Quickpost: The Anchoress and Why We should Have Beautiful Churches

Hey everyone.

Wow I can't believe the number of hits I'm getting from my last post on that EF priest from Vancouver! Thank you for the visits everyone.

Any ways, this just in after a mid-day viewing. Many people who hate the Catholic Church criticise us for having lavishly decorated exteriors, metal-plated devices, statues, etc. and say we should only have crappy, simple (and modern Churches to boot) made of economically cheap materials and art, etc. Well! Here's something from Elizabeth Scalia, the Anchoress and Oblate Benedictine (tertiary):

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/theanchoress/2012/07/06/why-not-beautiful-churches/

It`s also got a link to another Patheos blogger, the Crescat, who comments also on the situation.  Still, read the full article. I take from it, the first two and last paragraphs. They say it all:

"One of my cousins is a Capuchin priest. He has worked very closely with the very poor and disadvantaged for decades, and he bristles when people talk about “frivolous beauty” or “liturgical pomp”, and when they declare that beautiful things should be stripped down and sold for the poor. “You help the poor by being with them, living and working with them; being one with them, because one of the biggest needs of the poor is the reception of a simple message: ‘You’re as important as anyone; you are loved and loveable.’ You don’t send that message by making the world uglier for them.”


Sell everything in a church, strip it down and you buy some temporary assistance; then the people who sold all that sinful, frivolous beauty go back home, feeling pretty good about themselves and all the ‘help’ they gave to ‘the poor.’ But when the money runs out — and my cousin says money running out is one of the few things you can bank on — then for the poor who remain, “it’s back to business as usual, but with nothing beautiful for them, anywhere ....”


``And for future generations of common, ordinary people — sometimes very poor people, what do the beautiful churches do for them? What does beauty do for any of us? It gives us pleasure; it helps us to dream; it stirs the imagination; it consoles; it reminds us that of all creatures, human beings are invested with a spark from the Creator; it gets us wondering — all of us, rich or poor, privileged or struggling — what potential conflagration of beauty might yet be lit from from our own small, individual sparks``[No matter how vile and dark and 'snuffed' out they may appear externally, or even internally due to sin].


Pax, YCRCM.