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Tuesday, June 23, 2020

AFTER YEARS OF BEING TOLD WE DON’T HAVE THE ARTISANS OR THE ABILITY TO BUILD CHURCHES LIKE THIS, WE LEARN THAT WAS A LIE TOLD TO US FOR THE PAST 50 YEARS OR SO

I hope the antinomian radicals of the Democratic left don’t vandalize this chapel like they have done twice to St. John Protestant Episcopal Church across from the White House which they would like to storm, vandalize and burn down.

This is on the Left Coast, St. Thomas Aquinas Chapel, Santa Paula, California. I wonder if all the cities in California with Catholic saints’ names Or named by Catholic missionaries will be renamed Like Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco to name but three.


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

One wonders about the composition of many of the elements in this new church.

Are the columns solid stone, carved by master craftsmen, meant to last 500 or more years? Or are they some form of extruded plastic or epoxy with a lifespan of, maybe, 50 years.

Were the column capitals carved by artisans, or molded in a robotic process?

Is that baldacchino cast bronze, or was it manufactured from leftover spare parts?

Is there a steel girder superstructure underneath the walls and roof, or is is truly a reproduction of what was done in the past?

We can make things that look like things made in the past, but....

Robert Kumpel said...

I have several friends who are graduates of Thomas Aquinas College. This is a school that is forming and shaping minds that are truly Catholic and will be ready to step in and clean up when the mess that surrounds us finally meets its inevitable end.

Anonymous said...

Will they change the name of Indiana? Their appetites are insatiable.

Anonymous said...

Uh, it is called "St. John's Episcopal Church", not "St. John's Protestant Episcopal Church". The Episcopal Church dropped the "Protestant" preamble decades ago.

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

Are they ashamed of being Protestant? I thought it was only a 4 letter word to orthodox Catholics.

Anonymous said...

I've heard a high quality traditional building can often be cheaper than a modern one because the underlying form is easier to build. Your average traditional church is a rectangle with a gabled roof rather than something more complex like a fan shape or blob.

As for concerns about using cheap imitation materials - it should be remembered that many of the traditional churches we love from the 19th and early 20th century often used modern building techniques and mass-produced imitation materials. Cheap woods were made to look expensive and plaster and cast iron were molded to look like stone and it all could be purchased from catalogues. I have no idea if this church used cheap materials, but don't care too much since they knew how to use them well. This new church is stunning.

What this church really gets right is good proportions, which is why it would be easy to mistake it for a historical building. Many new traditional buildings fail when it comes to proportions, which is why they can look "off" or give the impression that "we just can't build them like that anymore." I'd say proportions are more important than the finish materials and decorations because a well proportioned building decorated with cheap materials will be more pleasing to the eye than a badly proportioned one hand carved out of marble. You can always upgrade the decorations and finishes, but you really can't undo bad proportions.

NAK

TJM said...

Father McDonald,

Why are your minions suppressing my positive comments to Mr. Rumpel?

Anonymous said...

"Are they ashamed of being Protestant?" Uh, maybe it was too wordy. And I guess they like to think they are part (as they claim to be) of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church (I said "claim") I suspect if a Catholic bishop has written communication with an Episcopal one, the former addresses the latter as "The Right Reverend ABC, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of such and such." Thus, "the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia" (based in Savannah) not the "Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Georgia."

But whether they are ashamed of "Protestant" or not, they should be ashamed of a number of other positions they have taken over the year, like blessing same-sex "marriages", supporting "choice" on abortion, failing to discipline wacky bishops who have denied the Trinity and even the resurrection. At the rate that Church is depopulating, there may not be any left in another 50 years---maybe like a fossil in a museum!