Iconoclasm

Iconoclasm & the Japanese Tea House
Hot contention over church renovation projects
(from the November/December 1998 issue)

ONE OF THE MORE CONTENTIOUS ISSUES over the past thirty years of Catholic life has been the subject of church renovations—are they necessary, how should they be done, what is the ideal for the renovated church, did Vatican II "require" reform in church architecture? These questions have the perverse and wearisome tendency to provoke quarrels and disputes which too often go unresolved.

St. Catherine Review has begun to illustrate this contention, and to show exactly how "divisive" the proposals for and results of church renovations are. Often precipitated by the desire for unity in liturgical worship and parish life, the results of many post-Vatican II church renovations have produced the opposite effect: disunity, discord and sometimes even a loss of faith.

Proponents of church renovations á la Environment and Art in Catholic Worship (EACW) somehow understand the Second Vatican Council as calling for a completely new paradigm in the design of Catholic churches. Although renovation enthusiasts are fond of invoking the Council, they often cannot cite one relevant passage from the Council’s documents to support their stringent claims. Ironically they are also often unaware of or neglect the clearly articulated recommendations of Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Council’s constitution on the liturgy.

One wonders how they interpret the exhortation that "the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites" (article 36.1), or that "the Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as proper to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services" (article 116), or that "the practice of placing sacred images in churches so that they may be venerated by the faithful is to be firmly maintained" (article 124), or that "ordinaries must be very careful to see that sacred furnishings and works of value are not disposed of or allowed to deteriorate" (article 126).

Proponents of church renovations form an elite few, whose modus operandi has consistently been to have the sheep follow the wolf to the slaughter. Who pays for these renovations? The people in the pews. Some object, but most follow along unawares, in obedience and trust with the expectation that their contributions are being used wisely and faithfully. Many are, at some point along the way (usually after they have pledged a considerable and generous sum), taken aback by what has developed, by what has been removed, by what their church has become. Fundraising companies and "certified" liturgical design consultants are hired at exorbitant costs. Parishioners pay dearly for these services—sometimes to the tune of $50,000. How many parishioners wonder what exactly is a "certified" liturgical design consultant? How many wonder why a fundraising company is necessary?

Since the first article on the renovation of St. Philip’s Church in Morrow appeared, SCR has heard from Catholics all over the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Some say they are going through much the same process as the parishioners at St. Philip. Others tell us of "warning signs" of an impending project—capital fund drives, for example, for "repainting" or "restoration" or "expansion." Others relate the tragedies of new church building constructed to accommodate "huge crowds" and to replace their traditional churches, which, they say, were sacred and more than adequate in size to accommodate parishioners. Many have simply said: "This once happened to us!"

Dedicated iconoclasts

The Catholic Telegraph recently published an article on the 125^th anniversary celebration of the venerable parish of St. Aloysius-on-the-Ohio in Sayler Park. Those who attended the great celebration, who grew up in Sayler Park but have since moved on to other parishes in newer neighborhoods, might have wondered—"where did all the beautiful old statues go?"

According to one archdiocesan priest who understandably wishes to go unnamed, the pastor of St. Aloysius at the time the church was renovated in the 1980’s once bragged that he removed the statues from the church and buried them in the new concrete front steps which were then in the process of being poured by the construction crew. Iconoclastic? Yes—in the tradition of the most dedicated reformers of Henry VIII’s Protestant England, who de-secrated Catholic altar stones by using them as the front steps to their reformed church buildings.

SCR cannot know whether these religious statues deserved being buried in the fresh concrete of the St. Aloysius renovation project, but we think probably not. Indeed, SCR cannot know whether the pastor maliciously intended to suffocate the statues, or whether he was just making certain they would not resurface in a church in Lincoln, Nebraska or Scranton, Pennsylvania. Nevertheless, this iconoclastic act—the statues could have at least been given to a junk dealer—fits a well-established pattern.

In SCR’s research on church architecture over the past few years, we have discovered what might be called a definitive treatise on church renovation and new church building. Written in 1973 (five years before the NCCB’s Bishops Committee on Liturgy released the controversial document EACW), a book called Architecture in Worship by Lutheran architect Edward A. Sovik, articulates a desire to "continue where the Reformation Protestants left off four hundred years ago."

Sovik explains that he is opposed to the conception of a church as a "holy place" or a "house of God." His treatise argues instead for a secular "non-church"—a "house of the people." Further, he believes that his non-church should be no more than a shell with a "throw-away" interior. To accomplish this task, Sovik’s treatise outlines some basic guidelines for the renovation of churches—whether Catholic or Protestant.

These guidelines include: removing pews and replacing them with portable chairs; setting up a separate room to reserve the Eucharistic species (if such reservation is even necessary); removing any artwork which might be construed as strictly religious (e.g. religious statues or icons); eliminating the traditional sanctuary by bringing the "table" into the congregation and arranging the chairs around the table; and eliminating crucifixes in favor of portable Greek crosses (a.k.a. "plus-signs") which would be used only in processions and during the liturgy. Furthermore, Sovik considers a "good liturgical space" to be one which is not too elongated so as to give the impression of a traditional church arrangement, is not symmetrical, and does not maintain a central focal point, such as a Tabernacle or altar.

Sovik’s proposal is virtually the same scheme which is being proposed in the renovation of St. Philip’s Church in Morrow; it is the same practical advice which is offered in EACW. In Sovik’s words, the ideal of church renovations should not be based on Renaissance or medieval church plans, it should be rooted in "the prototype of the Japanese tea house."

Eureka! Many Catholics have found themselves worshipping in Japanese tea houses, although most of them have been unable to articulate it as such.

That leads us to the answers to two questions posed above. Why are professional fundraising companies necessary? They are necessary because parishioners would not support these church renovation projects on their own merits. They must somehow be duped into doing so…. This is what professional fundraising folks do. They are skilled marketers, often selling people a product that they don’t want and that they do not need.

What is a "certified" liturgical design consultant? It is one who is instructed to render the "correct" advice according to Sovik’s treatise. By whom are they certified? One wonders, but considering that the Archdiocese of Cincinnati recommends the names of "certified" liturgical design consultants to parish building committees, one can only surmise that they are certified by the Archdiocese. Who else?

—Michael S. Rose

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