by Margaret M. Grubiak, PhD and Timothy K. Parker, PhD, appearing in Volume 32
What does it mean to enact religious pluralism, a key component of the American project?
by Katherine Mallin, appearing in Volume 32
John Anton Mallin was a well-known ecclesiastical artist and decorator in Chicago, whose works are found in more than one hundred churches and chapels, as well as several residences, banks, and theaters. His career spanned almost sixty years, from the time he came to Chicago in 1907 until he retired in 1963.
by Reverend Kurt Belsole, O.S.B., appearing in Volume 32
The hymn “Urbs Ierusalem beata” (Blessed city, Jerusalem), by an unknown author, is from the eighth or ninth century at the latest. The Liturgy of the Hours as revised by Pope Paul VI, consistent with the tradition, has assigned it to Evening Prayer for the anniversary of the dedication of a church.
by Duncan G. Stroik, appearing in Volume 31
Every year I am struck visually and spiritually by Passiontide.
by John Saward, appearing in Volume 31
Is there a place for the beauty of the liturgy in what Pope Francis calls “a Church which is poor and for the poor”?
by Francis J. Caponi, O.S.A., appearing in Volume 31
“The discussion of the beautiful occupies a marginal place in Thomas’s work.”
Such a premonishment is very nearly de rigueur for essays on the theme of beauty in the works of Thomas Aquinas.
by Denis McNamara, appearing in Volume 31
As unlikely as it seems, a mystical vision experienced by Saint Francis of Assisi eight centuries ago recently found a parallel in a twentieth-century Chicago church associated for decades with anxiety and terror.
by Cody Swanson, appearing in Volume 31
“The Beauty of all things in the world as well of architecture lay in proportion, the origin of which may be said is divine; for it derives from the body of Adam who was not only made by the divine hands of God, but shaped in His image and likeness.”
by Simone Zurawski, appearing in Volume 30
Located at number 93 rue de Sèvres, and just down the block from the Bon Marché department store in the chic VIème arrondissement, is the Chapelle des Lazaristes, which exemplifies the Catholic Renouveau movement of nineteenth-century France.
by Dietrich von Hildebrand, appearing in Volume 30
The artistic beauty of buildings depends on very definite means: forms, proportions, material, color, and many other factors.
by Virginia Raguin, appearing in Volume 30
In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, buildings carried great narrative themes, on the exterior by sculpture and on the interior by glass and wall painting.
by Peter Funk, O.S.B., appearing in Volume 30
In a 2010 TED lecture, musician David Byrne made the interesting and counterintuitive observation that musicians create music for particular spaces.
by Rodrigo Bollat Montenegro, appearing in Volume 30
Imagine what the Vatican and Rome would have looked like today if the popes, architects, and other masterminds of this architectural complex would have designed and built something to only commemorate the tragedy of Saint Peter’s death?
by Margaret Hughes, appearing in Volume 30
The concluding section of Josef Pieper’s essay “What Makes a Building a Church?” begins with his admission that his reflections “are, on a practical level, quite useless.”
by Dale Kinney, appearing in Volume 29
Motley rows of reused column shafts, capitals, and bases were among the most conspicuous features of medieval church interiors in Rome and south Italy for over a thousand years, from the time of their first appearance under Constantine the Great (d. 337) until the end of the Middle Ages.
by Dietrich von Hildebrand, appearing in Volume 29
Architecture occupies a unique position in art. Unlike the other arts, it does not have only one theme, namely, beauty. Like nature, it has two themes.
by Michael H. Marchal, appearing in Volume 29
If the decoration of the Neonian Baptistery is read as a stage-setting carefully designed by its patron to complement the baptismal ritual during its enactment, its meaning reveals itself.1
by Rolf Achilles, appearing in Volume 29
Gottfried Semper wrote in 1846: “The impression made on the masses by a building is partly founded on reminiscences.”1 This certainly holds true for the Gothic, a style that for the masses has always evoked the awe of Christian grandeur and mysticism, if only in its soaring interiors and steeples.
by Daniel Estivill, appearing in Volume 29
In order to celebrate the new churches built in the Diocese of Rome at the start of the third millennium, a book was published, entitled Churches in the Roman Periphery 2000–2013: From the Great Jubilee to the Constantinian Year.1 In presenting the publication, Professor Antonio Paolucci noted in his article with the title Ancora manca il modello (A paradigm is still missing), “When is a building destined for worship . . . just right? That is, when can we define it as being altogether beautiful, functional and symbolically effective?”2
by Michael Patrick, appearing in Volume 29
At lectures and symposia about Catholic church design in the United States, a noticeable dissonance emerges regarding the elements that today’s architect may use to create sacred space. Some propose to use representational iconography, traditional form, and hierarchy as design elements. Others propose the sculpting of natural light and the abstract, nonrepresentational artistic composition of modern form as the basis of the design. Both enthusiastically embrace the same goal of creating meaningful religious space, but the latter are frustrated by the former’s clinging to outmoded ways of thinking.
