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A New Direction in (Catholic) Church Design
Crisis Magazine ^ | August 27, 2014 | MICHAEL TAMARA

Posted on 08/27/2014 3:30:10 PM PDT by NYer

Blessed Sacrament Shrine

One day fifteen years ago, I happened to be channel surfing past the Eternal Word Television Network when I was greeted by a momentary flash of heavenly beauty across the screen. Quickly flipping back, I realized that it was a Mass being celebrated in an unusually majestic church with an extensively gilded and marbled interior.

Having never seen this church before, I distinctly remember asking myself why today’s churches can’t still be built to glorify God the way this beautiful “old” work of art had been. Within minutes, however, I felt as though a joke too good to be true had been played on me—what I was witnessing was in fact the Mass of Consecration for this magnificent and brand new church.

That church is the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, Alabama, which was commissioned by Mother Angelica and is now a longstanding familiar sight to viewers of EWTN. That day back in 1999 marked a turning point in my understanding of the direction of Catholic sacred architecture in the post-conciliar period.

Up to then, I had been conditioned to believe that such blatantly Catholic forms and furnishings were but a stale hangover from the Church’s distant “triumphalist” past, and that my attraction to them was some sort of perverse personal weakness that indicated an obstinate, unenlightened resistance to “the spirit” unleashed in the 1960s. Yet, as I slowly took in what was there before me on the television screen, at the threshold of the new millennium, I felt an unexpected sense of both joy and vindication. To my young mind at least, it was as though I was witnessing a visual clarion call challenging the prevailing mentality of modernism that had successfully held sway in the Church for some thirty years.

Now, let us fast forward to 2014. Relatively speaking, it is still somewhat of a rarity to see a new ecclesiastical project of such delicate care and quality. However, it is not nearly as rare as it was at the turn of the century, and considering various ongoing deterrents both within and outside of the Church, that alone is significant.

It is true that a certain indiscriminate preference for the contemporary remains firmly ensconced in the average American parish. Yet there has also quietly developed a parallel phenomenon: a deliberate and measured return to tradition, born of a deep desire to reestablish continuity and stability in Catholic life. Given the wide appeal it enjoys among younger priests and committed laity—the Church of tomorrow—I dare say it has gained a life of its own. A brief survey of just some of the many projects from the past several years serves to illustrate this point, and is a feast for the eyes and soul in the process.

Parish Life
1
In 2003, a small church in Houston, Texas was consecrated for the parish of Our Lady of Walsingham, designed by the very old and established firm of Cram & Ferguson Architects. This unique Marian title, based on the English apparition and pilgrimage site of the same name, is specifically evoked in the building’s neo-Gothic style, which draws heavily on the vernacular architecture found in the village of Walsingham, Norfolk, England. It therefore becomes a strong visual tie to its namesake.

St. Raymond of Peñafort Church, located in Springfield, Virginia, was consecrated in 2006. Designed by Bass Architects, Chartered as the first permanent home for a young parish founded in 1997, its fortress-like Romanesque stone façade and stout brick towers are prominently visible from the bustling Fairfax County Parkway, and therefore seen daily by thousands of passersby. It incorporates intricate stained glass and various antique furnishings.

5

Another larger project by Cram & Ferguson is St. John Neumann Church in Farragut, Tennessee, consecrated in 2009. Romanesque through and through, its vaulted interior contains large, newly completed apse and dome murals in a naturalistic style. With the parish having outgrown its previous building after just a couple decades, the size and permanence of this new church guarantees that it will adequately serve and inspire for generations to come.

St. Benedict’s Chapel is located in Chesapeake, Virginia, and was consecrated in 2011. Designed by Franck & Lohsen Architects for a parish operated by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), it is possibly the first parish church in the United States built specifically for the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, or Traditional Latin Mass, since before Vatican II. The elegant yet humble design clearly presents itself as a Catholic church, while also incorporating elements of the architecture typical to the local region.

