Have Your Say 

Recent Comments

1. What do they mean by 'denaturing' places for worship?
   The European architectuaral concept for what is a 'church' is rather culturally limited.
   I'm sure that a mini replica of St Peter's might be approved by Rome but it would hardly be culturally or spiritually or even environmentally appropriate in Central Australia!
   Surely the cultures of Asia, China, Africa, and the Americas would play a pivotal role in designing meaningful places of worship and are as relevant in deciding what is appropriate as a commission located in Rome.
   I had thought that the age of colonialization was a thing of the past but it does seem from this latest development by Rome that it is alive and well!
   So much for the spirit and teachings of Vatican II.

   Posted By: michael schell

2. All good provided the advice of John XXIII that 'the Church is not a museum...but a beautiful and flourishing garden...' is heeded.
   What does a church look like in the 21st century?
   Why can't it reflect the more 'corporate' nature of our working and living spaces today? See Cathedral of Christ the Light, Oakland for example.
   The builders of medieval cathedrals used materials and art of their day to reflect their theology and perceptions of the Divine. Why can't we? Beauty is possible using materials, music and art of the 21st century and indeed of the avant garde.
   This new commission, if not living in the current space/time continuum, might well do just that - cause the Church and our churches to be nothing more than museums reflecting a Church frozen at a certain point in time and thus attempt to freeze our experience of God at that same point in time.
   

   Posted By: Christopher McElhinney

3. Deo Gratias!

   Posted By: Paul Lucas

4. You would think with all the ongoing problems the Church is experiencing; one would think church architecture would be the least of its worries.
   What is good church architecture? Coober Pedy church is a hole in the side of a hill.
   Perhaps many communities have to use multipurpose buildings because they cannot afford edifices that Rome expects. Many of these multipurpose buildings are used to help the homeless and other disadvantaged folk.
   I think the Vatican should worry more about falling church attendances than the structures they sit in.
   

   Posted By: Chris P

5. Does this mean the commission will be visiting Parramatta to inspect "St Bunnings'" cathedral?

   Posted By: Paul Mees

6. This is indeed great news. No one is suggesting all churches should be Gothic or nostalgic. However, many monstrosities I have seen around the world absolute amaze me for their lack of encouraging Catholic spirituality.
   One huge church outside of the greater Sydney area is astoundingly cold and unreceptive to Christianity. As Paul Keating noted, I am amazed it even passed council requirements, let alone the custodians of Catholic aesthetics.
   

   Posted By: Brent Egan

7. So much for the Vatican principle of subsidiariity.
   Micromanagement of dioceses isn't only poor pastoral practice but hints at an ecclesiology in which dioceses are merely branch offices of a multinational corporation.

   Posted By: RobJ

8. Let's start with the multi-purpose design of St Peter's basilica. My guess is that fewer than 2% of those who enter would ever participate in a liturgical rite inside there (Mass, Divine Office etc).
   St Peter's unique multi-purpose design stuns and astounds its visitors, pilgrims and tourists who also climb all over its parapets and into the dome.
   I'd like to think that all who enter set aside time for personal prayer. My guess is that many do not.
   The new Catholic churches built these days are invariably in the third and fourth worlds. These places have limited financial resources and will not likely be much worry for the liturgical art and sacred music sub commission.

   Posted By: Joe Duffy

9. I know the church moves slowly but trying to shut the gate more than forty years late, well after the horse has bolted and virtually disappeared down the road is very late. The best that can be said about this dreadfully tardy reaction is better late than never. We are now left with a multitude of abominations that will dull the spirit for generations. Can we please sell most of them and start over again.

   Posted By: Barry

10. It seems clear that over the past few years the bureaucrats in the Curia have fallen in love with the great Vitruvius (c75 BCE-c15 CE). In his ten volume De Architectura, he clearly demonstrated to the Roman world and to its Vatican descendants just why he has come to be known as the father of engineering.
    The authors of Liturgiam Authenicam and the members of Vox Clara have obviously studied the great man especially on his expertise with rocks - we now hear the familiar clunk at Sunday Mass!
    And now the Curial Dept. of Engineering is digging deep once more into the Vitruvian sources searching for guidance on how to set in place a master plan for the Universal Church to follow in avoiding the construction of multi-purpose liturgical garages. They may now construct barns but they must be made of marble and be built adjacent to an authenic Roman road.

    Posted By: David Timbs

11. Brent Egan: I sympathise with you. Look at that monstrosity in Rome: St Peter's Basilica. How many cathedrals etc have been erected in the past to satisfy human ego and vanity.
    Just think of all the corruption that has gone on in the Vatican (the Borgias etc) whilst building grand structures.
    I have worshipped, at a Eucharist, out in the bush where the presider did not even wear vestments. It was beautiful. On the other hand, I have been in huge, old Cathedrals overseas that were cluttered and cold.
    What do you mean by 'unreceptive to Christianity'? Does Christianity depend on grand, expensive buildings?

    Posted By: Francis

12. As a school student, I was taught that the local Bishop was Christ's Vicar for his Diocese.
    Over the years, especially recent years, I have been saddened to see the local Bishop seemingly being reduced to an administrator, with all real decisions reserved to Rome (and in many instances the members of the Curia, not the Pope).
    This lastest move is another nail in the coffin for subsidiarity. Perhaps the official church needs to die, so that the People of God can see new Christian life!