by Aidan Nichols, O.P., appearing in Volume 28
Church architecture has joined the disputed issues of contemporary Western Catholicism. Indeed, one commentator, the American Michael Rose, does not scruple to speak about “architectural culture wars” in progress today.1 That the same author can vary that phrase by introducing, in place of “architectural,” the neologism “archi-liturgical” should alert us to a fairly obvious fact.2 The debate about architecture is as organically connected with dispute about the liturgy as a Modernist church in the twentieth-century International style is disconnected from the traditional modalities of Catholic worship.
by Anatole Upart, appearing in Volume 28
Although once rare, these days announcements of church demolitions and parish closures have become an expected part of weekly news. For example, in the Archdiocese of Chicago alone, forty-six parishes were closed and thirty-five were consolidated during the tenure of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin (1982–1996), while under the tenure of Francis Cardinal George (1997–2014, † 2015), twenty-two were closed and ten were consolidated.
by Diana Garnett, appearing in Volume 28
Standing bright and tidy and picturesque under the blazing sun of the South Carolina Lowcountry, the red wooden church and schoolhouse, encircled by a sleepy parish cemetery, embody a history that is far more complex and uncommon than the simple buildings might at first glance suggest.
by Oddbjørn Sørmoen, appearing in Volume 28
Churches have always been built to celebrate Mass and the unity in faith. In many countries, the movables are considered inseparable parts of the building and its history. In Norway, the Heritage Act protects the architecture but not the movables.
by Joanna Diane Caytas, appearing in Volume 28
Among the greatest Gothic cathedrals of Central Europe, Vienna’s Saint Stephen’s Cathedral features one of the most incomplete, heterogeneous architectures, but also one of the lengthiest construction periods.
by Larry Morgan, appearing in Volume 28
Cathedral thinking. The phrase has been in the air for some years—not as one might expect, under the domes and arches in churches, but in the marketplace. It describes the mindset one adopts when building a cathedral, a concept that recognizes the care and commitment of people who contribute to a cause, even though they will never see the completion of the decades-long task.
by Marcia B. Hall, appearing in Volume 27
The omnipresence of rood screens in Italian churches was not recognized when I reconstructed the structures in the Florentine churches of Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce in the early 1970s.
by Anthony Visco, appearing in Volume 27
In contemporary art history, modernist theory has always maintained that the goals of figurative arts, both sacred and secular, were a linear objective of achieving similitude—the likeness of the object or image perceived.
by Anthony E. Clark, appearing in Volume 27
The opening lines of Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities describes well China's state of sacred building in recent decades: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness...it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us."1
by Dale Ahlquist, appearing in Volume 27
In October of 1925, G.K. Chesterton was invited to address the opening of an exhibit at the gallery of the Royal Architects Society in London. Chesterton’s friend J.C. Squire, who introduced him, said that while Chesterton was not an architect he could at least be considered as a great edifice.
by Ciro Lomonte, appearing in Volume 27
When, in 1955, the veil was lifted from the church of Ronchamp after five years of construction, the first reaction of the international architecture establishment was one of entire bewilderment.
by Kurt Belsole, O.S.B., appearing in Volume 27
Appreciating the church building as a place where the Christian is at home is to enter into the already and the not yet of Christian existence. Already the Christian has been baptized into and shares the very life of the Trinity, but the fullness and permanence of that life is not yet realized.
by John Martin Robinson, appearing in Volume 26
A private Catholic chapel recently erected next to a country house in North Britain is among the most remarkable new classical buildings in Britain. Designed by the award-winning architect Craig Hamilton, it was commissioned as a birthday present for the owner’s wife and is dedicated to Saint Rita of Cascia, an Italian fifteenth-century saint.
by Michael Enright, appearing in Volume 26
In a talk at Wheaton College a few years ago, Gil Bailie outlined the beginnings of our modern Western idea of romantic love. You might think that all cultures have always shared our ideas about romance and love, but this is not the case.
