another work in progress ... comments would be appreciated

A few years ago my wife and I attended a local parish that was collecting for its building fund. Donations from us and the rest of the parishioners were lacking. The project was slated to cost quite the hefty sum and was to be traditional in design – a vast improvement over the current church building which essentially looked like a converted cafeteria. The church had great difficulty raising even a third of their goal and decided to settle for a modest unattractive homage to the current cafeteria looking church. Instead of a step in the right direction, we end up with another generation of flying saucer churches with forms devoid of much meaning and art that struggles to direct worshipers to Christ. What went wrong?

Part of the problem is a general American mentality. I call it the Wal-Mart/Fast Food mentality. For example, Wal-Mart sells cheap furniture that is mediocre looking, highly functional and made of the latest in Franken-wood-plastic materials … and cardboard. There is always cardboard. All around you feel like you are getting a good deal – unless you are the guy that gets to spend all day reading 20 pages of multi-lingual instructions and getting an education in the latest twisting-locking patents. You have to have furniture and you could better drop the remaining cash in three easy installments on some other utilitarian cost and time saving device. In fact, the furniture is so cheap that in five years you can buy another one just like it. We might as well call it disposable furniture. On the other hand, buying a hand crafted, solid wood heirloom would require two things:

Money and Patience

Church buildings are the same way. Many churches are opting for the disposable church for a variety of factors. Most of it has to do with people needing or wanting the church in next to no time because they waited until scores of folks were standing in the streets trying to figure out when to kneel and stand instead of anticipating growth. Finally, it’s just easy for groups of American bean-counters to apply their Wal-Mart furniture mentalities to the “problem” of needing a larger worship space. After all, they can leave the next generation with the same problem in 20 years.

You see, cheap and functional are amongst the highest prizes in our nation because if you can keep costs down, you can maximize shareholder wealth. You can also save time, which means you can squeeze a few more moments out of those 40-80 hours that your employer owns you during the week. Everyone profits when you go with cheap and functional …but is that the way Catholics are supposed to build their churches?

Lets look at history …

The finest examples of cathedral architecture took, at a minimum, decades to build and required the labors of entire towns to complete. People literally gave their lives to make these masterpieces of architectural history. Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris took hundreds of years to complete. The same also holds true in the United States with many fine examples, in the northeast especially, of churches that took generations to build. As Catholics, we have to develop a sense of the long term and root out the plague of money centered mentality that we have come to value. Ultimately this patience and willingness to seek out the best will be required to build and pass on memorable churches for our children.

Devaluing art itself

We also have a problem of devaluing art in this country. It makes me shiver to think how many seemingly sensible fathers squashed the dreams of the next Michelangelo by telling him that “you will never be able to support a family as an artist”. Sadly, the sensible dad is right. The way we operate as a nation is hostile to artistic talent unless you want to craft witty logos and slick advertisements for a living. We have created a huge void where our European neighbors have managed to hold over their support of art in the form of tremendous state subsidies … Neither of these is an ideal way to support art. Still, the true subsidy of art in the case of American Catholics should come from the pews. The market is developed by creating and working on spectacular churches for future generations and taking the time to raise the funds and do the work to make it something future generations will marvel at. Art history and its development is supported by solid foundation of religious art. Any student of art can tell you a joke about the number of Madonna and Child paintings they had to thumb through in their art texts. Art is our Catholic heritage and our Catholic faith is the heritage of art.

Another problem affecting art is what it, as a culture, has become. Artists have developed a twisted culture of self-affirmation regardless of whether talent is present or never will be. The question is does this stuff really sell? Based on what the average new home looks like, I would say no. Many newer homes reflect a tapestry of new ideas and traditional arches, adorned lamps and exquisite gardens reminiscent of many eras past. We want beautiful homes rooted in tradition but pushing the envelope with the new methods of today. Why would we want any less for God? Finally, shouldn’t WE CATHOLICS, the ones who understand and love our faith be the ones designing and building our churches? Its bad enough that most churches simply find “a firm” and hire out the job to the lowest bidder. It is a tragedy. Hiring the best secular architecture firms to design and build churches is quite simply, wrong. Catholics should build Catholic churches.

When Mother Angelica built her church in Alabama she was fortunate to be bankrolled by some generous benefactors. It takes money … I am not immune to that reality. It is, however, truly an American tragedy that she had to import artistic talent from Europe in order to complete the project.

What we can do

We have to develop a vibrant, and profitable Catholic art culture. I have but a few suggestions to try and address the problem in a positive way:

- If you have artistic talent, give it to God. Create religious art.
- Support art styles you LIKE, even if it is secular in theme.
- Seek out Catholic writers, artists and musicians and GIVE to their cause. If you find a good choir at another church, give to them.
- Make a point to support building projects in your diocese that understand the purpose of a church. Make it known why you support this over Bobs Metal church buildings. Be active in the process.