposable an exchangable? NO!!! Not dissimliar than those who seek out "trophy wives".

I will admit my position somewhat begs the question. Because I am part of an authentic Christian fellowship, our community would revise the church building in a community spirit. Places where community is not truly present, where congregants do not have love for fellow congregants, are places that would have problems. The response should be on building authentic community, leave the other questions to follow.

K.

[ 02-04-2002: Message edited by: Kurt ]

In large Roman Catholic Churches there really is no fellowship. Yes, there are small groups that get togther but on the whole nobody really knows anyone else. I have grown up in Roman Catholic Churches all my life (I am only 30) but I know this to be true. People come to Church on Sunday for Mass then leave only to re-appear next Sunday. Therefore, leaving a Church to go to another Church really is not an issue with most Parishoners. I guess that is why it was easy for these people just to pack up and set up shop 10 miles down the road.

In large Roman Catholic Churches there really is no fellowship. Yes, there are small groups that get togther but on the whole nobody really knows anyone else. ... People come to Church on Sunday for Mass then leave only to re-appear next Sunday. Therefore, leaving a Church to go to another Church really is not an issue with most Parishoners.

True.

Again, like with charitable work, a perfectly orthodox, small-p progressive idea is to break up these megaparishes into smaller communities — but with each new little church theologically and liturgically orthodox. House churches are perfectly doable again.

http://oldworldrus.com

Dear Fellow Posters:

I've followed the link to the site and studied the discussion here. Lots of people have lots to say, pro and con and non-judgemental. Personally, the parish plant being built at St. Mary's is not my cup of tea, but then it's what is done in the building that houses the Church that is important or so it seems to me.

In dioceses where I've lived, there has consistently been a process involving much consultation between people, priest, and bishop when new church buildings are being planned and built. Experts in liturgy and in architecture, among others, are sought out and consulted. Much thought and discussion about the theological implications and the pastoral issues that affect the Church take place. Only then are judgements about the structure to be used for worship by the local Church made.

Even with all of that in place, though, some of the resulting structures can be cited as poor architecture or examples of of a lack of theological reflection before construction.

Yet, as Sonny's posting suggests, there might even be a plausible explanation for what looks so different in this case. No AmChurch involved. (Of course not since it doesn't exist.) Maybe even no wreckovator pastor involved!

A one sided rush to judgement based on incomplete data doesn't seem proper to me. Not, of course, that other opinions should not be heard.

I hope that the Church involved will find healing to what appears to be a heated family argument, based on what has been reported here. I trust that the members of that Church will ignore the advice from religious figures from outside its ranks and will continue to support their parish.

From what Sonny has written, it sounds like that Church does much good.

In my opinion, it would be a shame to not join in the doing of that good because of a matter of taste.

Just a few reflections! Thanks for hearing me out!

Steve
JOY!


Point of information: There is no Latin Catholic Bishop of Florida. Our state has a number of Latin Dioceses. Each has its own ordinary and some have Auxiliary Bishops.

Dear Fellow Posters:

The large size of many Latin Catholic Parishes does generate problems. In some parishes, steps are being taken to address the issues and to begin to build communities within the community without diminishing the reality that all of them make up the Local Church.

Christ Renews His Parish and Renew are two formal movements helping to provide more direct contact between members through activities which are spiritually oriented. In many parishes there are groups like the ones which help to unite members in smaller Churches, Catholic and Orthodox. Altar Servers, Greeters, Catechesis, etc.

Many parishes have festivals which have more material assistance to the parish as their goal. A growing number of parishes, sounds like St. Mary's might be one, focus on service to the larger community. One local Latin Church here has a program to feed the poor and bring drinkable water areas where it is needed. That Church has at least fifty programs that it supports locally, nationally and internationally.

(It's budget is supported by a parish foundation dedicated to this purpose with ongoing funding at $1, 500, 000. It's not a rich parish but a very busy one!)

I suspect that sometimes size is raised too often to cover an unwillingness of persons to become involved. I've never heard a Latin parish leader complain about an overabundance of workers!

I don't attribute that to unwillingness to anyone here, of course.

Large size of local Church can be bring problems. It can also enable local Churches to bring wider resources to bear on the issues which cry out for solutions based on our Christian love.

Again, thanks for hearing me out!

Steve
JOY!

[AmChurch PR deleted.]

Sonny wrote:

Speaking as a Greek Catholic with a certain hostility for cultural imperialism and hegemony, I certainly would never try to impose my aesthetic preferences on others.

Agreed when it comes to Gothic vs. Rococo vs. Spanish Southwestern vs. Balkan Byzantine. Hey, I have no problem with new rites developing in newly evangelized parts of the world. What matters of course is small-o orthodoxy, of which charity, etc., would be natural and supernatural results (for those tempted to inject some saccharine into this thread with "love, love, love' posts). Objective character and Godwardness are what matters, not (strictly speaking) the slant of the roof or the cut of the chasuble. But I maintain the Western treatment of images, etc., as mere decoration is wrong: part of the centuries-old separation of Western theology from liturgy from piety that precipitated today's mess.

Every light and line of a Catholic church has meaning. — Quaker schoolbook on religions of the world, circa 1950s

http://oldworldrus.com

[ 02-04-2002: Message edited by: Serge ]

.

[ 02-04-2002: Message edited by: Kurt ]

Just like the Quakers, always trying to see what of God is in others.

Wouldn't it be interesting to hear from the people involved in the planning and design of St. Mary's what every light and line in this Latin Catholic Church's building means? Maybe it'll be clearer when it's completed.

Thanks for the reminder!

Steve
JOY!

[ 02-04-2002: Message edited by: Inawe ]

Just like the Quakers, always trying to see what of God is in others.

Yes, I don't doubt the sincerity of the author. Like a 1940s Bing Crosby or Spencer Tracy movie, she presented a very positive image of the Roman Catholic Church.

http://oldworldrus.com

[ 02-04-2002: Message edited by: Serge ]