A revival of traditional-looking Catholic churches is under way in the United States, in some cases replacing the “ubiquitous Modernist structures of the previous half-century,” writes Michael DeSanctis in the Jesuit magazine America (May 28).
He adds that the anticipation of the conservative liturgical changes introduced by the Vatican in the last year may have spawned this architectural revival. Pope Benedict XVI’s “reform of the reforms” of Vatican II arrived in parishes several months ago in the form of changes in liturgical texts used during Mass. DeSanctis notes that “Perhaps the same impulse within the church that has caused such changes in ritual practice as the decanting of the blood of Christ from ‘cup’ to ‘chalice’—both literally and in the revised translation of the Roman Missal—is also behind the return to traditional architecture.”
Up until a decade ago, most church architects and design professionals “thought that dressing new structures in period costume did not square theologically with the Second Vatican Council’s demand for authenticity in every aspect of liturgical prayer.”Citing Pope Benedict’s address to the Roman Curia in 2005, “neo-traditionalist” proponents of these changes argue that the “strictly forward-looking or Modernist architecture prevalent since the council embodies a ‘hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture’ that is inimical to the church’s role as conservator of sacred memory.”
DeSanctis notes that the “neo-traditionalists stop short of proposing a one-size-fits-all pro-gram” of modifying Modernist structures. He cites St. John Neumann Church in Tennessee, which shows a cruciform plan that has largely been absent in church architecture since Vatican II and which tends to delineate distinct spaces for the laity and clergy. This church also breaks with the widespread practice of placing the tabernacle somewhere other than at the heart of the sanctuary. The central position of the tabernacle gives new visibility to the reserved blessed sacrament—an observance growing in popularity. DeSanctis concludes that “Whether buildings like these are compromises, aberrations or the first fruits of a full-blown ‘movement’ in American Catholic church design is still uncertain.”
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