More From Roamin' Catholics

Today, I'm going to direct you to the January page of Roamin' Catholics. You'll find it HERE. The first picture is from St. Charles Borromeo parish. With one exception, I'm very impressed. It's magnificent. That combination of stone and glass is fantastic. This building is a rarity for its time, a work of architectural art. The only problem is the appearance of what some call a "ressurafix", in place of the crucifix mandated by Church regulations. These items can be very beautiful, when in an appropriate place. The altar of a church is not an appropriate place. Other than this, well done.

Next, we have Corpus Christi University parish. This place definately seems to have problems. There are two good things I can say about this interior. First, the basic design is good, though turning the Mass into theater-in-the-round doesn't work very well. There's a reason the church stopped building round churches after experimenting with them centuries ago. They just don't work. There was a brief trend toward this sort of thing, starting back in the sixties. ( A lot of half-baked nonsense was tried then ) That was a time when people were so puffed up about their bright ideas they forgot to find out WHY certain things were done or not done. Another problem is the chairs. Kneeling at points in the Mass is not optional. Kneeling directly on that stone floor would be very uncomfortable. I'd wager when this was built, it was influenced by certain discredited elements that thought we'd have abandoned kneeling, along with other things ( Belief in the Real Presence, for example ) by now. They were wrong. The other good thing is the fact that the quality of the works of art is very high. That icon triptych in the background looks good. You can see two of the tapestries I mentioned in an earlier post. The one on the left is Archbishop Oscar Romero, of El Salvador. He, at least is in the process for canonization. The tapestry is just jumping the gun a bit. The one of Gandhi is completely without justification. Hopefully it, and the statue of Karl Rahner are gone by now. As I said, this place has problems, and it's not the students who are at fault.

I won't say much about the third picture. It's my own Immaculate Conception parish, and I've commented frequently elsewhere on this blog. Look at the tabernacle, though. It's a beauty.