The Sacred Heart Cathedral saga from a distance (II)
To follow up on a previous post:
Swayed by the objections of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester, the city Planning Commission late Monday night rejected a proposal to designate Sacred Heart Cathedral as a city landmark.
The vote was 5 to 3 against the proposal, with many commission members fearing that the landmark designation would impede the diocese’s plans to renovate the cathedral and invest millions of dollars in the city’s Maplewood neighborhood….
The meeting lasted more than five-and-a-half hours—past midnight—because of the controversy over the diocese’s plans and other items on the agenda. About 25 people spoke on the landmark issue—the majority for landmark status.
[Mary] Giorgi said she was disappointed in the decision. She added that it doesn’t change her mind that the cathedral should be a landmark. She had cited the building’s gothic architecture and former Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen’s career at the church as reasons for that status. Sheen, the television evangelist and author who was bishop of Rochester from 1966 to 1969, is being considered for sainthood.
The cathedral also was determined eligible for the State and National Registers of Historic Places in 1992.
Proponents of the landmark status told the commission that the church could potentially become a tourist attraction if Sheen is canonized and that would boost economic development in the city. They worried that altering the church would hurt that potential.
However, the Rev. Joseph Hart, the diocese’s vicar general, said it’s doubtful either would happen. And another priest said Sheen’s short relationship with the cathedral isn’t even mentioned during tours of the church. [Read on]
A comparison…
Sacred Heart Cathedral, Diocese of Rochester
Before:
Proposed after:
Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, Archdiocese of Milwaukee
Before:
After:
(CSJE “before” picture from National Catholic Youth Choir. All other photos from DOR News & Views. )
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9 Comments
I sure hope that they do not touch the altar of Sacred Heart. Too many of our beautiful churches have been destroyed ever since Vatican II. How could people prefer to have an organ at the front of a church over a beautiful high altar that inspires prayer? I honestly think that the Diocese of Milwaukee has robbed the worshiping community of a beautiful church. Now it looks like any random Christian Church. I am only twenty years old. The youth are an important part of the future of our church. I wish people would take our opinions into consideration.
The Catholic Church is not a democracy;part of our faith is trusting that our priests and bishops and their role as our leaders If you want to design the church, become a priest or, better yet, an architect. The people on the preservation committee are mostly just anti-Bishop Clark. If you don’t like the church’s decisions, get involved in committe work and voice your opinions constructively. Don’t ruin everyone else’s work and faith with your protests and hate-mongering which is the antithesis of Christian behavior!
There is nothing in the faith about trusting priests and bishops as infallible on prudential judgements: read your catechism also on the duty to correct one’s pastors, and the genuine desire, I gather from reading e.g. Fr Amorth’s interviews, around VII to get those who know involved in decision-making (in his case, exorcists in revising the part of the Ritual to do with exorcisms). Designing churches is a matter of theology and practical experience, and the architect should either have a firm guiding hand in these matters or be a devout and educated Catholic. If you ever saw the crap they spend fortunes on in Poland or other central European countries, you would see that trusting bishops or architects to design your church is not a safe bet. Ha, howabout Liverpool Cathedral? Our Lady is said to have appeared to the bishop as he prayed in the new building and said “Ambrose, build me a church in this place”. I have seen what some priest did to my parish church in Britain: built by miners, turned from a simple brick-built chapel with beamed roof into a wood-effect-veneer 70s living room that could serve euqally as the Presbyterian parish church for the village. People get fed up, you know, of “putting up and shutting up”.
I would disagree that the architecture of a church is a matter of theology whereby the people are horrendously robbed of faith if some people find the building ugly. From the pictures shown here, I would say the SH Cathedral doesn’t really need renovation, but I am not in charge of the diocese. I find some trends in modern architecture to be exciting as well as still reverent (and yes I refer to OLA) while some trends are just bad looking or bland. Either way, however, the people aren’t screwed out of their faith because the building is ugly. I think the function of the building should have priority, that is to say seating, choir/organ, in liturgical denominations kneelers/tabernacle/altar, etc. However some liberty in attaining these ends is certainly what progress is made of. It’s interesting you should mention that mistake in Liverpool, as I think the most amazing church in the world is the Anglican(?) Cathedral there. Which I believe is a fairly new building, so some architects still seem to stick to time-honored approaches.
To sum up all that, we should not put our OPINIONS (and that’s what they are, I’m not certain you have an architecture degree, and I know I know nothing about architecture) on the level of an infallible pronouncement of good and evil.
