What all these seven new Catholic churches have in common is that these are in the south! The south has risen! It is true! Four of these photos, I, II, IV and VI are within the Province of Atlanta! The first of course in the Diocese of Savannah: Augusta's St. Teresa's Church. Number II is twenty miles from Augusta, in the Diocese of Charleston, St. Mary Help of Christians; number IV is the new cathedral in Raleigh, North Carolina and number VI is a bit south of Savannah in Richmond Hill, St. Anne.
Number III is in Farragut, Tennessee, St. John Neumann.
Number V is the Monastery of the Poor Clares in Hanceville, Alabama.
Number VII is St. John the Apostle in Leesburg, Virginia.
18 comments:
St. Mary Help of Christians, in my diocese, is going to be a truly gorgeous building. The Romanesque facade is striking.
Father, according to the Crisis Magazine article you referenced, picture # V is the New Mt. Carmel of America Monastery in Wyoming... Not in the SE, BUT absolutely stunning nonetheless!
This is long overdue. It's really sad to go into your average southern town and see all these dignified and nice looking protestant structures when their is either a) no Catholic church at all or b) some ugly modern structure that makes the One True Church look tawdry. Thanks for posting this.
The bishop of Knoxville, Tenn., is building a new cruciform cathedral. Although he is by no means a traditionalist, the diagrams promise a very traditional design, with such elements as a central tabernacle instead of a centralized episcopal chair.
The Roman Rite in the American South!
How is that Christ Cathedral in LA turning out?
Then they also need a barbeque pit and a still. And I am *NOT* joking!!!
qwikness,
If we had one of those in the South, just imagine what it would cost to air-condition it.
Quickness:
Are you asking about Robert Schuller's "Crystal Cathedral" that was purchased by the Diocese of Orange, or the ever-repulsive Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles?
JBS:
It not only would function as a Cathedral, it would also double as a Greenhouse(if not provided with the necessary level of air conditioning).
The L.A. cathedral is an example of distorted design born of sexual perversion. When one seeks to pervert the "temple" of one's body, one then attempts to justify this perversion by perverting the "stone and mortar" temples.
Number III is my uncle's parish, and is even more beautiful on the inside. It may have been the inspiration for B. Stika's drive for a new cathedral in Knoxville....
Unfortunately, not all of these churches have priests who are as motivated as you, Father, to celebrate a liturgy which would magnify the beauty of the churches.
The South will rise again!
"The L.A. cathedral is an example of distorted design born of sexual perversion."
Can you explain this assertion?
I didn't make the assertion about the LA cathedral, but I follow the general gist...
Architecture is a language. It follows syntax and rules. There's a reason why the Greeks and Romans built their temples with the proportion and math they did. It's not arbitrary.
But the moderns in their conceit (and stupidity actually) thought that proportion was just that: arbitrary. And thus the spaces they produce like so much modern art was a jumble of disorder and distortion.
The mind looks for patterns - if your interior design is pure randomness it will subtly drive the average, healthy mind, slightly mad trying to find the design.
I've not time to elaborate but look at Hotel lobby design - there's a reason things are placed the way they are. There's a reason banks present themselves with subtle cues to permanence and power.... there's all manner of small details that tell people "this is important" or "this is not important" in a building or in clothing or in a ritual.
Where is it written that architecture follows yntax and rules?
Where is it defined that what "moderns" have produced "jumble and distortion"?
What makes your perception superior to the perception to the perception of others?
Pater Ignotus,
Yes, I can explain it. When one seeks to pervert the "temple" of one's body, one then attempts to justify this perversion by perverting the "stone and mortar" temples.
JBS - That's interesting. I don't think it has any connection to reality, but it's interesting...
Is "The Importance of Being Earnest" less fine a play because Oscar Wilde was gay? Is "Begin the Beguine" less and American classic because Cole Porter was gay? Are we going to tear down Lincoln Center because the architect, Philip Johnson, was gay? Are we going to refuse to recognize the central role Alan Turing played in defeating the Nazis by breaking the Enigma Code because he was gay? Is the Van Cliburn competition meaningless or perverted because Cliburn was gay?
You may not like the L.A. Cathedral - I think the outside is singularly dull, but the inside is marvelous - but to suggest that it is "perverted" is a little much, don't you think?
Seriously Pater? http://www.olacathedral.org/
The tabernacle is.... ah... "interesting". The lines and colors are crisp, stark, hard edged, and cold.
The exterior looks like a painting of Matisse. Blocky and out of proportion with random cuts and thrusts of building, projections, etc.
You don't have to be a fan of Gothic or Romanesque to appreciate order and symmetry. The big cathedral in Barcelona that's still under construction is a revolutionary design but is proportional, balanced, 'organic'...human.
The box in LA... the representations of sacred space is sui generis (and thus, according to proper 'inculturation' is a foreign language to most if not all the people).
As for calling people "gay", those of us who work with and for brothers and sisters who struggle with the disorder of same sex attraction don't call them "gay".
They're people first. Sons or Daughters of God second. Their weaknesses, disorders, diseases, addictions, and vices do not define them as people nor exhaust who they are or what they're capable of.
Had Oscar Wilde NOT been sexually active with young teenage boys, he'd still have had the gift of writing that he had. It's not his sexual 'orientation' (itself a made up concept) that made him great, it was that gift of expression that could exist apart from that sexual attraction.
Ditto with scientists and others. Their natural gifts and potential exist prior to their same sex attraction, NOT BECAUSE OF IT.
That's a crucial distinction often lost by low information folk in these debates.
Our height, weight, freckles, short sightedness, etc. are all accidents to our being.... our struggles with addiction, vice, depression, erotic ideations... those do not define us even as they sometimes try to engulf us and blot out the sun.
We Catholics must not allow the secular world view on these matters to blot out the great and healing insights of the saints on this issue.
We're great because of our relationship to God despite defects of a wounded human nature.
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