The language of beauty

“A ‘privileged’ situation to broaden knowledge and establish networks with artists, architects and liturgists, for an ambitious cultural project in response to the extraordinary thrust of the Second Vatican Council”, this was the auspicious statement of Msgr. Mariano Crociata, Secretary General of Italy’s Bishops’ Conference, conveyed in the message for the international conference “Art, architecture and liturgy. A sharing of European experiences”, held a few days ago in Venice.The crisis of sacred art. “Why are modern churches so ugly, or rather, why are they so disappointing, inappropriate and far from the ideal representation of worship and compassion?” provocatively asked ab. Father Michael John Zielinski, vice President of the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church. According to Msgr. Zielenski, the present crisis of sacred art lies in the inability of the Church client to make clear requests”. Indeed, “art can’t cooperate with liturgy, unless it is motivated by evangelization purposes”. The proposal therefore, is “to accept the project of a building that is the expression of the artist’s poetical form and structure, provided that it complies with the client’s requirements that the architect/artist views as a chance for creative creation”.Chapel-churches. During the conference, the sacred architecture of Northern Europe was given special emphasis. “In Scandinavia, since there are very few Catholics – affirmed Wolfang Iean Stock, contemporary art scholar – Lutheran churches, that give special relevance to acoustics for a correct sound conveyance of the organ and the spoken word, are taken as the architectural models”. “Since the end of the XX century, the aggregating force of popular churches has been decreasing also in Scandinavia”, he pointed out. As a result, “recent church buildings aren’t larger than a chapel”. Thus, “the problem is the same in all Nordic Countries: identifying the best use of the sacred buildings that no longer function as churches”, he concluded. If everyone goes to Mass on Sunday. “Twenty-four million Poles, out of 38 million of inhabitants, go to Mass on Sunday. This high number of practicing Catholics affects religious architecture”, declared Marcus Nitschke, evangelical theologian and expert in sacred architecture. Between 1971 and 1989, 3 thousand churches were built in Poland. “The places of worship are also areas of social gathering”, Nitschke explained. “Furthermore, in the course of the past decades “churches acted as the venues of political opposition, since Polish national feelings identified with the Catholic Church”. Such a vision requires “large areas, despite the outlook is mostly traditional and dating back to the pre-Council period”. Another feature is “great participation at grassroots level in the construction process”. Alternative areas. “Provisional sacred areas or provisionally sacred”?, was the provocation of Spanish architect Esteban Fernández Cobián who addressed the question of areas devoted to community liturgy on a temporary basis”. “The Catholic Church always accepted the possibility of holding celebrations outside the churches in given circumstances and in respectable grounds”, Cobián explained. In fact, “the Apostolic trips of John Paul II and the WYDs encouraged the erection of provisional altars with a number of specific architectural features: a large cross to identify the Christian connotation, a marked visibility of the altar, so that it could be seen also at a distance, while the services were at the basis of the platform, from the sacristy to the press office”. “These are new challenges, – including the temptation of a ‘virtual’ church – that sacred architecture is called to meet in the course of the century. However, the strictly ‘building’ concept will be bypassed only if it is viewed as being at the service of evangelization”, were Cobiàn’s final remarks. Experimenting through education. “Liturgy is not running after people and situations, so that they may ‘take Mass'”, stated Cardinal Angelo Scola, Patriarch of Venice. In addition to “raising questions on the architectural limits of places of worship marked by greater temporariness”, it’s important to reflect on “educating people to live this act of worship”. In the case of the liturgies for the World Youth Days, His Eminence recalled, “the individual is fully aware, while the unity between the liturgy and the temporal-space area where the acts of worship are performed, have encouraged architects’ creativity, that was often successful”. As relates to religious celebrations in the premises of shopping centres, “I cannot exclude the good faith of these attempts, however we should be aware that we’re just at the beginning”.