What Killed Sacrosanctum Concilium

There have been many laws, decrees, constitutions and such in the Church’s long history which, without ever being formally revoked, simply faded into disuse and obscurity. Very often, it is impossible to say when such laws became dead letters. But in the case of Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Second Vatican Council’s constitution on the liturgy, we know the exact day on which it became a dead letter. That day was September 26, 1964, when the Sacred Congregation for Rites published the decree Inter Oecumenici, billed, falsely, as a step towards its implementation, but in reality, a guarantee that it would not be implemented, but rejected.

I say this because it was the decree that enshrined the celebration of the Mass versus populum. “The main altar should preferably be freestanding, to permit walking around it and celebration facing the people.” (parag. 91) The problem with this was not principally that it was based on an egregious scholarly error, one of many that marred the process of liturgical reform well before Vatican II was even thought of. It is rather that there is not one word of Sacrosanctum Concilium that hints in any way that this should be done, and yet it was done in the name of implementing said constitution. The document was signed by Giacomo Cardinal Lercaro (archbishop of Bologna, and an avowed liturgical revolutionary), the first president of the “Consilium ad exsequendam – the committee for implementing” SC. Its 2nd paragraph contains the statement that “(t)he Consilium … has promptly taken up its two appointed tasks: to carry out the directives of the constitution,” and yet it declared as “preferable” a novelty which the constitution in no way envisioned.

I have no doubt that this part of the post-Conciliar litany of failure is well-known to our readers. I repeat it nonetheless as a reminder of something essential, which I also stated in my recent assessment of the oddly forgetful liturgical memorandum shared by Cardinal Roche with his fellow Eminences during the recent consistory. The liturgical reform was not born out of Sacrosanctum Concilium, as was stated incorrectly in Pope Francis’ apostolic letter Desiderio desideravi (quoted by His Eminence). It was born out of the rejection of Sacrosanctum Concilium.

Enter Gianmarco Busca, who was appointed bishop of the northern Italian city of Mantua on June 3, 2016. By an interesting coincidence, this date is the anniversary of the death of Pope John XXIII, initiator of the Second Vatican Council, and one of the patron Saints of unintended consequences. After nearly ten years of his episcopate, His Grace has decided to involve his beautiful cathedral, which is dedicated to St Peter the Apostle, in a year-long pastoral “experiment”, to update the building to the “Conciliar (sic) liturgical reform.” These pictures were taken by a friend during a recent visit.

Here is the official explanation of it, posted on a placard in the cathedral.

Diocese of Mantua - Cathedral of St Peter the Apostle

Experimental interventions for updating to the conciliar liturgical reform.

“Dear pilgrim, tourist, or whoever you are. (This is just as weird and rude in Italian as it would be in any other language.)

As you enter this cathedral, you will find yourself a little disoriented compared with the traditional arrangement. In fact, you find yourself in a space that is hosting a process of liturgical updating, inspired by the criteria of Vatican II. ...

This important council in the 1960s dedicated one of its principal documents to the theme of the liturgy, as an expression of the Church’s highest prayer. This is the Constitution called Sacrosanctum Concilium.

In light of the criteria of the liturgical reform, a team of men and women, specialists, liturgists, and pastoral operators have worked together for months, with the goal of thinking up an effective way to re-order the liturgical space of the cathedral. The objective of their work has been to translate into the cathedral (n.b. here) the indications of the Council, the intent of which, we must not forget, is to favor the rediscovery of the deep sense of the liturgy, and the people of God’s participation in it.”

It goes on to explain that this is only an experiment, and the faithful will be invited to express their opinions of it, with a view to a more definitive project in the future. It also explained that these graceless wooden lumps squatting in the nave are “temporary models”, and that they were not expensive. But sadly, if past experience with these kinds of projects has taught us anything, we can guess that A. the project will be done as we see it here with some minor adjustment; B. the completely negative assessment which the ordinary faithful give of it will be ignored, and C., the permanent furnishing which are finally commissioned and installed will be just as ugly, and shockingly expensive.

On the rare occasions when I write about these kinds of things, I have been wont to use rhetorical phrases that begin with something like, “It hardly needs to be said…” or “It hardly bears repeating…” But in this case, it does need to be said, and it does bear repeating: this is a betrayal of what Sacrosanctum Concilium asked for, and has nothing to do with what the bishops at Vatican II asked for, or expected to come out of a reform of the liturgy.

I ended my previous commentary by stating that sooner or later, the Church is simply going to have to start asking itself a lot of hard questions about the failure of the post-Conciliar reforms. Since Pope Leo has determined that there will be now consistories on a regular basis, and since consistories are exactly the forum in which such questions are meant to be asked and answered, I make bold to formula one as follows:

More than six decades have passed since Sacrosanctum Concilium was issued, and bishops are still claiming to “implement Sacrosanctum Concilium” by doing something that it in no way envisioned, or even mentioned. Is there any realistic possibility left of untangling what that council actually said from these ubiquitous, willful falsehoods?

