|
Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Aug 19, 2009 11:59:20 GMT
The most horrible jobs I have seen done in older churches would include the Cathedrals in Kilarney and Monaghan and the Dominican church, St Saviour's in Dublin.
Any other nominations?
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Aug 19, 2009 12:16:13 GMT
St. Saviour's has some nice side chapels but it does give the impression of a void at the centre. What was it like before the wreckovations?
|
|
|
Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Aug 20, 2009 8:42:08 GMT
St Patrick's Cathedral in Armagh had an ugly job done on it in Cardinal O Fiaich's time.
I have only seen photographs of St Saviour's of yesterday and it was beautiful. Staying with the Dominicans, St Mary's in Tallaght was also gutted in a most repulsive way. There is little surprise Tallaght is now a spiritual wasteland.
|
|
|
Post by cornelstown on Aug 21, 2009 4:23:22 GMT
St. Saviour's has some nice side chapels but it does give the impression of a void at the centre. What was it like before the wreckovations? you can go on their website and check out before and after pictures. They're actually proud of them!!!
|
|
|
Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Aug 24, 2009 11:37:14 GMT
St. Saviour's has some nice side chapels but it does give the impression of a void at the centre. What was it like before the wreckovations? you can go on their website and check out before and after pictures. They're actually proud of them!!! Proud of having the ugliest church in Dublin? What next?
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Oct 13, 2009 11:05:15 GMT
blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100012986/why-catholic-churches-are-like-shabby-department-stores/EXTRACTS The church was (I would guess) Victorian Romanesque, or maybe neo-Gothic – the truth is that it was so nondescript that it didn’t leave much impression. It was very much the sort of church thrown up in large numbers at the end of the 19th century, and I imagine that in its heyday it was bustling, happy and sentimental. Then, after Vatican II, its interior was modernised. But we’re not talking savage reordering here: just the usual wall-to-wall carpeting of the sanctuary, removal of the altar rails and – unforgivably, not least because it makes a nonsense of the high altar – the removal of the tabernacle to… somewhere. I didn’t even notice; just that it was missing from its place of honour, installing an emptiness at the centre of things. Sometimes you walk into a modern Catholic church and think: this is really just a community centre with icons. But the sacred purpose of this particular church was still plainly obvious; it was just that neglect and botched repair jobs had somehow sucked the sacredness out of it. The analogy that came to mind was with a family-owned department store, perhaps in a seaside town, that had been a byword for character, twinkling service and low prices for decades. But then, in the 1970s, younger customers deserted it for chain stores, so someone gave the shop a makeover in brown and cream formica panelling complete with snazzy logo. And the regular customers said: “Ooh, it’s a bit trendy for my tastes, not the same, I can’t get used to it” – but they did get used to it, because the staff were the same and nowhere else sold that colour of stockings that Mum liked. And now the shop is really struggling, because Mum passed away years ago, and the old faces have long gone and they still haven’t got round to replacing the brown and cream formica and they never will because everyone knows that when the last family member retires it will be House of Fraser or whatever. ........ ...what the parish priest and his bishop need to understand is that these things matter: from the collage of outdated posters at the west end of the church to the badly repainted apse at the east, every single item of church art or furniture gives the impression of “making do”. The message: this is just another church. Visitors to Catholic churches before the Second Vatican Council used to comment on how strange they found the experience. Their reactions weren’t necessarily positive and one can understand why the late 20th-century Church wanted to stop creeping people out, as the Americans say. But at least Protestants knew they were entering the sacred space of a religion with the self-confidence to welcome visitors on its own terms, to confront them with a culture nourished by the blood of martyrs and ambitious in the demands it made on the faithful. To experience that feeling now, you would have to visit a mosque. (Incidentally, it seems that Catholic schoolchildren do have to visit mosques these days – but that’s another story.) In contrast, a bored visitor sticking his head into this church wouldn’t instantly know that it was Catholic, so afraid is it of giving offence. That’s pretty shaming; for, however rudimentary the chapels in which our forefathers worshipped, one thing was never in doubt, and that was their communion with Rome. The culture of mediocrity, of making do, that has pervaded the Catholic Church in England and Wales extends beyond what happens in the sanctuary. Therefore putting things right is a wider project than the more solemn celebration of Mass, which the coming English translation will help to effect, along with the increasing conservatism of new priests. We need to move back to what the Church used to offer – and, significantly, the commercial world is increasingly able to provide to meet rising consumer expectations: a total experience drawing on the highest standards of professionalism in art, architecture and music. Perfectionism; attention to small details; impatience with the second-rate – these are what we must demand of our pastors and what, in a Church run by Archbishop Nichols and soon-to-be Archbishop Longley, there is now a faint chance of achieving, particularly with a papal visit in the offing. That means no more excuses, no more amiable making do – and definitely no more polyester.
