![\"KONICA](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/149\/2016\/03\/pict0056-300x225.jpg\")
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Soon after the plans for the new traditionally styled church in our parish were planned, I showed them with some enthusiasm to a liberal priest who happened to be visiting from England.<\/p>\n
He turned up his nose at the style and asked why we would build such \u00a0a church which was \u201cagainst Vatican 2\u201d<\/p>\n
Knowing that he was a \u201cwe are church\u201d anti clericalist \u00a0type of liberal I said, \u201cBut Father! This is the church the people<\/strong> want! The people have spoken, and this is their wish.\u201d<\/p>\n He was nonplussed. I explained further: \u201cIn our first building committee meeting I said, \u201cFirst of all, I want to know what kind of church the parish wants.\u201d<\/p>\n As I had inherited the building project from my predecessor the folks said, \u201cWe\u2019ve already done all that consultation father. We\u2019ve had experts in to ask everyone what they want and we want a church that looks like a Catholic Church.\u201d<\/p>\n I admit I was delighted by there answer, but I pressed further. \u201cSo you\u2019re sure you don\u2019t want a modern styled church in the round, a fan shaped circus tent sort of church?\u201d<\/p>\n They were adamant. \u201cEverybody wants a church with stained glass windows. We want a church that looks Catholic.\u201d<\/p>\n This conversation brought home something that I had been thinking for some time, that much of the populism that followed the second Vatican Council was not the \u201cchurch of the people\u201d at all. It was what \u201cthe people\u201d had been told was \u201cthe church of the people\u201d ought to be like by starry eyed modernist liturgists and 1970s cool theologians and architects.<\/p>\n When I visit parishes with modern flying saucer churches I ask \u201cthe people\u201d what they think of their church. They admit that it was foisted upon them by a domineer modernist pastor who always thought he knew what was best. They tell me the stories of the building committees that became rubber stamps for \u201cFather\u2019s new ideas\u201d of what a church should be. They tell how they fought to keep the old altarpieces, argued against the statues being pulled out and resisted the wall to wall carpeting, the Star Trek crucifixes and the modern art invading venerable Gothic churches.<\/p>\n We should be clear: The brutalist, falsely egalitarian, \u201cworship spaces\u201d were never the \u201cchurch of the people\u201d. They were the churches forced on the people by domineering idealogues\u00a0who deceived themselves into thinking they were egalitarian populists while they were in fact, \u201cFather Knows Best\u201d clericalist bullies of the old school.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Soon after the plans for the new traditionally styled church in our parish were planned, I showed them with some enthusiasm to a liberal priest who happened to be visiting from England. He turned up his nose at the style and asked why we would build such \u00a0a church which was \u201cagainst Vatican 2\u201d Knowing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":21467,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n