    Posted By: Kevin Langley

13. How does one apply for a job in this new 'team'? I am sure they will need an international perspective as not all culture is uniform in its 'Catholicity'.
    I have googled Churches in every continent and have checked Youtube clips for everything from Missa Luba to Gregorian Chant.
    I think this hi-tech experience gives me a pretty good background to the decision making skills required. I am also available for travel at short notice.
    Not sure who to nominate as referees, but I do have a couple of Aussie Bishops among my Facebook friends. Do you think thet will help?

    Posted By: Tony Robertson

14. On a visit to Noumea quite a few years ago, my wife and I hired a car for a day and drove into the countryside outside Honiara to see how the people really lived away from the big city. We came across this poor little church, which was completely open on one side.
    The rest was constructed of left-over materals from other building projects - a couple of odd windows and so on. Yet, that was a church/chapel where we could pray easily, where Jesus would have felt at home. I have also visited St Peter's in Rome and even attended a Papal Mass and I found the grandeur, the pomp and ceremony, and the almost idolatrous excitement, particularly among the many young nuns, towards thge then pope, John Paull II, quite stifling and not at all conducive to prayer.
    [I made myself useful by stacking the chairs so that people would not injure themselves in their rush to the barricade along the central aisle of the basilica.]
    Give me the simple little chapel, built with love, just outside Honiara anytime in preference to St Peter's Basilica.

    Posted By: Rob Brian

15. My recollection is of a tiny country church, which we shared with the Anglicans.
    In the coldest part of the winter we resorted to home Masses because the cracks in the church were very wide and the winds very cold.
    A number of working bees allowed us to replace the foundations and fill the cracks and a paint job made it good as new. Hopefully it is still being used by both Catholics and Anglicans.

    Posted By: Margaret McDonald

16. I have read with interest the article on the Vatican's 'crackdown' on Church architecture.
    I would have thought that the multi-use of a building to benefit the community would be preferential to outlaying hundreds of thousands of dollars for seldom-used buildings.
    The Vatican would be better advised to use the financial and human resources spent on discussing, planning and erecting buildings on better things such as decreasing poverty, starvation and children suffering in many African countries.
    These 'crackdowns' are the very reason thet millions of Catholics the world over don't bother attending churches on Sundays. They, unlike many of the decision-making clergy based in Rome, realise that Christ was about people, not buildings!
    Next the vatican will be ordering he destruction of the Holy Family church in Barcelona - after all, Gaudi did not follow the Vatican's requirements for a 'Temple of God'.

    Posted By: Peter Coghlan

17. I've worshipped in Rome, Chartres, Bribbaree (outback NSW) and many other places in between. I love both the high and low ends ... but the low ends have to be pointing to the high.
    I think most of the formulaic churches built since the sixties here in Oz need to be bulldozed as of tonight. But I also agree with Chris McE: artists wishing to glorify God are in abundance - as ever - and are still capable of doing things for the greater glory of God. We must give them creative space.
    On our annual Christus Rex Pilgrimage from Ballarat to Bendigo each year, we move from Cathedral to Cathedral, finishing up in the glorious Sacred Heart Cathedral in Bendigo - which, for all its grandeur, is surprisingly intimate, humane and welcoming. But the favourite Mass for me, and many others on the Pilgrimage, is at the village of Campbelltown.
    There's no Catholic church within coo-ee. So we've made use of a pine grove there. A Missa Solemnis in the woods - the glorious Saturday Mass of Our Lady ('Salve Sancta Parens'). The 'church', fashioned with pine logs as seats and altar rails and a rough crucifix; a marquee sanctuary, a side altar to Our Lady from a Bunnings garden arch. It's just wondrous! This year the birds in the pines above seemed to sing particularly intensely during the consecration. Everyone noticed.
    I've lost count of the number of youth who've said 'I want to be married here.'

    Posted By: HH

18. Rob: Last time I looked, Honiara was the capital of the Solomon Islands and was not in New Caledonia of which Noumea is the capital.
    

    Posted By: Chris M

19. How pompous and pretentious some people feel they need to be.
    I have been at masses celebrated in huts on dirt floors with simple wooden pews hewn out by the faith-filled people of the village.
    Their 'architecture' was far more in keeping with the simple 'upper room' where the Eucharist was first shared.
    As if Jesus gives a toss what kind of building we are in!
    Get real. Get back to the gospel.
    As one contributor said there are far more important things to worry about.

    Posted By: Marjorie

20. This sadly is another example of a very odd dictate from the Vatican.
    I have been to the third world often enough to realise that multi purpose buildings (Church /School/Hall) are about all these parishes can afford, often at great cost.
    I agree with other writers that this is yet another example of colonialism gone bonkers.
    I think we have very much bigger problems than the buildings we worship in. Talk about disconnected....

    Posted By: Gavin O'Brien

21. More cookie-cutter architecture and boring, unsingable music on the way. Did we actually expect something more important to come out of the Vatican, such as reforms?

