Category: Art & Architecture

Parish church under construction

Here’s the plan for expanding my parish church in suburban Stoneham: the long rectangle on the left is the current nave, and the square on the right is the addition. The church interior will be reoriented, with the new sanctuary along what is now the left wall.
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There are some good things about the design: the tabernacle will be restored to its rightful position on the center axis, whereas it is currently on a side altar. The setting of the organ console and choir in the former sanctuary puts them in an unobtrusive location.
On the downside, the wrap-around seating and the far-forward placement of the altar on its, um, peninsula are a disappointment. The design lacks a visibly distinct and well-defined sanctuary and nave, the classic symbol of divine-human encounter and of earth-to-heaven pilgrimage so suitable for the Holy Mass. The new church will be in some ways a missed opportunity.
Going by a recent parish newsletter, the celebrant’s chair will not be on the center axis as this diagram depicts, but will be set to one side. That’s a good change.

The latest thing in Catholic statuary

The craftspersons who still make statues of saints for churches have discovered a remarkable way to keep overhead down. Iconoclasm. No, that was the heresy squashed centuries ago only to be given new life in the name of “progress” as part of post-Vatican II renovations. Some days I wish progress were declared heretical, though it’s not as though the Holy Father would actually punish the heretical progressives. He would write an encyclical called “Rigiditatis Splendor” and leave it at that. But I digress!

Statuary and overhead. Think Barbie. Mattel keeps overhead down by just dressing up Barbie in various ways. Barbie has had exactly the same complex-inducing, disproportional body for how many decades? The thing is she has different clothes and accessories. One Barbie has that tool Ken with her, another has sold her soul to the music industry, still another homeschools and does a holy hour when the kids are napping. Homeschool Barbie. Really. She dresses very modestly and her kids do, too. But I digress again – the thing is Barbies just wear different clothes. It’s genius.

Finally the statuary makers have caught on. There is a company out there just putting something different in the hands of each male saint. The statues look the same otherwise. Imagine Saint Andrew with a cross and St. Joseph with that thing he’s always pictured with, but besides what they have in their hands they look the same.

We’re sending the wrong message to our kids. They are going to grow up thinking they have to look exactly like the St. Andrew/St. Joseph clones in order to be saints. I’m afraid some might grow up to be like the angry lesbians who played with Barbie dolls when they were young and not angry lesbians. Perhaps I’m not making sense. Even so, when someone types in “angry lesbians” in google they are going to end up here. Welcome, seekers of angry lesbians. Let Jesus love you! Especially you, Margaret Cho!

But getting back to statues, let me leave you with a joke. Saint Joseph says to the Infant of Prague, “I don’t care what your mother said, you’re not leaving the house dressed like that!”

Pigeons lead to hidden Renaissance fresco

MADRID, Spain (AP) — Pigeons fluttering through a hole in the ceiling of a Spanish cathedral led an art restoration team to discover a hidden Renaissance fresco of winged angels that had been covered by a false ceiling for more than 300 years.