Free Republic

On the Biblical Roots and Requirements of Church Design Msgr. Charles Pope • July 30, 2015 • In yesterday’s readings at Mass we read about how Moses laid out the “tent of meeting” exactly according to the pattern God gave him up on the mountain. A millennium later John described a similar scene of the sanctuary in Heaven.Few Catholics today realize that God actually did indicate a good deal about how He expects our churches to be designed. And while some degree of variation is allowed and has existed, most modern churches have significantly departed from the instructions God gave....

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...