    Posted By: Rita

22. I'm glad I didn't shoot from the hip on this topic.
    Others have expressed my disappointment at this latest example in an increasingly totalitarian church of the practice of democratic centralism as understood by Vladimir Lenin.
    The Congregation of Divine Worship seems to be made up of the sort of people who would object to the celebration of the Last Supper in the upstairs dining room of a country inn, or, heaven forbid, in underground caves where the bones of our persecuted forebears lay exposed.
    They'd shudder at the music of the Jewish shofar, the Indian sitar and the Japanese koto.
    We are a universal church, a world-wide community of people who have received the Good News of Jesus Christ, not a movement dedicated to world domination because of some economic theory.
    Many thanks to all those commentators who expressed their reservations about this latest Curial move towards aesthetic control of church buildings and music.

    Posted By: Joe

23. The blind rush to turn Catholicism into a museum now accelerates with the visionless micro-managers of the Vatican and their travelling reps across the globe intent on making worship little more than a mere and uniform aesthetic experience, and one to only suit the immature few .
    These frightened few and those who share this failing need to open their eyes to the global increase of Pentecostal worship.
    Sure, there are unscrupulous elements to it, and too often it is the smiling face of the insidious 'prosperity gospel', but actual people hunger for the experience of God, for the acknowledgement that theirs is an encounter and relationship with God, and that worship is not about being a mere excluded spectator to privilege or something that can only respond to Grace if it is mediated by someone else's aesthetic pleasure.
    The faithless few simply do not understand the faithful many, and nor do they want to.

    Posted By: Mark Johnson

24. 'You live in houses of cedar, while the Ark dwells in a tent'.
    How many readers who love the simple and often dilapidated country churches would be happy to have their own house of that standard?
    You baulk at spending a few hundred thousand for the House of God but not to upgrade your own place.
    And you happily visit clubs which glitter and shine. What is this saying to your children?
    I have been in a parish when the community fundraised and built the church using second hand materials and our own hands, but it was a beautiful church, not a shed or office block. It can be done, if you care enough.

    Posted By: TC

25. It's interesting many comments have focused on the issues of central control and local conditions.
    The debate, which I think is largely unresolvable over aesthetic values., is also mentioned.
    Either one thinks there are unchanging aesthetic values or not.
    Personally I think the answer is yes and no, and that education and cultural conditioning play the same role to the golden proportion as nurture does to nature.
    I suggest true church architecture reflects the character of the religion and theology it serves and that this is the key issue to keep in mind in this discussion. A building with high and arched ceilings will lead the mind upwards from the earth; one that is low will promote intimacy; materials like stone and vast spaces will create accoustics that alter the voice and suit a particular type of ritual and music; carpet and brick and smaller areas will do the same in a different way.

    Posted By: Stephen Kellett

26. What sort of Church would Our Lord have 'felt at home in'?
    Well, actually the Jewish Temple, with it elaborate vestments, incense, adornments and more!
    Scripture records him praying, worshipping and teaching in the Temple and synagogues, not just out in the countryside to accomodate the crowds.
    And he specifically rejected 'multi-purpose uses' uses of the Temple twice, when he cleansed it by driving out all the merchants, hence the application of the psalm verse 'Zeal for God's house consumes me' to him.
    Nor was the Upper Room Last Supper just some casual affair - someone had to be sent ahead to prepare everything, get all ready for those elaborate Jewish Passover rituals.
    Take a look too, at the Book of Revelation, and the elaborate Temple imagery it uses (which some argue are largely coded references to the Mass).
    Recovery of some care for our church buildings is a return to Scripture, not a rejection of it.
    As for subsidiarity, if local bishops had shown themselves capable of exercising some taste when it comes to church architecture over the last few decades, the Vatican wouldn't need to intervene.
    But look around you at the appalling churches we are mostly stuck with. And ghastly things are still happening.

    Posted By: Kate

27. Many of the comments here appear to show that many people are out of touch with the church, not the other way around.
    What the Vatican is objecting to, I suspect, is ugliness (i.e. some/much? postmodern architecture), shallow self-glorification (many modern hymns), and the de-Christianisation of some churches.
    How many modern churches have been designed and built by architects who think that bare lines of steel and concrete are the ultimate in fashion, with few willing to tell the emperor that he at least needs to get a pair of pants on.
    How many hymns give the impression, if you can get past the pop beats, poor scansion, awkward rhymes, and St. Valentine-day-amateur-poetry-style lyrics, that we have already got it made, and that Heaven is already a given, and not something to be earned the hard, just way?
    The last of the three is by far the worst. How many of you have been to churches where the blessed sacrament has been shoved into a side room instead of being given its proper place at the centre of the church and our lives?
    Incidentally, I'd be willing to bet a fair bit of cash that the Vatican officials many seem so quick to label elitist would feel right at home in a tin shack of a church, as the builders of such a beautiful house of God would actually be likely to have their hearts, and the blessed sacrament, in the right place!

    Posted By: Paul Keen

28. Kate: your post is a fascinating example of eisegesis. I wonder if the vatican taste police share the same scriptural discipline?
    Look a bit harder and you will see a Jesus who cleansed the Temple, one who saw clearly how the Temple had been coopted for purpses alien to the Kingdom, who is depicted in dogged opposition to the empty pomp and circumstance of its priests, who contradicted the taboos and burdens of Temple rubrics,and who was handed over to Rome for execution by its functionaries.
    Next you'll have us reading that the priesthood of Christ and the People of God is the same as that of the Temple priesthood.

