If your wreckovated parish has the money to do it, there is hope today for a return to sanity after 1970’s vandalism of splendid Catholic Churches. Unfortunately, not all have the resources or desire to do it.
This restoration was accomplished by Conrad/Schmitt who restored the Church of the Most Holy Trinity in Augusta when I was pastor there in 1996.
Before:
After:
After after:
Before and After: St. Mary's in Fennimore, Wisconsin
C onrad Schmitt Studios pursued this renovation/restoration project a few years ago and it is well worth featuring. The church in question is St. Mary's located in Fennimore, Wisconsin. It is the typical and all too familiar story of some of the mid-20th century ideologi…
3 comments:
Stunning restoration.
Hopefully, the high altar become THE altar at some point.
The after after is beautiful, though it lacks the richness and detail of the original. What amazes me is the amount of money the liturgical reform is going to eventually cost the Church. I imagine our age will go down in Church history as one of material excess, where one generation decided to blow billions of dollars worldwide to needlessly create new sanctuaries that nobody wanted a mere generation later with ever more money spent to set things right.
Whenever I see an extreme post Vatican II makeover, my first thought is "what a burden they placed on their children."
I agree. There was such callousness about the patrimony of pre-Vatican II Churches and their altars, pulpits and decorations in the 1970's. What replaced these in the vandalism of these churches is also stunning right out of Toninni Catalogue, stunning, meaning, shocking!The cost to renovate these churches and hack to death works of art is unbelievable. And then, today, the cost to restore is equally expensive but something I think needs to be accomplished but by will donors who then should not fear that work being undone by another pastor or committee.
Think of the once magnificent cathedral in Milwaukee which was completely destroyed in the interior to make it more suitable for the post-Vatican II Mass. That renovation used quality materials and repainted the cathedral beautifully, but the liturgical furnishing and the original sanctuary are completely gone and the pipe organ now is the focal point.
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