9Franck & Lohsen also designed the stately St. John the Apostle Church a few hours north in Leesburg, Virginia, which was consecrated in 2012. This old parish had long outgrown its small nineteenth-century wooden church, and needed one large enough to accommodate the continuing population boom in Loudoun County. The new design employs various traditional details, with material choices and other elements reflective of the historic town, as well as reminiscent of the old church. The liturgical and devotional furnishings were rescued from a closed church in New Jersey, at which Venerable Fulton Sheen was the homilist for its consecration in 1929.

One of the newest functioning parish churches in the United States is St. Paul the Apostle Church in Spartanburg, South Carolina, designed by Duncan G. Stroik Architect, LLC, and consecrated in 2013. The heavy brick exterior, evoking the familiarity of earlier American immigrant churches, makes for a commanding and permanent presence from the outside. Inside, one is uplifted by a nobly simple, bright, and spacious classical serenity. The altar is given special prominence by its location under a colorful baldacchino, or altar canopy.

Also consecrated in 2013 is St. Catherine of Siena Church in Wake Forest, North Carolina, designed by O’Brien & Keane Architecture. This large church is reminiscent of the Romanesque architecture found throughout Tuscany, which St. Catherine herself would certainly have known. A boldly contrasted triforium arcade below the clerestory provides an additional element to draw the eye’s focus to the altar and tabernacle. Numerous shrines with larger-than-life wooden polychrome statues, custom made in Italy, line the side aisles.

15Currently under construction is St. Mary Help of Christians Church in Aiken, South Carolina, designed by McCrery Architects. The design is predominantly influenced by Renaissance architecture, and consists of a church that sits back from the street, behind an entry courtyard incorporating formal gardens and flanked by twin ancillary buildings with colonnades. This establishes a peaceful transitional zone between the outside world and the Holy of holies, and gives one a sense of being drawn in toward the façade.

Our Lady of Grace Church in Maricopa, Arizona, designed by Liturgical Environs, PC, has begun construction as well. This Gothic style design, which incorporates shallow pointed arches and a hammer beam ceiling, is the focal point in the development of a large parish campus. The church is intentionally designed with future expansion in mind, which will seamlessly allow for it to triple in size as the parish grows.

Religious Life
Various religious orders are experiencing a rise in vocations and are quite young in their overall composition. As a result, the United States has seen several new monasteries planned, begun, or completed in recent years to accommodate the anticipated continued growth. The Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration, who care for the aforementioned Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament on the grounds of Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Alabama, are no exception.

16Another notable example is the Monastery at the New Mount Carmel, planned for the Carmelite Monks of Wyoming (producers of Mystic Monk Coffee) and designed by McCrery Architects. This sprawling Gothic Revival complex will include a chapel at its core, hermitages housing up to thirty monks, a refectory, guest and retreat quarters, and other spaces that will enable the monks to live faithfully according to their rule and flourish as a growing and thriving community for generations. The land is situated in a remote and peaceful mountain setting.

Our Lady of the Annunciation of Clear Creek Abbey, a Benedictine monastery founded in 1999 and situated in the Ozarks of Oklahoma, is a similar scenario. Designed by Thomas Gordon Smith Architects, it blends Romanesque and Renaissance elements, and it continues to be built in phases. The overall program is constructed piece by piece according to the highest priority, and the monks have the happy problem of not being able to build fast enough to keep up with their community’s steady growth.

Campus Life
On college campuses, perhaps in the category of “not your average Newman chapel,” the story continues. The Chapel of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, designed by Duncan G. Stroik and consecrated in 2009, is the focal point of the quadrangle at Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, California. The design is true to its locale in the mission lands of Southern California, but also clearly tied to a sacred tradition that goes even further back. The result is a stunning edifice that would hold its own alongside the finest European churches.

Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity InteriorAlso in the Golden State is Our Savior Church and USC Caruso Catholic Center at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, designed by Elkus Manfredi Architects with Perkowitz + Ruth Architects, and liturgical furnishings by Liturgical Environs. Consecrated in 2012, the project consists of a church and adjacent student center in an Italianate Romanesque style. Some defining features are the rusticated travertine exterior, expansive stained glass windows, and open piazza tying the two buildings together.