    Posted By: Mark Johnson

29. Kate: And yet Jesus cleansed the temple and foretold its destruction. On the one hand, he was very angry with the corruption that went on within it; and, on the other hand, he did not sound too upset about its impending demise.
    NB: The Jewish temple was nothing like our Cathedrals. Those early Christians were quite happy to worship in houses or wherever. So how can this be a return to Scripture?
    Elaborate Jewish Passover rituals? How elaborate? (John's Gospel indicates the Last Supper was not a Passover meal). Did Jesus use gold cups? Did we wear elaborate vestments?
    Your understanding of the Book of Revelation is somewhat off-course. The fact is, much of the symbolism in that book is Jewish.
    As for it being coded references to the Mass, such is wishful thinking. The Mass as an elaborate ritual did not exist back then. Which liturgy of the Mass are you referring to anyway?

    Posted By: Francis

30. Paul Keen: What do you mean by 'the de-Christianisation of some churches'?
    How many ancient buildings (churches/cathedrals) etc have been built that now are costing an absolute fortune to maintain. Many were built by conning the poor and fleecing them by false promises of indulgences
    I thought many ancient buildings had their own chapel for the reservation of the sacrament and not at the high altar. What is the right place for the Blessed Sacrament? General Instruction of the Roman Missal [GIRM], no. 276: "It is highly recommended that the holy Eucharist be reserved in a chapel suitable for private adoration and prayer. If this is impossible because of the structure of the church or local custom, it should be kept on an altar or other place in the church that is prominent and properly decorated" (citing Inter Oecumenici, no. 95).

    Posted By: Francis

31. Mark/Francis: Where exactly do you find in Scripture any commentary on the burden of temple rubrics, or condemnations of pomp?
    The answer is nowhere. They don’t exist.
    Our Lord did, of course, condemn the twisting of the purity laws, and hypocrisy in worship but that is not at all the same thing.
    St John does not in fact explicitly say that the Last Supper wasn’t a Passover meal. Most scholars think it was.
    And there is a fair amount of evidence that the early Mass was indeed treated as a formal ritual (St Paul condemns occasions when it wasn’t treated as such).
    As for theories on the symbolism of Revelation, I refer you to Scott Hahn’s book, The Lamb’s Supper.
    The cleansing of the Temple was surely largely about the co-option of the Temple buildings for non-worship purposes.
    The first century equivalent of ‘multi-purpose’ function uses and the religious hierarchy using their building assets as a way of developing a ‘new revenue stream’, something all too popular in our day in some dioceses. It is worth noting the previous destructions of the temple occurred in response to idolatry etc.
    In any case, it’s final destruction allowed for the establishment of Churches everywhere with the Real Presence of the Holy, rather than this being restricted to the Temple alone. The early Church used houses and catacombs because they had no choice.
    We should cultivate the same fervour for this cause as King David did.

    Posted By: Kate

32. Modern Catholic architecture since the onset of Vatican 11 has reflected a mundane, functional approach to Church building which has resulted in drab,formless structures that lack any indication of a sanctified space reserved for the celebration of Holy Mass.
    This post-modern, secular trend has infected liturgy and the even the educational approach to teaching the basics of the Faith.
    The Classic periods of Church architecture as reflected in the Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque eras, left behind glorious cathedrals and churches across the world, which in form, dimensions and and decoration left little doubt that we are in the presence of portals to Heaven.
    The global Church needs to reinvest again in the establishment of Church buildings which continue the masterpieces in stone left behind by past generations of architects, artist, sculptors, master masons and artisans.
    One example of post WW11 Catholic religious architecture that present day Church designers might emulate, is the splendid church in Vence, southern France with those famous radiantly, beautiful stain-glass windows, which was designed by the great French artist Henri Matisse.

    Posted By: Gerry McIvor

33. Kate: Firstly you need to look more closely at the relationship of the 'money-changers' to the Temple. They were no way extraneous to the sacrificial functioning of the Temple.
    Then you need to read the 'cleansing of the Temple' not only in light of the priesthood's resultant reaction to Jesus, but what was at the heart of the conflict? Why the vehement reaction?
    Linked to this crucial event, you need to appreciate that Jesus saw the Temple and its practices as hopelessly corrupt, inferring from this the necessity of messianic tribulation and his own purpose and calling as unique response to this crisis.
    Therefore Jesus' messianic activities were a calling of all of Israel to repentance, and the movement he called into being as supplanting that of the Temple and its crippled and compromised authority. Therefore Israel's 'Temple' activities took on a new manifestation outside of the established norms, as it had to do.
    The People of God called into being by Jesus of Nazareth were the new Temple.
    Very handy to thoughtfully and prayerfully ponder this, especially in light of the current vatican focus upon building and Roman aesthetics.
    To make Jesus subservient to the Temple strips him of his messianic role and questions the viability of Christianity.
    For the Vatican to be focussing upon buildings ignores where the locale of the buildings of God really is, where the Kindom is truly built.

