Posted on 10/02/2007 11:23:32 AM PDT by NYer
St. Malachy’s church in Tehachapi is indicative of what's going on around this country and throughout the church, says one not-so-pleased writer Christopher Zehnder in the California Catholic Daily.
The sanctuary of St. Malachy's with its plain, white-marblish, free-standing altar is separated from the nave by an altar rail, and behind the altar sits the tabernacle, unmoved from where it was placed over 40 years ago. Christ in the Blessed Sacrament commands the attention of those who enter the church. He is the focal point, drawing the eyes of worshippers, as is His right, to Himself.
Sounds nice, right? Wait. The Church is about to start renovating. And not in a good way. To guide the proposed renovation, St. Malachy’s pastor, Fr. Joel Davadilla, retained the services of architect and liturgical design consultant Bill Brown, known for his penchant for the progressive in interior church layout.
Parishioners met Brown last month at a get-to-know-you meeting and people were asked what they'd like to see. The upshot of this meeting was that the people didn't want any significant changes to the church. They wanted to retain the current layout of the church, with the tabernacle centered behind the altar, and the altar rail separating sanctuary and nave.
At a second meeting,
Brown directed the meeting with aplomb. His style was folksy, and his handling of the crowd adept. He insisted several times that no decisions had been made regarding the interior design of the church. Though, he noted, the pastor and the bishop have the canonical authority to make renovation decisions without consulting parishioners, the bishop, John Steinbock, would not hear of such a high-handed proceeding. He, and Fr. Davadilla, did not want to proceed without parish consensus.Maybe it's just me but anytime a Church "designer" says "Loosen up" I get worried. Just so you get to know Brown a little bit. In a 1999 project one parishioner said "What I see being proposed here, just from an architectural standpoint, is that you’re taking the ‘Catholic’ out of the church. I have nothing against Protestants," she added, "but I’m not Protestant."
I confess, I found Brown’s performance rather cloying. At one point, to explain how renovation desires had to match with ability to pay, he stretched out his arms to right and left, like a balance scale, and invited everyone in the church to do the same. “Come on,” he said. “Loosen up!” The first time he did this, most of us joined in. (Later, after someone asked about how much the parish had paid Brown so far, the response to Brown’s second invitation to the balance caper was more tepid.) How having us holding our arms out, moving them up and down balance-wise, elucidated anything was unclear, at least, to me.
No one objected to doing what was necessary to repair, maintain, and even beautify the church. But, is a major renovation – and paying large fees to a high-profile consultant like Bill Brown – really consonant with the mission of the People of God in the Tehachapi Valley?Hey, what's a little "liturgical rearrangement" between friends anyway? When is all this going to end?
It appears, of course, that more is planned for St. Malachy’s than a mere buffing up, or even the building of additions to the structure. Both Brown and the head of the parish’s new building committee emphasized that we all have to be open to what the parish consensus might be – we have to all be willing to do what the parish “community” wants – which suggests that some rather major changes may be in store for St. Malachy’s. Future meetings will witness preliminary design concepts, which parishioners will be invited to comment on. They will also feature “catechesis” by Brown on what the Church has said about interior church design – and given Brown’s past work, which features the removal of altar rails, the pushing out of the altar into the congregation space, and other such progressive designs, including side chapels for reservation of the Eucharist – one can suspect what this “catechesis” will deliver.
At the end of its renovation, St. Malachy’s in Tehachapi may be a very different church than what it is today. And if that “difference” is what I fear it will be, I, for one, will not say “Wow” – at least with any sense of pleasant enthusiasm.
Here's another technique used by would be designers to persuade congregations to improve their churches. It's called The Delphi Technique
My own Bishop went through the diocese in the 90's pretty much obliterating every marble altar rail and center Tabernacle, work usually done during much needed renovations such as floor or roof repairs, etc, at one point removing completely or replacing all the beautiful statues in one church with monotone (or painted monotone) statues. All in the name of improvement and drawing people in. Ugh.
For THREE days Dr. Vosko had only a few CONSISTANT MESSAGES, which he repeated ad nauseaum. In quotes are examples of Dr. Vosko's EDITORIALIZING masking as EDUCATION.
1. There was "a TREMENDOUS SHIFT in the teaching of Vatican II" ... "I believe there needs to be a change to the Mass (to foster teaching social justice)"..."A concern is how we celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass"..."we can no longer wax off the cuff in homilies"... Dr. Vosko's assaults on Catholicism require clarification: NO DOGMA changed at Vatican II. Christianity held with the intent of reasserting our beliefs for the modern world's benefit. To admire the "fluff" of today's homilies compared to 30 years ago is again turning truth on its head.
2. "The Council taught us that there is a difference between PRIVATE devotion and PUBLIC lturgy." This is the centerpiece of his very consistant, clever, demeaning method of marginalizing Adoration, while INVENTING a CONFLICT that never existed in the mind of the pious, or the faithful. This tactic drives a WEDGE into the parish and the diocese. An abuse is not a norm. Our Roman Catholic Mass has always been a requirement of the parishioners presence and inclusion on The Lords Day. DEVOTIONS, novenas, rosaries, sacramentals, etc. have ALWAYS been understood and taught as fruitful expressions of faith, but relatively insignificant if compared to the Sacrifice of the Mass, and NO ONE who prays in Adoration would by-pass Mass. If there is an abuse it comes out of Dr. Vosko's manipulation techiques. It is a tactic to CREATE CONFLICT, marginalization, and internal opposing groups.
3. "Why would we cling to another age'...Your cathedral "was built for a DIFFERENT people, in a DIFFERENT time with a DIFFERENT liturgy."
These lines bear repeating and I wonder how many have heard this in their own diocese. In mine, these are oft repeated and clearly followed lines spouted by so many in my diocese, whether well meaning or openly dissident. My own pastor, who was happy to 'brush up on his latin' has been quite unexpectedly removed and his replacement ushered in immediate changes citing Vatican II and speaks only derisively of the 'return' of Latin Mass.
Richard Stephen Vosko is an Honorary Member of the American Institute of Architects.
IOW - he is not an architect! There's more .... Vosko belongs to the Societas Liturgica, the Catholic Academy of Liturgy and the Association of Consultants for Liturgical Space.
As you will also note at the above link, Fr. Dr. Vosko was also responsible for the wreckovation of Sacred Heart Cathedral, which was once the chair of Bishop Fulton Sheen.
BEFORE
AFTER
Here is a photo history of that WRECKOVATION .
**Sounds nice, right? Wait. The Church is about to start renovating. **
They had better put a hold on that!
The TLM and the use of these is coming back!
Hold the hammers!
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