The Diocesan See
We are even seeing signs that a rediscovery of tradition has begun to filter up to the highest levels. While new cathedral construction is not nearly as common as the other building types discussed, it is especially significant. As the mother church of the diocese, a cathedral is often seen as prototypical; an indication of the general philosophy a bishop would like to see adopted by the parishes under his auspices.

22The Diocese of Raleigh, North Carolina has commissioned a new cathedral under the patronage of the Holy Name of Jesus, to replace the current cathedral, which has become inadequate to serve the rapidly growing Catholic population in the region. The design, currently in development by O’Brien & Keane, is of a style similar to that of the aforementioned St. Catherine of Siena in the same diocese, but on a larger and grander scale. Expected to take about two years to complete, renderings show that it will incorporate high vaulted ceilings, arcaded side aisles, and a substantial dome.

Across the globe, the Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Fatima in Karaganda, Kazakhstan has arisen from the ashes of the former Soviet Union. Consecrated in 2012, it stands as a brand new witness to the triumph of Christian hope and perseverance over communist oppression. By the use of Gothic Revival, an expression of an earlier style that originated out of a purely Christian religious and social setting—as opposed to something postmodern that would only serve to reinforce the instability and uncertainty introduced by the oppressors—order is restored from chaos, and hope to the future. It is no accident that, in a town that housed concentration camps for people of faith within recent memory, the cathedral is dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima, who implored all of her children to pray daily for the conversion of Russia.

Despite the diversity of hands involved in these works, they are all steeped in timeless Catholic tradition and unmistakably state-of-the-art buildings: a true illustration of a hermeneutic of continuity. And while the focus here has been only on new construction, the increasing prevalence of traditional renovations—or re-renovations, to be more precise—merits its own attention, and will be the subject of a forthcoming essay in Crisis.

Lest delusion set in, the ratio of new traditional churches to posh amphitheater spaces still being built is grossly disproportionate. Nevertheless, after the epic social and liturgical upheavals of the last century, it is a wonder that any sort of traditional resurgence is happening at all, and these projects seem to be only increasing in number and scale with each passing year. Just a decade ago, attempting to write this piece would have proven difficult; twenty years ago, impossible.

This should give cause for optimism to those faithful who yearn for the vitality that flows from firm Catholic identity and its enduring visible expression. After all, as the saying attributed to Chesterton puts it, “Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances we know to be desperate.” Such wisdom is surely not lost on the many pastors, parishes, religious communities, architects and others helping to cultivate this budding sacred renaissance in the midst of a disintegrating culture that is too often hostile to faith.



TOPICS: Catholic; Current Events; Religion & Culture; Worship
KEYWORDS: architecture; churchdesign; crisismagazine; michaeltamara
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To: NKP_Vet

Care to try to prove that, including by looking at the contributions of individual members of different churches?


21 posted on 08/27/2014 5:09:54 PM PDT by Faith Presses On
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To: NYer
“Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers."

John 4:20


22 posted on 08/27/2014 5:18:03 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion ( "I didn't leave the Central Oligarchy Party. It left me." - Ronaldus Maximus)
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To: NKP_Vet
"The Catholic Church feeds more people, clothes more people, and educates more people worldwide than any faith in the world."

"And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. So He said, “Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God,but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.”

23 posted on 08/27/2014 5:22:54 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion ( "I didn't leave the Central Oligarchy Party. It left me." - Ronaldus Maximus)
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To: Faith Presses On

When I said faith I am talking about A CHURCH. Please don’t argue with me on this. It’s stupidity. The Catholic Church feeds more people, educates more people, and clothes more people than any other CHURCH on the planet. It is the largest charitable organization on the planet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QYeST_9FUg


24 posted on 08/27/2014 5:23:13 PM PDT by NKP_Vet
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To: NKP_Vet

You have nothing to back that up.