    Posted By: Mark Johnson

34. Kate: Nowhere did I mention 'pomp' nor 'temple rubrics' although there is no reason to suppose that Jesus was impressed with these.
    Nowhere does John's Gospel say that the earth isn't flat either.
    To argue that just because John's Gospel does not explicitly say that the Last Supper wasn’t a Passover meal that, therefore, it was is to stretch things a bit.
    John 19:14 says Jesus was crucified on the Day of Preparation of the Passover and, of course, the sanhedrin took Jesus to the praetorium but would not go in lest they be defiled and unable to eat the Passover (Jn 18:28).
    What do you mean by: there is a fair amount of evidence that the early Mass was indeed treated as a formal ritual (St Paul condemns occasions when it wasn’t treated as such). Where is the evidence? Paul does no such thing. There is eveidence that the Eucharist included an agape meal.
    I have Scott Hahn's book. I refer you to Grant Osborne's 800+ page book Revelation. It is much more scholarly.
    Your reason given for the cleansing of the Temple completely ignores the corruption and injustice associated with the Temple. Please understand what the Temple was.
    Your statement 'In any case, it’s final destruction allowed for the establishment of Churches everywhere with the Real Presence' is intriguing. What does it mean? You seem to imply that churches were built in the 70's ad following the destruction of the Temple.

    Posted By: Francis

35. Mark: Jesus didn't 'infer' anything; he was fully divine and knew!
    Your interestly creative reinterpretations of the cleansing of the Temple involve junking nearly two millenia of tradition, both on the interpretation of Scripture and the consequent building of beautiful churches as a focus for our worship.
    I'd suggest a careful reading of a good traditional commentary like that of Cornelius de Lapide, who says amongst other things (on St Mathew's account):
    'Jesus, entering into Jerusalem, did not come to the citadel of Sion as a second David, but to the Temple, that He might show that He was the Son of God the Father, Who was worshipped in the Temple; that He might refer to Him the honour here ascribed by the people to Himself, for He had accepted it for no other end than that He might lead men to God...Christ, therefore, on Palm Sunday entered into the city and the Temple in solemn pomp, and prayed in it, and gave thanks to God... Moreover, Christ drove them from the Temple (that is, from the court of the Temple) for two reasons. The first is, because it was not seemly that those things should be sold in the Temple, but in the market-place; for the Temple is the house of prayer, not of merchandise, as Christ says. The second was the avarice and usury of the priests.'

    Posted By: Kate

36. It matters not one bit to me what shape or form the design of a church takes as long as it fulfils the purpose for which it was built and consecrated.
    To me, a couple of ammunition boxes supporting a small crucifix and a chalice, underneath a hoochie supported by four crudely trimmed branches at a Fire Suport Base in September 1969, was the most beautiful church I have ever attended.
    Its stark simplicity spoke volumes for the simplicity of Christ's life here on earth. For just a short while, I was able to forget during Padre Shanahan's celebration of the Mass, where I was and what I was there for.
    Nothing since that time has surpassed that brief interlude of peace in a war zone.
    As for music. The New Mass is a shambolic travesty - I cannot bear attending for much longer given the peredeliction, or should that be obsession, to sing everything I learned to say as a prayer.
    I despair.

    Posted By: Noel Mc Laughlin

37. Kate: What do you mean by 'he (Jesus) was fully divine and knew!' \Did he know the time of the end? Did he know how to do brain surgery?
    Who was Cornelius de Lapide and when did he live?
    What do you mean by a 'good traditional commentary'? Is this a commentary that SSPX approves?

    Posted By: Francis

38. Francis:
    1. With all due respect to Grant Osborne, he's a Protestant scholar, and so will not be able to endorse Scott Hahn's brilliant presentation of the Catholic Mass as the interpretative key to understanding the Book of Revelation.
    2. I've made this point before but it bears repeating in the face of continued attempts to portray Jesus as somehow opposed to high liturgy in his time or ours, and in favour of beanbag and clay pot Masses and MacDonald's-style church architecture: Jesus as divine is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. As God He commanded Moses and the chosen people to worship with meticulous solemnity, beauty and splendour. Read the Pentateuch. He also designed the Temple.
    True, He objected fiercely to corruption and hypocrisy in liturgical matters, both as God in the Old Testament, and as the God-Man on earth: but only because they were/are perversions of a fundamentally good and holy thing-right worship. Anyone who proposes that there's a gulf or opposition between the explicit liturgical and priestly prescriptions of the Old Testament and the attitude to worship of Jesus of Nazareth is either a Marcionite or some form of Arian.
    3. Kate, excellent points.

    Posted By: HH

39. Francis - I'm not an SSPXer (or sympathiser, and to save you trouble, nor do I belong to Opus Dei or any other such movement. I'm just a Catholic who believes what the Church actually teaches.
    Thus, I think that reading commentaries that draw on the teaching of the Church Fathers, the tradition of the Church, and the Magisterium (as VII's Dei Verbum urges) is to be preferred to radical new interpretations.
    In particular, the creed that tells us Jesus is both true God and true man, with all that implies. On the distinction between his human knowledge (necessarily limited), and his divine knowledge, I would refer you to the Catechism of the Church, paras 472-4.
    My point was that, as the Catechism actually states, that Christ had a fullness of understanding of the eternal plans he had come to reveal.
    But you are right in identifying the central issue here as the divinity of Christ.
    If we believe he is really God, then we will obey the first commandment above all, and devote our resources to worshipping him first, before we worry about the poor ('who will always be with us'!) and other priorities.
    And if we believe he is really present in our Churches in the tabernacle, we will do everything possible to show respect and honour to him in our Church buildings and liturgy.

