I
came of age as an artist and liturgical design consultant in the company
of colleagues of talent, faith and vision. Speaking from the perspective
of over 60 years of involvement in the liturgical movement I would like
to share my experience of where we have been and some of my concerns
about where we are going.
As
I reflect on the lifelong learning experience that my involvement in the
liturgical movement has been I celebrate the provident visionary
leadership before and after the Vatican II Council that set the agenda
for full, active and conscious participation in the liturgy and the
vital visual art and contemporary architecture in the renovation of
existing churches and new church building that was supportive of it. An
agenda departed from in the recent past.
In
the 19"' and early 20th centuries the church had abandoned her
leadership role in the contemporary arts and preferred to rely on
eclectic architecture and mass produced art forms. With the exception of
two paintings by Eugene Delacroix in Saint Sulpice, few of the
acknowledged 19th century geniuses were commissioned by the church.
Great 19th century works of art are more consistently found in our
museums not our churches.
It
was not until Vatican II that the church renewed a dialogue between
church and contemporary talent. Pope Paul VI (1963–1978) in his
address to artists regretted the estrangement and proposed a
rapprochement.
Despite
this 19th and early 20th century estrangement contemporary forms and
materials already had a long history. About 100 years ago architect
Frank Lloyd Wright was commissioned to design the first American modern
church building(Unity Temple in Oak Park
The
1909 Malines Catholic Conference ushered in the beginning of the
liturgical movement. In 1922 August Perret designed the cast concrete
church of Notre Dame du Raincy (a Paris suburb)—an acknowledged
classic, as is Marcel Breuer's cast concrete St. John's Abbey church in
Collegeville. Switzerland and Germany were in the forefront of
contemporary church design in the 1920's and 1930's German architect
Rudolf Schwartz was a disciple of liturgist Romano Guardini. In the
United States, Chicago architect Barry Byrne, a student of Frank Lloyd
Wright, was designing significant contemporary Catholic churches. After
World War II, with the destruction of cities, European contemporary
church art and architecture was noteworthy, especially in France and
Germany. France was an epicenter of contemporary religious art and
architecture, and of developments in liturgy. The Parisian Dominicans
edited the journal L’Art sacré and helped start the Center of
Sacred Art, which I attended on the GI Bill with Frank Kacmarcik. It
offered the usual art school disciplines plus lectures in theology and
the spirituality of the sacred artist and sought the collaboration of
the great artistic and architectural talents of the time.
The
Catholic Art Association strove in academic circles to prepare artists
for church commissions and to educate Catholic taste. Energetic and
committed lay women involved in the liturgical movement made a pivotal
contribution to the education and broadening of Catholic taste by
establishing bookstores/art galleries: among them are Celia Hubbard (Botolph
Group in Boston), artist and social activist Ade Bethune (St. Leo Shop
in Newport Rhode Island), Elizabeth Sullivan (Paraclete Bookstore in New
York City), Sarah Benedicta O'Neil and Nina Polcyn (St. Benet's shop in
Chicago), Ethel de Souza (Junipero Serra Shop in San Francisco) and the
Ladies of the Grail movement (Loveland Ohio). Pioneer artist Charlton
Fortune's Monterey Guild and Hildreth Meier created distinguished
contemporary liturgical art and furnishings.
Maurice
Lavanoux, architect, traveler, author and critic for four decades, was
the editor of the scholarly Liturgical Arts Quarterly. This
formative magazine epiphanized liturgy with quality pictures and
exemplary floor plans. The eminent Jesuit John LaFarge (editor of America
magazine) embodied the connection between serving worship and social
justice in his roles as spiritual director of the Liturgical Arts
Society as well as of the Catholic Interracial Council.
