"Yesterday" is this lagging "church" architecture. Positivism and rationalism. St. John's Univeristy in Collegeville, Minnesota where great-grandfather Anthony studied in the nineteenth century.
Mark my words: the future generation of Benedictine monks will tear down this beast and go back across the lawn to the historic and more original chapel which still stands.
Graeco-Latin civilization (Hellenism) made our "traditional" church architecture. Although many have sought to obliterate traditional Catholic architecture in recent years the now generation of today is tired of the alienation and oppression of this dismal scenario of the concrete and does not see it as being innovative, but as being alien (yes, pun intended, thanks for asking).
Does St. John's have a number of younger monks? I have wondered about their vocation numbers.
ReplyDeleteI know we have been hit hard by their graduates in this Diocese (KC-SJ). I just hope the younger ones can somehow maintain orthodoxy until they have the helm.
Hmm. So that's the place the low altar in Sant'Andrea della Valle was stolen from?
ReplyDeleteTime it was returned, I say. :D
Bingo!
ReplyDeleteTwenty-some years ago I had the unfortunate experience of attending graduate school here...daily Office and Mass in this Church were about enough to drive one into clinical depression (especially in the winter!). Especially awful is the shrine to our Lady.
Klingonian buildings have an attitude of imperialism! This is a building from Spielberg's E.T.!
ReplyDeleteYou cjut a fine figure there, John. A real inspiration to me in my battle with my own bulging waist line.
ReplyDeleteAs for the abbey church in the backgound, well, it makes my bulging waist line look preety good. At least I look approachable.
I read an article on NLM a while ago that the young Benedictine monks at Collegeville asked the superior to use Latin in some of the Divine Office and the request was granted. Deo Gratias! Some progress at last! Maybe one of these young monks will become abbot and tear down the poor excuse of an Abbey Church and return to the original Abbey chapel.
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