    Posted By: Kate

40. Paul Keen: Sadly, the reality is that many 'tin huts' as you call them are not permitted to have the blessed sacrament reserved. They may be lucky to get Mass once a month or even less in that tin shack. The heirachy, not the church, (us) needs to remember that more than 50% of our brothers and sisters do not have the luxury of the the developed world as we do. Surely they are entitled tp the same access to sacramental life and resources and so all the money we put into western finery and aesthetics could be shared more equitably so that small permanent 'churches' could be established that can offer protection for the blessed sacrament.

    Posted By: Marjorie

41. Thanks Kate for that idiosyncratic use of 'traditional', and for de Lapide's 17th century commentary. Much has been explained.

    Posted By: Mark Johnson

42. Yet another nail in the coffin of Vat II Just give us architecture and music that's based on the church as People of God.

    Posted By: Bill Brady

43. Mark - In what way is insisting on adherence to Magisterial teachng and interpreting Scripture in the light of the Fathers and broader Tradition (liturgy, iconography, etc) 'idiosyncratic'? Just because a commentary is newer doesn't mean it is better - indeed, the quest for something novel to say, whether to find something in a well plowed field in order to satisfy PhD requirements or to sell books can be positively counter-productive! And if you want a more recent commentary that says exactly the same thing as de Lapide, I'd suggest a read of the Navarre Bible, which points first to God's instructions to Moses and Solomon on building the tabernacle and then the Temple, and the eventual distortion of the market that developed to support travellers into a disgraceful commerical rort. It goes on "...Jesus cannot tolerate this deplorable abuse and in holy anger ejects everyone - to show people the respect and reverence due to the temple as a holy place. We should show much greater respect in the Christian temple - Christian churches - where the eucharistic sacrifice is celebrated..." Personally I find the Navarre rather dry, and prefer de Lapide's more extensive citations of the Fathers and Theologians. But that is a matter of taste. Of course there are occasionally some insights of more recent scholarship that are worth reading. Few and far between though, and when admixed with error as in most protestant commentaries, not worth the effort in my view.

    Posted By: kate

44. Kate: The idiosyncratic nature of your commentary is the weight given to particular periods and particular accordances with your own pre-suppositions. Of course, this a common blind-side across the ideological perspective.
    So your preference for a scriptural commentator from the Counter-Reformation over and above the vast mainstream of subsequent centuries - those centuries being ones of needful criticism and in so many ways an actual discovery and appreciation of how ancient texts were written - is idiosyncratic.
    Tradition is living, codification(ideological or otherwise) is only part of it.
    The Spirit does not speak in one epoch only, or in one manner pleasing to our own imposed ecclesial tastes, limitations, fears, and worldviews. This, too, applies across the centuries to the tastes behind Navarre.
    So it is not just a matter of 'novelty'.
    Kate, you are a braver person than I am to dismiss four hundred years as novelty; it also implies that you are a scripture scholar and historian of extraordinary erudition.
    Rather, it is of understanding seeking in arenas more vast and strange than its inherent limits, and resisting the tempatation to make bread out of stone or to worship self-interest as infinite.
    Worship is more than limted aesthetics, and is more than the most cultic manifestations as the actual Gospels show time and time again. Just as the eucharist is more than its mere cultic confinement.
    And here is where the Vatican aesthetes and its fear-filled allies just don't get it.

    Posted By: Mark Johnson

45. I agree with Kate that God should be treated, via our architecture and liturgies, with respect and outward reverence. I do not agree however with her prioritising worship over welfare on the grounds that 'the poor are always with us'. The dual-sided commandment about love (God/neighbour) has always caused a lot of dispute about how it is to be understood. But in my view I think the priority is clear - confronted in the here and now by a choice between succouring the naked and the hungry and demoralised, and incensing the altar, the former must surely always trump the latter.

    Posted By: Stephen Kellett

46. Mark: I'm certainly not dismissing the last four hundred years. Recommending one book that stands the test of time doesn't mean rejecting everything else.
    Would I be accused of ignoring the last two thousand years if I recommended a read of Scripture? Or last 1600 if I suggested read a commentary by St Augustine?
    And, in fact, I've referenced two books published in the last decade, viz Hahn and the Navarre!
    If by 'mainstream' you mean historico-literary/form criticism, I'd also suggest you take a look at the stream of the recent debunking articles that have come out. A good starting point on currently popular errors and misdirections generally, including on Scriptural interpretation, is Fr Aidan Nichol OP's Criticising the Critics.
    Stephen: Perhaps you didn't realise that my reference to the 'poor will always be with us' is to St John 12, where St Mary Magdalene is accused of misdirecting resources by using an expensive ointment to wash Jesus' feet instead of the money going to the poor. The welfare/worship balance has indeed been around a long time, but on this one Judas was the advocate for the poor, Christ for the worship side of the debate!
    What people need most is the kingdom of heaven; the poor need beauty in worship too, and spiritual poverty is a much greater evil than material want.
    