by Calder Loth, appearing in Volume 26
London’s Saint Martin-in-the-Fields is famed not only as a great work of architecture, but as the prototype for hundreds of churches throughout the world and especially in the United States. Designed by the Anglo-Palladian architect James Gibbs (1682–1754) and completed in 1726, Saint Martin was one of the first parish churches in England specifically planned to accommodate the Protestant worship style of eighteenth-century Anglicans.
by James Gillick, appearing in Volume 26
There are few finer sights than a Gothic cathedral. They fill a European Catholic with a great sense of achievement, sufficient, even after all this time, to form a significant part of our confidence as Christians today.
by C.R. Wiley & David Stocker, appearing in Volume 26
Near the end of the Second World War, Winston Churchill remarked of war-torn England, “We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.” Churchill understood buildings as more than pretty pictures on souvenir postcards. We learn many things from the bricks, stone, mortar, sidewalks, streets, and plazas in many cities.
by Stephen J. Baker, appearing in Volume 26
Vitruvius covered the whole range of architectural concerns when he coined the phrase “Utilitas, Venustas, Firmitas” around 15 BC. Utilitas (utility) refers to convenience and commodity of use. Venustas (beauty) naturally involves the aesthetics. Firmitas (stability) refers to the strength of construction. Vitruvius further expands on firmitas by stating, “Durability will be assured when foundations are carried down to the solid ground and materials wisely and liberally selected.”
by Anthony E. Clark and Amanda C. Roth Clark, appearing in Volume 25
When the Catholic priest and architect Leon Battista Alberti (AD 1404–1472) wrote of the ideal church, he asserted: “I would deck it out in every part so that anyone who entered it would start with awe for his admiration at all the noble things, and could scarcely restrain himself from exclaiming that what he saw was a place undoubtedly worthy of God.”
by Aaron M. Renn, appearing in Volume 25
Different beliefs and practices between Roman Catholics and Protestants have created divergent views regarding sacred art and architecture.
by Laura Bolondi, appearing in Volume 25
A few years ago—more than a century after the laying of the first stone—the Sagrada Família Church in Barcelona was consecrated. It is probably the most famous example of sacred modern architecture in Europe, but it is not the only church to have been built at the end of the nineteenth century.
by Jerry W. Lawson, appearing in Volume 25
America’s diverse faith traditions and their teachings are expressed through both soaring and humble architecture, in prayer and liturgy, in song and art, through financial support, and through gifts of time and talent. Given the fundamental role of the physical facility in the life of the congregation, it follows that facility management tasks subsequent to design and construction—which may seem mundane and repetitious—are integral to the success of the church mission.
by Nathan Cochran, appearing in Volume 25
Archabbot Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B.—the founder of Saint Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and “Patriarch” of the Benedictine Order in America—believed that it was the duty of monasteries to bring culture to America.
by Susan Klaiber, appearing in Volume 24
Disjunctions between contemporary Catholic architecture and the liturgical and representational needs of the Church often reflect conflict between the client’s sacred concerns and architecture’s secular culture, or divergence between the architectural needs of other denominations and those specific to Catholicism. But historically this was not always the case.
by Michael Coates, appearing in Volume 24
Growing up Catholic in South Jersey put me in a demographic with thousands of other kids. Both of my parents were raised in Philadelphia, and because we had a large extended family close to us in both the city and the suburbs, I got to see many Catholic parishes.
by William Mahrt, appearing in Volume 24
Space is not homogeneous. Thus Mircea Eliade begins his classic discussion of sacred space. Sacred space is structured and differentiated and thus represents order and purpose; in this, it is distinguished from profane space, which is unstructured and represents chaos.
by Cindy Michel, appearing in Volume 24
Notre Dame l’Assomption served as the cathedral of Port-au-Prince for over a century, from its predecessor, a modest yet dignified brick building with a small central tower, to its twentieth-century replacement, an impressive twin towered structure which collapsed in the devastating 2010 earthquake centered near Port-au-Prince.
by Ian Agrell, appearing in Volume 24
There is a tradition of woodcarving in my birthplace that includes some of my favorite examples of church architecture. I come from England’s “West Country” and lived in the small village of Milverton in Somerset.
by Anthony Goldsby, appearing in Volume 24
The 2010-2011 renovation of Dearborn Homes on Chicago’s South Side is a remarkable reminder how effective legislation, great architecture, and social justice advocating the poor not only have the power to improve a blighted public housing development, but successfully empower the lives of the people who live there.
by Steven Schloeder, appearing in Volume 24
The attempts over the past century to find a contemporary architecture that can bear the weight of the Church’s sacramental vision have largely been unconvincing. Yet we are immediately confronted with both the Church’s own statement that she adopts no particular artistic style as her own…