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Wednesday, June 9, 2021

O MY! NEED I SAY MORE???

Newman Hall - Holy Spirit Parish in Berkeley, CA


 

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

It looks very demonic and just scary ugly, this folks is how we glorify Our Lord Jesus Christ by imitating a scene from hell? These people are sick and need help, how far we have come from Gothic, Baroque, Rococo masterpieces to this utter nonsense.

rcg said...

So when they said the Church might go underground, I didn’t think of this.

Pierre said...

So inspiring. NOT!

ByzRus said...

looks like a set from kevin costner's waterworld flop movie.

Anonymous said...

Nazi or Communist torture cell. Are there claw marks?

Robert Kumpel said...

Kind of looks like a Masonic gallows.

UK-Priest said...

I quite like it but would swap over tabernacle/presiding chairs and add some colour to highlight draw focus on altar.
Would be interested to see semi-full with congregation / sanctuary dressed with candles and flowers etc.

Anonymous said...

UK Priest, do you happen to find also sunken U-boats to warm the heart?

Anonymous said...

UK - Priest,

Of course you would like a dreary space which syncs with the standard OF

rcg said...

UK priest, you don’t need any special effort to add colour. Eventually it will look like the Leake Street walk under.

Anonymous said...

Stalinist?!?

John Nolan said...

Vatican II meets the Flintstones. Yabbadabbadoo!

Anonymous said...

Based on the altar with two holes and the stone, it’s looks like an executioners’ den, whereby arms go through the holes, and the person’s head is chopped off on the altar via giant axe. Morbid yes but sadly my first thoughts. The Sanctuary should be the holiest or most uplifting part of the Church, to inspire one towards heaven in mind, body, and spirit. Not the absolute reverse.

Fr Martin Fox said...

I have to admit, I didn't believe it really could be this bad. But visit the website, and you'll see pictures from 2018 Easter.

It's easy and fun (although perhaps venially sinfully so) to mock this, but the more serious point is the damage that was and continues to be done.

There is no serious argument possible to justify this as Catholic. I mean, if you want to say that Mass has been offered, even for lengthy stretches, in caves, that's true. But that's not a justification for creating a kind of tawdry parody of a cave, when the same dollars could do far better. This deserves to be one of the first slides in a presentation on why beauty is, in fact, not simply subjective, but has real, objective demarcation. This IS ugly. I do not know how to explain the decisions of those who allowed this to happen so I will leave that alone.

I will make a guess and I am prepared to stake real money on a bet that this guess is correct: it wasn't the PEOPLE of this parish who wanted this. So the next time someone gasses on about clericalism (which is a real thing and a bad thing), then THIS deserves to be a slide in THAT presentation as well.

ByzRus said...

Fr. Fox -

Agree with your thoughts. Liturgy should be elevated, I do not see how this would accomplish that. My thought is that this was a designer gone wild (make a name, win an award, or photo-op in an architectural/design digest) who got the pastor/diocesan approval committee on board and here we are. Highly unlikely that laity would yearn for this independently. For most, their experiences are visiting churches and relating what they liked, or didn't after that experience.

Pierre said...

Father Fox,

Always valuable commentary!