    Posted By: Kate

47. Kate: I disagree that spiritual poverty is a 'greater evil' than material want, at least without qualification.
    Try saying this to someone with a seriously empty belly, no shelter and no way of being counted in society. That sounds too much like 'let them eat cake', and the sort of thing only the non-starving, undemonised, comfortably self-esteemed can believe.
    Even if it is true - with qualification - I think Maslow's hierarchy of needs applies always. Namely, you must address basics before moving onto philosophy or theology. How long would you and I be able to continue this discussion if our income were to be withdrawn, we were evicted and found ourselves without food for over 24 hours with little prospects to improve the state of affairs?
    In theology and various theoretical systems, we are prone to rank the spiritual aspect above or before the material; but I believe the former can only germinate or thrive once some important material considerations are addressed.
    I'm familiar with the citation, but it's no good trying to slug away with different Gospel sound-bites on this. It's something one has to work out oneself as situations arise. (Besides, maybe Jesus was having a tired day and threw away words he later would have insisted must be taken in context. Even he had to have some down time!)

    Posted By: Stephen Kellett

48. Kate: If you were to merely read scripture in a literal manner, imposing very contemporary readings laden with contemporary context and agenda, bending the text to your will and refusing its actual voice, then yes such a reading would be problemmatic.
    Also note that mainstream biblical scholarship has moved well beyond the needful building blocks of historico-critical method and form criticism.
    No text manifests in a vacuum, it brings to the reader its world, and the reader needs to be aware of her own world supplanting that being read. Scripture may speak to our hearts and lives, but understanding is what will enrich it.
    As for venerable commentators, without the tools for exegesis even Augustine is not someone to rely upon, let alone Cornelius.
    Navarre is ideological commentary grounded within hostility to recent (centuries) scholarship, as we both know. Rancid wine in old skins. Funded for a reason so to please a particular funding body and readership. In the actual world funding bodies that finance research are routinely challenged, but you seem to think that Navarre should not fall under such scrutiny. Such commentary will always have its niche audiences and agendas.
    Taking Scripture and contorting its meanings and nuance so to conform and proclaim presupposition and ideology is in no way what I regard as scholarship. There are other terms for that.
    But this exchange has drifted too far from the original topic.

    Posted By: Mark Johnson

49. You persist in verballing me, Mark.
    Of course, the Navarre (or any other commentary can be challenged) – but if you want to reject the constant tradition of the Church, such as on the importance of church buildings to the worship of God, you need a good argument for doing so, not just that the current protestant led fashion says otherwise.
    As for your view that any dissent from the so-called mainstream is either outdated or a conspiracy - been reading a lot of Dan Brown lately?
    The literal sense of Scripture is of course the foundation from which we must start, but are you really suggesting that we can never move beyond the literal and apply Scripture to events in our own time?
    Given your views on the Tradition, you probably won’t be interested in Pope Benedict’s exposition of this issue at the dedication of the Gaudi Church in Barcelona, but a key extract from it is worth repeating anyway:
    “[a church] … stands as a visible sign of the invisible God, to whose glory these spires rise like arrows pointing towards absolute light and to the One who is Light, Height and Beauty itself…beauty is one of mankind’s greatest needs; it is the root from which the branches of our peace and the fruits of our hope come forth. Beauty also reveals God because, like him, a work of beauty is pure gratuity; it calls us to freedom and draws us away from selfishness.”

    Posted By: Kate

50. Kate: And bringing this exchange back to the actual topic... there is no freedom if beauty is defined for us and imposed upon us.
    Being elevated towards someone else's, or even our own delicate aesthetic pleasures and ecclesial tastes, is not freedom.
    Also take a step back from the person speaking such words and you'll see very handy alignments with both Platonism and Romanticism. The 'feelings' inspired by 'beauty' are not the sure path to God, but only to our own comforting sensibilities. It is a despairing step, not one of freedom.
    It is the flight from the perceived pervasive ugliness of the world. And it is the flight from seeing Grace alive throughout this world, outside of our ordered universes.
    Grace speaks to the heart of each, within that inner room that no one else sees or constructs. As the unruly mustard seed irrespective of tamed and sensitive environments.
    Only within that relationship, free from the tyranny of another's ordering, and too from our own imprisoning tastes and pleasures, is there freedom.
    Spires and flying buttresses can be awesome, can most certainly elevate the mere human spirit, but is this necessarily a freedom from selfishness or simply a further immersing within our own calming aesthetic worlds far from the actual turmoil into which God incarnates?

    Posted By: Mark Johnson

51. Mark: In short you are saying
    (1) there are no absolutes in truth and beauty, everything is relative;
    (2) that contrary to the long tradition of the Church, beauty is not a path to God;
    (3) again contrary to the tradition, we don’t need physical symbols to support our faith, because our bodies are irrelevant, it all happens in the soul (just a touch gnostic here?);
    (4) that freedom means not freedom to do God’s will and acceptance of the guidance and limits he imposes and communicates to us via revelation guarded by the Church, but rather, in your view, freedom is about what we individually happen to decide we think God wants us to do; and
    (5) that man-made structures erected to the glory of God, far from being cases of co-creation inspired by ‘the book of nature, the book of sacred Scripture and the book of the liturgy’ as the Pope has taught, are actually flights from the world.
    No wonder you hate those orthodox commentaries on Scripture!
    And no wonder you hate Churches and the idea of standards around them.
    I guess it has been a useful exercize in as much as we have pinned down those basic assumptions that put us on completely different pages.
    But I'm not sure any more can usefully be said on this given the fundamental differences in our starting points...

