Sunday, January 02, 2005

Utility vs. Sublimity

"When I see churches in which modern architects have tried to embody
the ideal of a "preachers church", I feel a sinking of the heart. A
church is much more than a building in which one listens to sermons;it is a place
for devotions, and merely as a building it ought to keep people at a devotional
level. But it can never do that if in every direction the worshiper's
eye is brought up short by walls. There is need of distance, of a
background, which lends itself to the mood of the worshiper, so that the outward
gaze can change to the inner one. The chancel, therefore, is not
something exclusively Catholic; it is part of the church as a church, and if
Protestant services are from their very nature defective there is not need for
the building to be so as well. The building ought to make the service a
complete whole, and become as much as element in the soul's experience as the
words heard,the singing, and the prayers." Albert Schweitzer

I really struggled with leaving that part about Protestants in the quote. I could have taken it out and nobody would have been the wiser. But I think it's a crucial element to the quote. He's quite obviously bashing 'garage turned church building'. Which I hate too. Why do Roman Catholics have the vast majority of cool churches? They stole them after the Reformation.


2 comments:

trawlerman said...

I'm glad you left the defective protestant part in.

Peter said...

Mediocre architechture is not restricted to Protestants.
Some of the newer Catholic Churches are indistinguishable from middle schools or sewing machine factories. Most typically those who have lost the love (and demand) for beauty are also those who dissent from the Church. To them, Mary is a poor role model (a stay at home MOM?), the Communion of the Saints is superstition, the Church is invisible, the Pope is someone to beat up on ... When you begin to lose Catholicity, it shows itself among other things in architechture, literature, art, ...

I'll try to post an example on my blog of two different Catholic Churches that I saw this week. One is a mile from our apartment here, and the other is where we went to Mass this past Sunday.