The answer, Your Eminences, is No. We pray that you will find the courage to recognize this, and act accordingly.

Some more pictures of the hitherto beautiful cathedral of Mantua, to cleanse your palate...

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Wreckovation of Berlin Cathedral Completed

Just over ten years ago, I wrote an article about the proposed re-wreckovation of the cathedral of St Hedwig in Berlin, Germany. I termed it a “re-wreckovation” because the original building

The interior in 1886

The exterior after post-war restorations

was severely damaged during the Second World War; the distinctively shaped dome was completely destroyed, and the interior gutted, by a fire-bomb. It was then rebuilt with this strange arrangement, opening up a large hole in the floor to expose the bulk of the crypt. The large pillar that unites the altars of the upper and lower churches probably seemed like a good idea at the time.

image from wikipedia

 

This design, which clashes in a particularly unpleasant way with the building’s neo-Classical exterior, was completed in 1963.

But for some ... mysterious reason... the archdiocese of Berlin grew weary of its ugly cathedral, and decided to replace it with one that is not so much ugly (although there is ugliness in it too) as completely sterile. It is the kind of architecture that is often described as lifeless, but (stealing a line from one of the great humorists of our age, the late P.J. O’Rourke,)  “a design (cannot) be said to lack life when it exhibits such animated hatred of beauty.” This past Sunday, a Mass was celebrated for the official reopening by the archbishop, in the midst of what now looks not like a church, but a concert hall with a very inconveniently placed white cereal bowl in the middle of the floor. And I say “concert hall” advisedly, because the Mass was celebrated with a full orchestra and a large choir, and much of the music is actually pretty nice.  

Of course, the illusion of poverty is important enough to warrant any expense, and this vast room full of nothing is reported to have come at the price tag of something like 40 million euros. Didn’t someone once say something about “whited sepulchers”?

Returning to Beauty in Church Design: Article on NCR

The National Catholic Register recently published a good article by Trent Beattie on the ever growing trend back towards more traditional and more beautiful designs in churches, and some of the firms that are helping to bring this about. I was particularly struck by this line from David Riccio, who works for John Canning Studios, a firm that did some of the work on the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in LaCrosse, Wisconsin.

“...beautiful churches usually cost no more than mediocre or ugly ones. ‘Mediocre or bad church designs can cost just as much as good ones, and the durability is not usually there, so you can easily end up paying even more over the years for a mediocre or bad design than a good one,’ Riccio said.”

(This reminds me of an occasion many years ago, when I was walking with a priest friend through the Roman streets near the Pantheon where many of the shops are that sell vestments and other church goods. In my youth an naiveté, I was surprised to notice that a polyester chasuble with a nightmarish design was more than three times as expensive as a chasuble and all of the additions, including the maniple, in the window of a more reputable firm down the street. To this, my priest said, “Oh yes, poverty is terribly expensive!”)

The article also mentions the church of St Pius X in Granger, Indiana, a new construction which replaced a far less attractive church from the 1970s, and the restoration of the St Turibius Chapel at the Pontifical Seminary Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio, both of which we have recently covered here. Here are photos of the latter as it looked before wreckovation, the results of the wreckovation, and the recent undoing of it.

Re-Wreckovating the Cathedral of Berlin

The church of St Hedwig in Berlin was constructed over the middle decades of the 18th century, on land donated for the purpose by the Calvinist King of Prussia, Frederick II, and consecrated in 1773. Between 1930 and 1932, the interior was modified so that it could become the cathedral of the newly-created Catholic diocese of Berlin, which was raised to the status of an archbishopric in 1994.

The interior in 1886

The exterior after post-war restorations

During the Second World War, the church’s distinctively shaped dome was completely destroyed, and the interior gutted, by a fire-bomb. It was then rebuilt with this strange arrangement, opening up a large hole in the floor to expose the bulk of the crypt. The large pillar that unites the altars of the upper and lower churches probably seemed like a good idea at the time.

image from wikipedia

 

This design, which clashes in a particularly unattractive way with the building’s neo-Classical exterior, was completed in 1963.

Well has it been said that nothing ages so quickly as the modern, and the Archdiocese of Berlin is now proposing an extensive remodelling of the entire cathedral for the 3rd time in less than a century. The new design is the result of a competition among architectural firms held by the Archdiocese; the winners are Sichau & Walter GmbH Architects and Leo Zogmayer. It proposes to close the massive hole in the floor of the cathedral, separating the crypt from the upper church, and turning it into a combination baptistery and chapel for Masses with smaller groups. Both spaces will then be completely redesigned; the complete set of new proposals can be seen in a brochure published on the website of the Archdiocese.

The upper church will become a true church-in-the-round, with a circular white altar shaped like a coffee cup. There will be no pews, but rather specially designed “liturgical chairs.” The “presider’s chair” will be set off from the rest by being slightly elevated and of a different color; an ambo will be placed in between the chair and the altar.

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