    Posted By: Kate

52. Kate: I said none of those things.You have instead set up distortions which you seem more comfortable engaging with.
    If this exchange has been an exercise in anything, it has been one in which the hardline cannot and will not understand nuance, and instead necessarily translates it into something oppositionally hardline, and therefore comfortable.
    Such a strategy might suit the psychology of militancy, and its need to flee from complexity, but what does that achieve?
    Simply associating with a smaller and smaller number of the perfect? A church for the diminishing numbers of the approved? A silent and empty hall of mirrors?

    Posted By: Mark Johnson

53. HH: So Grant Osborne is a Protestant scholar. Does this limit his scholarship or impede his mental and intellectual capacity? Does it prevent the Holy Spirit from working through him?
    You seem to have that stance which believes that only the "true believers" have access to the Divine.
    Your statement "the Catholic Mass as the interpretative key to understanding the Book of Revelation" is, of course, nonsense. Which Eucharistic liturgy did they use way back then?. Was it in Latin?
    You seem to suggest that Jesus is the Father. I thought it was Yahweh who "commanded Moses" to do anything. So Jesus designed the Temple? I've never heard that nonsense before. Did Jesus also command the Passover meal be celebrated? Did Jesus give Moses the Ten Commandments? Did Jesus also send the angel Gabriel to Mary?
    You seem to be saying that it is so because you believe it to be so.
    Beauty is in the eye and the mind of the beholder, surely?

    Posted By: Francis

54. Kate: You seem to be suggesting that the Holy Spirit is stuck back in centuries long ago.
    She, the Holy Spirit, has surely been active in more recent times, hasn't she? Please, don't tell me I'm wrong.
    Worship of the Father can never be through the neglect of others. Did not Jesus say and do as much?
    The magisterium of the Church? What about when it ordered the torture and execution of others?
    Would you place Pius IX's Syllabus of Errors amongst the Magisterium that we must be obedient to? I'm sure we can dig up from history many examples of the magisterium that we no longer accept.
    Where were the tabernacles in the church buildings of those early centuries?
    Your comment "Of course there are occasionally some insights of more recent scholarship that are worth reading" seems to suggest that you regard yourself as being superior and, therfore, able to judge. Could you please detail your scholarship.
    Are you afraid of Protestants? I have a belief that a lot of RC's are because they fear that Protestants might actually be right.
    Might I remind you that the word "church" should never refer to the building but to the community.
    To quote from Neil Simon's movie "Murder by Death": this conversation is "like a television set on a honeymoon, useless".

    Posted By: Francis

55. Francis: As noted above I’m bowing out of this debate: as you agree, our starting assumptions are too different for it to be useful to keep going.
    (But before that, I would like to) respond to some key points in your latest posts for the record.
    1. The New Testament reveals the God of the Old Testament to be Father, Son (eternally begotten remember) and Holy Spirit. One God, three persons, all of whom participate in the actions of the others. It is perfectly legitimate to talk of Jesus giving the commandments to Moses, and so forth.
    2. While the Ordinary Magisterium can be corrected, what has been infallibly defined can never be. One can debate the exact status of the Syllabus of Errors, but the Magisterium has certainly never said it no longer applies at all.
    3. It was actually me, not HH, who pointed to the eminent catholic scholar Scott Hahn’s work on the Book of Revelation (which by the way I don’t necessarily agree with). Still, first century liturgy was almost certainly mostly in Greek. So was the Book of Revelation.
    4. No doubt protestant Scripture scholars can and do contribute useful insights. But if their ‘insights’ are not consistent with Church teaching, then we should reject them. The Church is the guardian of the faith, not protestants, and certainly not academe.
    5. For what it is worth, I do have a Masters in theology.

    Posted By: kate

56. Kate: I, too, have a theology degree. Possibly, the Satan has a doctorate.
    However, your theology of the Trinity seems wonky. Jesus is not the Father: never has been, never will be. The Father is, always, greater.
    The Hebrew Scriptures know nothing of the Trinity. To say that Jesus gave the Decalogue to Moses is as nonsensical as saying that he sent Gabriel to announce his own conception or that he was talking to himself from the cross.. To say that Jesus is God is not to say that God is Jesus.
    What has been infallibly defined? How many infallible definitions have there actually been? "We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff" (Pope Boniface VIII, the Bull Unam Sanctam, 1302.) seems like an infallible statement to me which, of course, the RC People of God no longer accept.
    Church teaching has changed over the centuries so, those protestant scholars whose writings we rejected in years gone by because they were not consistent with RC magesterial teaching we now accept.
    The Church is the People of God, not the bishops.
    Re The Temple: read Jeremiah 7:4. Seems to me YHWH is quite definite: don't trust in the physical presence of beautful buildings. Without social justice, they're not worth much.

    Posted By: Francis

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