|
|
|
Post by Askel McThurkill on Feb 25, 2010 22:25:17 GMT
I was passing by the Pro-Cathedral in Dublin - and thought, what a shoddy job it was.
|
|
|
Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Apr 13, 2010 15:49:13 GMT
I just thought of St Mel's Cathedral in Longford which went up in smoke at Christmas. The then Bishop Daly regarded wrecking this against the protests as a triumph. I am told he had a reign of terror in Ardagh & Clonmacnois when it came to wrecking churches. What did he believe he was achieving?
Maybe Mel Colmcille Gibson (whose mother hails from Colmcille, Co Longford) ought to subscribe to the resbuilding fund on the stipulation:
1. That the cathedral is brought as near to the original state as possible; and
2. The should be a regular trad Mass in the Church.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Apr 14, 2010 11:25:57 GMT
The North Cathedral in Cork is another example of wreckovation; I called in there a few days ago and shortly afterwards saw a photo of it as it was in the early C20 - the altar has simply been swept away and replaced by the bishop's chair, with the tabernacle buried off inconspicuously to the side. Jesus wept.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Apr 14, 2010 11:33:12 GMT
Mel Gibson's money I am afraid is tainted. I understand that he is now imposing conditions on his independent traditionalist chapel about what they can and can't do if he is not to just close the place up and walk away; condition number 1 presumably being that they do not call on him to repent for his open adultery and desertion of his wife (whom, he remarked some years ago before his final betrayal, would go to Hell simply because she is an anglican. The parable of the speck and the plank in the eye comes to mind; Hutton Gibson seems to ave displayed the same twisted sense of proportion in his children's religious education as in his other theological ventures). This has often been a problem faced by small protestant churches where there is a weak central organisation and which are reliant on one or two wealthy congregation members. (Ian Paisley's father was originally a Baptist minister but set up independently after he reproved a prominent member and donor for some sort of misconduct and the congregational authorites decided the man was too important to antagonise.)
|
|
|
Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Apr 14, 2010 11:53:33 GMT
The North Cathedral in Cork is another example of wreckovation; I called in there a few days ago and shortly afterwards saw a photo of it as it was in the early C20 - the altar has simply been swept away and replaced by the bishop's chair, with the tabernacle buried off inconspicuously to the side. Jesus wept. Are we talking about a lot of bog oak in the sanctuary courtesy of the late Bishop Murphy? I think Archbishop Cassidy did something similar in the Cathedral in Tuam, which is, if you pardon the phrase, as ugly as sin.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Apr 14, 2010 12:08:51 GMT
Haven't been to Tuam. In Cork, it is not just that there is bog oak - there isn't very much at all. the whole Cathedral gives a sad impression of bareness.
|
|
|
Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Apr 14, 2010 12:28:11 GMT
Both cathedrals - Tuam and Cork - remind me of the verse from Daniel quoted in Matthew about the abomination of desolation in the sanctuary. What poor taste many bishops, priests and religious acquired in the past 40 years.
|
|
|
Post by Askel McThurkill on May 11, 2010 11:22:12 GMT
I hear Cardinal Pell had something to say when he was in St Mary's Oratory in Maynooth, which is a dreadful piece of work.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on May 11, 2010 12:56:32 GMT
Indeed. I saw St. Mary's Oratory lately. There are some very handsome stained glass windows and one wall is covered with fleur-de-lys; I get the impression that this wall was originally concealed by the original altar, which has been removed without trace. (The back inside wall of Armagh cathedral also has a pattern whihc is original but was not generally visible when the original altar was there.)
|
|