Sunday, June 8, 2008

St. Aloysius, Bowling Green

Sometimes I see something that really makes my blood boil. This is the sanctuary floor at St. Aloysius. That's some of the best tile work in the diocese.
Unfortunately, that's not just carpet. When, in the 70's, the sanctuary was changed, doubtless by people who blamed Vatican II for their own destructiveness, a concrete platform was poured directly over the tile. Vatican II never suggested anything quite like that.
In the 80's common sense returned, along with the crucifix, which was brought back from exile in the choir loft. At that time, an attempt was made to uncover the tile. They found out that removing a concrete platform stuck like glue to a work of art is close to impossible.
By the way, the same morons hacked out the tile from the aisles to install carpet.
I remember the 70's well. That's a lot easier than understanding the 70's, much less condoning the atrocities committed back then.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

When I was a college student at UT, I dated someone who attended St. Al's. Occasionally, we attended mass there and I found it to be beautiful. The interior looks very different from most catholic churches ... it has a spanish feel to me. What are the interior and exterior architectures?

Jeffrey Smith said...

The exterior's sort of Lombard Romanesque, with Mission overtones. At least that's how I'd put it.
If I had to describe the interior I'd say a sort of vernacular Romanesque.
No matter what they did to the tile, they couldn't mar the beauty of those lines. Wonderful building.