Plus, a lot of what you call “charity” in the Catholic Church really doesn’t do God’s work, but even the opposite. I know all around the U.S. that Catholic Charities gives psychological counseling. I posted on this before. They use secular counselors who are exactly the same in terms of education and licensing as counselors everywhere else. They are bound to approve of and advocate for homosexuality and condone abortion. Now, I have had a lot of interest in psychology for decades, and have studied it extensively. It is a mix of true and error - a very dangerous mix in spiritual terms. At base, it has some natural truth to it, but it embraces atheistic naturalism and rejects Christian faith. After a lot of consideration of it for years, it seems to me that it is something that the Lord might allow temporarily in someone’s life out of mercy, like He might for a time overlook all the vices we can turn to in life to get us by. For Christians, though, we are to be transformed, to allow that, which means allowing the Lord to work the world out of us and to turn us towards Him more and more. So, psychology is not the highest help we can get, and in fact if we stick to it when the Lord is calling us to replace it with faith and to be transformed through knowing Him better, then it is most dangerous to us. And the Lord will use crises to get us to turn to Him (as the entire Bible shows us), but psychology in such cases will steer us away from God’s will and plan for us. And at bottom, it is built on secular humanism, the idea that we’re not sinners, just have victims with problems. Yet the Catholic Church doesn’t use crises and life struggles to bring people to God’s Word, but to psychology. And Catholic Charities finances it.


25 posted on 08/27/2014 5:42:22 PM PDT by Faith Presses On
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To: NKP_Vet

AMEN and many of these folks are poor.


26 posted on 08/27/2014 5:49:43 PM PDT by Biggirl (“Go, do not be afraid, and serve”-Pope Francis)
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To: Faith Presses On

But God also heals through those in the medical profession, including counseling.


27 posted on 08/27/2014 5:52:21 PM PDT by Biggirl (“Go, do not be afraid, and serve”-Pope Francis)
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To: NYer

Good news here!


28 posted on 08/27/2014 5:55:38 PM PDT by Bigg Red (31 May 2014: Obamugabe officially declares the USA a vanquished subject of the Global Caliphate.)
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To: CodeToad

...I have never agreed with these temples of wealth...”

Untold riches, etc. The catholic churches in the Northeast were built on the blood sweat and tears of the blue collar immigrants.

Myth - temples of wealth.

Christians were illiterate. Revelations 21 caused the people to understand how to build.Heaven has great high walls (again Revelations 21) and they did their best to make this happen.

The human mind works by association. Lofty architecture = heaven for the illiterate folds.


29 posted on 08/27/2014 6:09:14 PM PDT by stonehouse01
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To: stonehouse01

folds - sorry! folks


30 posted on 08/27/2014 6:10:21 PM PDT by stonehouse01
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To: NKP_Vet
The Catholic Church feeds more people, clothes more people, and educates more people worldwide than any faith in the world.

AMEN!!
Well put and true.

Catholic Charities is SO well thought of and trusted that the U.S. government sends its foreign aid to those more unreachable place THOUGHT Catholic Charities.

Here come the Catholic bashers!!

31 posted on 08/27/2014 6:13:50 PM PDT by cloudmountain
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To: Faith Presses On
Plus, a lot of what you call “charity” in the Catholic Church really doesn’t do God’s work, but even the opposite. I know all around the U.S. that Catholic Charities gives psychological counseling. I posted on this before. They use secular counselors who are exactly the same in terms of education and licensing as counselors everywhere else. They are bound to approve of and advocate for homosexuality and condone abortion. Now, I have had a lot of interest in psychology for decades, and have studied it extensively. It is a mix of true and error - a very dangerous mix in spiritual terms. At base, it has some natural truth to it, but it embraces atheistic naturalism and rejects Christian faith. After a lot of consideration of it for years, it seems to me that it is something that the Lord might allow temporarily in someone’s life out of mercy, like He might for a time overlook all the vices we can turn to in life to get us by. For Christians, though, we are to be transformed, to allow that, which means allowing the Lord to work the world out of us and to turn us towards Him more and more. So, psychology is not the highest help we can get, and in fact if we stick to it when the Lord is calling us to replace it with faith and to be transformed through knowing Him better, then it is most dangerous to us. And the Lord will use crises to get us to turn to Him (as the entire Bible shows us), but psychology in such cases will steer us away from God’s will and plan for us. And at bottom, it is built on secular humanism, the idea that we’re not sinners, just have victims with problems. Yet the Catholic Church doesn’t use crises and life struggles to bring people to God’s Word, but to psychology. And Catholic Charities finances it.

