WHILE THE CHURCH IS NEW, IT ALSO HAS MANY VINTAGE ELEMENTS INCORPORATED INSIDE, MAKING IT A WELL-SPRING OF ART THAT REACHES BACK OVER 100 YEARS.


People who say, “They don’t build them like that anymore” need to see what has just happened in Daniel Island, South Carolina.

There, in the Diocese of Charleston, they’ve just dedicated St. Claire of Assisi Catholic Church. (Full disclosure: the pastor is a friend of mine, Father Gregory West. I posted about the project a couple years back.)

Now, the new church is featured in Liturgical Arts Journal:

After eight years of planning, design, and construction the beautiful new church of St. Clare of Assisi on Daniel Island (Charleston, South Carolina) has been dedicated. Construction took three years and two months. With great solemnity it was consecrated on April 22 in a liturgy celebrated by the new bishop of Charleston, the Most Rev. Jacques Fabre-Jeune, CS.

Washington D.C. based architects Franck & Lohsen are responsible for the design and they worked with a local company, Trident Construction, and Hord Architects of Tennessee. Evergreene Architectural Arts helped design interior elements. The cross came from Demetz Art Studio in Italy. The bells came from Paccard in Annecy, France.

Visitors who pass through the main entrance are greeted with beautiful words carved above the entrance portal: “LOVE GOD. SERVE GOD.” This is a quote taken from St. Clare of Assisi (1194-1253), the church’s patroness.

This new church is a triumph and yet another example of centrifugal forces striving in many places to restore the sacred – a return to a Catholic synthesis – in the realm of ecclesiastical architecture. While the church is new, it also has many vintage elements incorporated inside, making it a well-spring of art that reaches back over 100 years. Hearty congratulations to this wonderful new community, the founding pastor, Fr. H. Gregory West, and all the fortunate parishioners. Generations will worship here and benefit from the great beauty that is on display for the greater honor and glory of God.

Read more. 

My comments:

This is how to do a free-standing altar. This church incorporates older liturgical items harvested from churches which have been closed, usually in the northeast. The free standing altar is new, but from the congregation’s point of view, it looks like one piece and not two competing altars, although the 100 year old reredos has an altar, but it is not pronounced with this configuration. And the free standing altar is in its traditional three or more steps higher than the main level of the sanctuary. 

But first, my bishop of faculties I have in Charleston :





My only critique: IRON THE DANG ALTAR CLOTH!!!!! MAKE SURE IT FITS THE BLESSED ATLAR PROPERLY!!! THAT’S NOT TOO MUCH TO ASK, DANG IT! Just a minor observation, make sure the bishop and pastor’s stoles are the same length below the chasuble. Those with OCD on these kinds of things might go crazy and go on a rampage….