I think theology is a part of church design. Where is one’s attention drawn as one enters? Does it draw one’s attention to God, or is it no different than any other place we go? Is it a space that aids worship with all of the senses or does it favour people who prefer sight, sound? Does the space encourage both interior and exterior participation? If it’s a Catholic church, is the Blessed Sacrament reserved in a worthy and prominent place?
Architecture and art are tricky. For me it’s an incredible experience to walk into a beatiful old church and see everything about the building represent Christian teaching. Coloured light through stained glass. Learning the identifying characteristics of the saints in art. And people sacrificed much to build them. Sometimes it even feels like we focus too much on material needs. Of course we are called to feed the hungry, care for the sick, etc. But what about the things that are less tangible? Peace? Happiness? Solace? Comfort?
It seems like the current tendency is to redo things, to “simplify” them, to tear apart the old things. But after the Protestant Reformation we had the Roman Catholic Counter Reformation and the Anglican Oxford Movement.
Are people horrendously robbed of faith? Perhaps? Should they be? Of course not! But where does one go for beauty if not the Church? What types of people are most comfortable with committees? How much are we affected by current trends in architecture and art?
Someday many of these same churches will probably be remodeled again. If only we had more patience now!
Biblically theology (particularly the theology of numbers) was an essential part of building places of worship in the Apostolic period. Synagoges were built around the central tabernacle, God present in his word, just as Church design ought to focus on God (i.e. Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament). Very often the iconoclastic Jews, who would not make statues or use images, would appoint the buildings with elaborate symbolic depictions of God’s creation. The instructions for building the temple, which is essentially what the Church is, where meticulous in their theological considerations.
Catholic Theology and Praxis being the development and fulfillment of the Jewish faith this does not have an insignificant impact on Catholic thinking about church buildings. Early biblical exegesis, particularly in its allegorical soteriological/Christological approach, was widely utilized in the Church during the third fourth century and following (to the modern period), when Christanity became legal.
The second Vatican Councils document on the Sacred Litergy, Sacrosanctum Concillium, states quite clearly that Bishops must be very careful to see that sacred furnishings and works of value are not disposed of or allowed to deteriorate; for they are the house of God.
This clearly seem to be a theological statement about what the Church is, more poignently this is seen in the post-Concilliar Rite of Dedication of a Church and Altar. This states that the church building is a, visible sign of the living Church, God’s building that is formed of the people themselves. Therefore it is erroneous to think that “renovations” in the Church should focus on the practical aspects of liturgical worship. First and formost, as with most things Christian, their is a deep symbolic meaning underlying the things we do and say. To forget this is to loose an important (in fact primary) way of teaching, one that Jesus used himself when he said things such as “you are Peter (aka Rock in latin and Greek)”, and “my flesh is true food…”
We can now HEAR in our church, we can now SEE from all angles. We have a beautiful baptismal font that puts the joy of new life at the center along with a huge Crucifix at the head of the church. The original stations and statues are there–with great new lighting. They’ve reused so manyof the beautiful old parts of the church while making it more comfortable and accessible for everyone. Maybe the protestors should find a church that will never change and join–they could even start their own church just like the folks at Spiritus Christi. They could exclude anyone who did not pray their way and have their architectural taste–I’m sure God would let them into heaven faster.
Thanks for your comments Sarah. It’s good to hear from someone in the congregation regarding those changes instead of being on the outside looking in.
I’ve personally been to the Detroit Cathedral after the renovation, and while there are some strange things in there, over all it is still stately and beautiful. As for the SH Cathedral here, I’m not such a fan but it is a matter of personal preference and as a parishoner, I should hope that you would like it more than anyone here who complains about it and doesn’t go!
What’s the most conspicuous change in both places? Instead of the high altar and tabernacle, there is now… an organ. It’s amazing that some posters here do not find that troubling. Perhaps they should visit some Protestant churches, where they think very differently about the eucharist.
The cathedral in my parish was one of the first cathedrals in the country to be “renovated” (sic) in the aftermath of V2. There is no longer a high altar. The tabernacle is off-axis and invisible from the nave. What is illuminated in this space, by economical floodlights from Home Depot, is the congregation.
I am trying to raise my sons (both under 5) as Roman Catholics in that cathedral. It is difficult, and I am coming to believe that this was the very objective of some of the V2 reformers.
To dismiss such concerns as the “personal preference” of a “fan” would be offensive were it not so… so… let’s say “cavalier.”
Regards,
Anthony
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