Paragraphs =
< p >, no spaces of course

OR

Single spaces at YOUR command, not just wordswordswords =
< br >, no spaces of course

Give it a try. Play around with it.
It will make your posts MUCH easier to read...and, probably be answered.

32 posted on 08/27/2014 6:19:28 PM PDT by cloudmountain
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To: NYer

And then there are the “could have beens”. This church could have been beautiful: http://www.straymond.us/html/photos_1.html It’s an attractive, pleasant space, but... it just isn’t what it could have been.


33 posted on 08/27/2014 7:19:33 PM PDT by vladimir998
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To: NKP_Vet

Two others things, too. What you are saying, then, is that if Catholic Church aid workers help ebola victims, that “counts.” but when Christians work with a group like Samaritans’ Purse to help them, that doesn’t. Well, to the Lord it does, and if how you are looking at things doesn’t agree with how He does, so that you simply negate the Christian work of some so you can compare work done by churches in order to put yours first, then it sounds like something is wrong with that.

And second, what I’ve been starting to see is how closely Catholicism is tied to racial segregation in the U.S. Case in point is St. Louis - highly Catholic and highly segregated. The Northeast - highly Catholic and most segregated schools. Detroit, Chicago, L.A., well-known for their segregation, but it’s not just there. Baton Rouge - white citizens trying to form a separate city to escape black people. Buffalo, NY, where I come from. 77% Catholic. The city is about 45%-45% white and black but very segregated and Cont’d


34 posted on 08/27/2014 8:03:58 PM PDT by Faith Presses On
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To: Faith Presses On

And what about the KKK that burned down Catholic Churches?

Get real.


35 posted on 08/27/2014 8:10:27 PM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: NKP_Vet

most suburbs are well over 90% white. Black unemployment is sky high in recent decades. Most whites there want Washington to help black people (and them too), but don’t want any sacrifice themselves. They would never say anything openly racist in a public forum where they’re identified, but coded language (like “city folk,” “safe neighborhood” and “good schools”) make them oppose anything that might start to put an end to the ghetto there. And in semi-privacy (a group of only whites) I’ve heard plenty of racism. I’m also 44 and never personally knew anyone black or Hispanic until I was 30 when in the city I had a black neighbor, and many suburban whites likely never do. And I don’t have more time tonight, but I could say much more on this. There is some connection.


36 posted on 08/27/2014 8:16:42 PM PDT by Faith Presses On
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To: CodeToad
I’ve never agreed with these temples of wealth. I don’t think Jesus would approve of the untold riches used to build them.

The Son of Man had nowhere to lay His head.

Funny how I see so much criticism for non-Catholic mega churches and ones like the Crystal Cathedral, and yet when it's a Catholic church, well, they're just wonderful in spite of the massive amounts of money spent on them.

37 posted on 08/27/2014 10:07:38 PM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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Comment #38 Removed by Moderator

To: NoKoolAidforMe
The Catholic Church does more for the world’s poor, sick, hungry and elderly than any other religion or government.

Jesus condemned the Pharisees for making a show of their acts of charity. He taught us that the right hand should not let the left hand know what it is doing.

All this bragging on what the church is doing, has gotten its reward in this world from the attention it has gotten.

There's none left in heaven for those who flaunt their good works for attention.

39 posted on 08/27/2014 10:12:17 PM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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To: Faith Presses On

Your description of the situation in Buffalo is spot on.

I too, grew up there and still have lots of connections with family and friends.

The corruption in WNY politics is legendary and most of the politicians who are most notorious for it were faithfully practicing Catholics.

Jimmy Griffin comes immediately to mind.


40 posted on 08/27/2014 10:14:47 PM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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