Post intelligent and civil comments. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the NLM
This is great news and thank God the British Isles and ireland have a government board that can overrule progressive prelates.
It is truly sad however no such board exists in the US where Fr. Vosco continues to wreak havoc and all Catholic church is safe.
What can we in america do?
OOPS i ment "no catholic church is safe....sorry!
While I am happy that a Pugin interior has been spared, I'm quite troubled by the fact that the State is telling the Church what it can or cannot do to the interior of churches. That does seem to be a gross interference of the Church's religious liberty.
I find it more troubling that the state of the Church is such that secular civil governments have to step in to defend her architectural heritage from the machinations of her own hierarchy.
However fortunate the outcome of this situation from an artistic and cultural standpoint, it raises disturbing questions.
From a government telling us what we can and can't do with a church it is but a small step to a government telling us what we can and can't do IN a church. And there are many in government who would be only too delighted to suppress and silence the Church.
"The Board accepted that changes to the interior arise from liturgical requirements, but considered that this does not bind it to accept this particular design solution."
This means that some other kind of wreckovation could yet ensue.
I've been directly involved with the appeal and can testify to the tenacity and dedication of the Friends of St Colman's. Without them, the cathedral would have been 'wreckovated' long ago...
This process has been going on in some form or other for almost ten years, a process which has deeply divided the diocese. It should be said that this divide is, more or less, between the faithful on one side and the chancery on the other.
The bishop would have to take this appeal to the High Court of Ireland in order to overturn it. However, I am expressly informed by various sympathetic sources on the ground that there is a feeling amongst the clergy that this should now not be pushed any further. The bishop is 70 years old and, though not frail, is not in the peak of health. It is doubtful that he himself would have the stomach to carry on. The resistance to any subsequent proposal would remain as strong as steel.
This is a great day for the sacred patrimony of Ireland.
DEO GRATIAS!
I find it sad that the secular government is more Catholic than those running the Cathedral.
Church and state needn't be so separate that there isn't a working for the common good.
I would guess that the State was able to act because the Cathedral is a protected structure. It's ironic that it had to protected from its Bishop.
Patrick :
When you consider that if the proposal was allowed for, this beautiful Cathedral would be turned from a magnificent example of Catholic liturgical tradition and art into looking like just another Protestant Church, I think we have to say "Thank God for the Commission", and "Good Riddance" to the Bishop (by the way, He's 70 yr. old Bishop Magee, former private secretary to both Paul VI (1977-78), and John Paul II (1978-82), and Master of Ceremonies to John Paul II (1982-87), Bishop of Cloyne, Ireland (1987--present).
His successor as Master of Ceremonies was the now infamous Piero Marini, 64 who apparently is now Himself on the way out. Far out from the corridors of power in the Vatican it is hoped.
Dear Patrick,
"...a gross interference of the Church's religious liberty." I take your point to an extent. But if civil societies did not make laws such as these, laws that articulate the fact that historic and artistically valuable churches are part of the broader cultural patrimony, many more churches would have been mutilated. I think I am right in saying that after the Oratorians in Rome had destroyed part of the altar rails of the Chiesa Nuova in the early 90's (?) this was contested in a civil court and the upshot was that historic church interiors in Italy (of which there are more than a few) are safe for posterity.
If the Church wants wacky interiors it can always build new churches. I mean 'worship spaces'...
In today's first reading St. Paul appeals to Caesar. God write straight with crooked lines.
"I would guess that the State was able to act because the Cathedral is a protected structure. It's ironic that it had to protected from its Bishop."
It's also possible that cases such as this can spur tradition-despising Bishops to suppress local efforts to secure civil protection status for the historic churches under their "care", to ensure freedom for future wreckovation.
Our cathedral in Albany NY is up for renovation and historic preservation status. I wonder what order they'll come in.
Patrick Rothwell is great.
I can't HELP but be pleased, of course, but I fear that the best decision would be to let the Church do what She wants with her own property.
When the State can tell the Church how to maintain cathedrals it can tell the Church what to use them for, whether She can use them, etc., etc.
So, a marvellous end achieved by a means that will turn around and bite us.
