Do we descend steadily, and now somewhat speedily, toward a colossal architecture of unparalleled dreariness, and a colossal state of unparalleled uniformity? Will all of us labor under a profound depression of spirits because of the boring and servile architecture about us? And will the society now taking form in America resign itself to a [...]
The liturgy properly offered in a suitable building offers a harmonization of the arts and culture as no other human experience can do... On Advent Sunday last year, we dedicated the new church in our small parish in South Carolina. The impact of worshipping in a beautiful temple rather than a fan-shaped suburban auditorium is [...]
The beautiful sadness of the classical movement in architecture can be a message, urging all people of the third millennium to retrieve what was lost at the end of the second: the human need for transcendent meaning beyond history… What is the meaning of what we now generally refer to as the “New Classicism” or [...]
Without defending the citadel of the mind, how can we build a beautiful city? Without the conviction of true propositions, whence do we think beauty will come?… In Conversations with Roger Scruton (2016), Mark Dooley engages in a fascinating book-length interview with the famous English philosopher. While best known academically for unfashionable arguments on behalf [...]
One of the toughest things about living in America is the relative absence of the presence of the past. In England one is immersed in the past to such a degree that it is all too easy to forget that it’s there or to take it for granted. I once lived in a tiny cottage [...]
Many Catholics treat the High Middle Ages as a veritable ideal of civilization. But the medieval period produced problematic ideas about aesthetics, eccentric theories of economics, and dangerous assumptions about politics. Over a decade ago a then-acquaintance of mine inquired as to my economic views, my response being that I was “a distributist by default.” [...]
In a noble enterprise, the people of my small Catholic parish in the poor part of town are trying to build a beautiful church. The church itself echoes the simple dignity of early Italian Romanesque, monastic architecture. From a closed church in Massachusetts, we have salvaged a complete set of forty-seven stained-glass windows, plus a [...]
Artist’s rendition of future Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Church The first meeting I had after being appointed to my Catholic parish was with a leading lay man who turned out to be the chairman of the Building Committee. The people had been planning to build a new church and was I [...]
When the poor see beauty they see God. Why? Because “beauty” is God’s middle name. What building can better point the poor towards Christ than a church: a house of God that welcomes them, embraces them, and lifts them up. “[Saint] Peter teaches us to look to the poor through the eyes of faith and [...]
There are few better illustrations of the clash between conservative values and progressive ideologies than the church architecture wars of the last fifty years. Although traditional architecture was dismissed by most Christian denominations, the conflict comes into focus most clearly within the Catholic Church. The Second Vatican Council in the 1960s ushered in the most [...]
It was the late Stratford Caldecott who first struck up my interest in Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World by Charles, the Prince of Wales. Caldecott described the book as the coffee table manifesto of traditionalism. After my own reading, I can only concur with his description. For the traditionalist, this book’s [...]
During the Easter Triduum, the faithful are invited to ponder Christ’s passion at Helen’s Holy Cross in Jerusalem and to continue the meditations of Holy Saturday at Constantine’s Lateran Basilica of Christ the Savior. But the joy of Easter morning is proclaimed in a special way at the church dedicated to the Mother of God, [...]
The Baltimore Basilica: America's First Cathedral, by Mary-Cabrini Durkin In America’s First Cathedral, Mary-Cabrini Durkin presents a beautifully illustrated history of the Baltimore diocese’s cathedral from Latrobe’s original designs through its rise as a national symbol of American Catholicism, culminating in years of restoration that have only recently been completed. The first half of America’s First Cathedral places the [...]
Duncan G. Stroik, The Church Building as a Sacred Place: Beauty, Transcendence and the Eternal. Chicago: Hillenbrand Books, 2012. 182 pages, 170 photographs and drawings. Notre Dame’s Duncan Stroik has led the field of Catholic architecture for the last twenty years with unrivaled unity of purpose. He has designed and built churches as an architect [...]