Letters

Church design (letter)

Greg Briscoe-Hough

Contents - Sep 2002 - Buy a copy now Editorial: AD2000's Fighting Fund launched - Michael Gilchrist Is the self-destruction of Anglicanism to continue? - Nigel Zimmerman News: The Church Around the World - AD2000 Vocations: Corpus Christi Seminary enrolments bounce back - Michael Gilchrist Promoting Catholic vocations in the Melbourne Archdiocese - Joanne Grainger CHURCH ATTENDANCE: The family, feminism and the declining role of fatherhood - Richard Egan The 1960s 'cultural revolution': from self-sacrifice to self-fulfillment - Fr Gregory Jordan The strange case of Father Damien and Robert Louis Stevenson - Fr F.E. Burns PE Australian Rosary CD wins international recognition - Colleen McGuiness-Howard John Paul II and World Youth Day in Toronto: an Anglican perspective - David Warren Letters: Church design (letter) - Greg Briscoe-Hough Letters: Renovations (letter) Letters: Abortion (letter) - Bob Denahy Letters: Seminaries (letter) - Andrew Sholl Letters: Media complaints (letter) - Michael Daniel Letters: Feminism dead? (letter) Letters: Teaching the faith (letter) - Kevin McBride Letters: Zero tolerance (letter) - J. Dekker Letters: Priestly 'uniform' (letter) - Philip Robinson Letters: Horse and cart (letter) - Arthur Negus Letters: Shakespeare (letter) - John Doherty Letters: Vatican II (letter) - Valentine Gallagher Books: Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Rethinks Contraception - Bill Muehlenberg (reviewer) Books: The Arians of the Fourth Century, by John Henry Newman - Peter Westmore (reviewer) Books: The Lost Shrine of Liskeard, by Claire Riche - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: Christianity for Buddhists, by Frederick Farrar - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: Think Piece: Religious, Ethical and Moral Values, by Sebastian Camilleri OFM - Mark Posa (reviewer) Marilen Studios: a Christian approach to business - Joe Padero Music: CD specials from AD Books Reflection: The Christian way to spiritual maturity - Fr Dennis W. Byrnes PP

The article by Sidney Rofe on the liturgical design of churches (July AD2000) reflects merely the tip of the iceberg. Like other forms of abuse in the Church, its true and full costs are yet to be felt. In lamenting the loss of significant faith material, I am also compelled to think of the large sums paid to trendy liturgical "consultants" by priests who feel compelled to "leave their mark".

In response to this "need" for re-ordering in church structures, "consultants", often assisted by cashed-up eager reformers, are able to deploy dubious "consultation" principles originally intended for military and political subterfuge (the Delphi Technique). This process is similar to collecting numerous light sources (points of view) through a prism to generate a single point of focus, i.e., a fabricated outcome/agreement.

In a time of unprecedented education and communication and volumes of opinion, little or no time has been allowed for contemplation and interpretation. Previous Church Councils' outcomes evolved over centuries rather than decades. Is yesterday's heritage, today's "impediment", and tomorrow's loss?

The current preoccupation with horizontal Christology may well see the Church as no more than a United Nations clone. What makes us different from others of goodwill is our perception of the Sacred and Divine. Churches built like basketball courts or denuded, with Stations of the Cross the size of postage stamps on glass walls, seem to miss the point of church buildings being sacred places for reflection and not just "gathering spaces".

While these "liturgical crusaders" from abroad attempt to purge our church buildings, who is left with all the booty? Dare I say our studious consultants with money bags in hand? Not since Henry VIII and the Protestant reformers has the Church been left to suffer such ignominy.

GREG BRISCOE-HOUGH
Peakhurst, NSW

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 15 No 8 (September 2002), p. 13