Does anyone know how old Fr. Vosko, the infamous "wreckovator" of Churches is? I have heard His name for so long, He must be in His 70's I should think.
NO young priest that I know would advocate for such destruction. They all want to go back in the opposite direction (return to saying Mass ad orientam, magnificent altars, Latin etc.).
From the site of Richard S. Vosko, Ph.D.:
"A priest of the Diocese of Albany, NY, Vosko has been working throughout the United States and Canada as a designer and consultant for worship environments since 1970."
I would say he is in his sixties. He look very well.
'Niall O'Connor in Cork adds: Adrian O'Donovan of the Friends of St Colman's Cathedral group told The Irish Times that his group was pleased that An Bord Pleanála had taken its decision. "We are relieved and pleased, but this is not a day for triumphalism - it is a sad day because it should never have come to this. No one has won today - it is a sad day for the church when people must appeal to the civil authorities," he said.'
http://www.archiseek.com/content...8&
postcount=848
Notwithstanding the satisfactory outcome of this case, the trail of wreckovation in Irish churches and cathedrals is a sad story. The high altar and sanctuary of the cathedral of St. Patrick in Armagh, seat of the primate of All Ireland, were comprehensively destroyed in the 1970s. Only 9 years ago a massive controversy raged about the wreckovation of the sanctuary of the Gothick-style Carlow cathedral, and the preservationists lost. The result is that the what was the sanctuary area is a vast vulgar space of white marble which is so mind-numbingly awful in contrast with the rest of the building that when I sang in a concert there in 1998 I nearly got sick (well, that's a bit of a dramatisation but you understand...). And there are many, many more examples in smaller churches.
The saddest thing is that a lot of the more trendy pubs [and Ireland isn't short of pubs as y'all might realise :-)] are liberally (!) adorned with ripped-out church fittings, usually taken from closed convents and monasteries. And the young, re-paganised Irish (let's not have any of that repressive old Catholic vibe, man) are largely ignorant of what this destroyed and desacralised heritage represents because they were never educated about it properly in the first place. The irony is that many of those serving behind the bars are migrant workers from Poland who certainly have not forgotten about their vastly rich heritage. In fact many of the younger contingent in the churches are young immigrants from eastern Europe. They're certainly not Irish anymore ("let's not have any of that old repressive vibe, man" etc etc.)
Meanwhile the Irish church is largely manned by ageing 60s and 70s liberals who are so out of touch with current reality that they will keep on pushing their agenda to the last breath in "the spirit of V2". And while I look forward to the new translations to replace the 70s ICEL rubbish I don't hold out mcuh hope that many of our clergy will actively and warmly push it, in the way I clearly remember them (I'm 45) pushing the 70s dross down our throats ("in line with the spirit of..." etc etc.) Instead I foresee many tortured articles and letters in the liberal press (and it's all liberal in Ireland) agonisisg about how awful it is to push people back into "hierarchial" "male-centred" language which "isn't in accordance with the spirit of..." you-know-what.
Their Graces Skylstad and Trautmann would certainly find a welcoming home across here in the attitudes of 90% of the clerics :-(
Re Jaykay:
You're certainly right about most of the Irish clergy and the self-inflicted iconoclasm inflicted in Irish Catholic churches is more severe than in many other European countries.
However, the (remaining) laity have retained many traditional impulses. When I visited Cobh at the start of Lent I was astounded that most of the cathedral congregation knelt throughout the mass other than for the gospel. The altar-rail gates remained open at communion and the celebrant stood there to distribute the hosts but the faithful fanned out to kneel at the altar rails.
It is, I imagine, because the spirit and impulses of traditional folk Catholicism so persist in rural Cork that the bishop so badly wants to elliminate all those things which reinforce those ways of thinking.
If plans for reordering are put to bed finally and no alternative scheme is cooked up then there is every chance that a more traditionally inclined bishop in the future will find and magnificent and generous base in his flock to build up the Church to her full strength once again.
Local audio and video on the decison:
RTE Six One News -- 06 June 2006
RTE News at One -- 06 June 2006
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