The
Benedictine order has been in the forefront of leadership in matters
liturgical. Collegeville's Virgil Michael was a Renaissance man. His
scholarship, quality support of significant contemporary art and
architecture, prophetic stance on liturgy and for liturgy that leads to
mission in social justice, pioneered the agenda for the American
liturgical movement. Father H.A. Reinhold, a long time contributor to Orate
Fratres, brought added insight to matters liturgical, to art and
architecture and social issues and as pastor of his Sunnyside parish he
designed the church that pre-figured arrangements that later Vatican II
documents would support.
The
Benedictines inspired the creation of the Liturgical Arts Society and
the liturgical weeks of the Liturgical Conference.
The
voluntarist Liturgical Conference gave prophetic voice to the reform of
Catholic worship and contemporary religious art and architecture. In
addition to its roles as publisher and educator, it rallied interested
participants from different disciplines to its liturgical weeks, the
celebrational national event of lectures/workshops and exemplary
liturgy. To be a Board Member was an education in the presence of such
visionaries as Monsignor Frederick R. McManus, Father Godfrey Diekman,
OSB, Father Aidan Kavanaugh, Father Gerard Sloyan, Mary Perkins Ryan,
Mary Collins. OSB, Adrian Nadine Foley, OP, Frank Kacmarcik, Monsignor
R. Hillenbrand, and Ed Sovik. Giants all!
With
the promulgation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy and the
General Instruction of the Roman Missal of Pope Paul VI, principles and
directions for a fitting and supportive worship environment were
enunciated. To bridge the hiatus between the understanding of new forms
of worship and supportive architecture the role of liturgical design
consultant and the educative growth and design process for clergy and
parishioners was developed by first generation consultants, Frank
Kacmarcik, Bill Schickel, Ed Sovik and myself. Liturgical consultants
and liturgical design consultants became a new ministry or profession
that assisted a parish renovation or new church building. In the decades
since several succeeding generations have followed, whose members have
included Father Richard Vosko, Willy Malarcher and Brother William
Woeger as second generation consultants.
The
Liturgical Conference also sponsored an architectural competition of
projects exemplifying worthy implementation of worship environments with
printed critiques from liturgists and attendant jury members.
Liturgical
Conference representatives joined other denominations in setting up
first the Interfaith Research Center, and then joined the Protestant
weighted Guild for Religious Architecture and Synagogue Administration
of the Union of American Hebrew Reform Congregations to create a new
entity, the Interfaith Forum on Religion Art and Architecture. IFRAA
continued the tradition of regional and national meetings, sponsored the
interfaith architectural competition and published a journal Faith
and Form. Its editor, Betty Meyer, served loyally for many years.
IFRAA planned and ran four international congresses. A fifth congress
was sponsored by Dr. John Dillenberger at the Berkley Campus of General
Theological Union (California).
The
Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commission (FDLC) has an environment
and art study group and the exemplary German Bishop's directives
inspired the Superior (Wisconsin) and Albany Directives, FDLC felt an
American document was needed. Fr. Joseph Cunningham [Chair, FDLC Board
of Directors] appointed Monsignor Florian Gall to chair a committee
charged with writing position papers, which included Msgr. Joseph
Moriarity (Cleveland), Ade Bethune, Father Richard Vosko, Frank
Kacmarcik, Edward Sovik and myself (Bob R.). FDLC subsequently forwarded
the manuscript to the Bishop's Committee on Liturgy (BCL), which
commissioned the Liturgical Conference's editor, Rev. Robert Hovda, to
write his own succinct and classic Environment and Art in Catholic
Worship.
The
BCL, FDLC, Catholic University’s Center for Pastoral Liturgy (CU-CPL)
and IFRAA celebrated the first anniversary of the publication of Environment
and Art in Catholic Worship with a national symposium in Milwaukee.
Out of that symposium came A Reader: The Environment for Worship
published by NCCB and CU-CPL. The BCL and CU-CPL also edited The
Cathedral: A Reader.
FDLC
also published a directory of national recognized consultants on worship
space. Father Gil Ostdiek, OFM of Chicago's Catholic Theological Union
subsequently developed a course for the Institute for Liturgical
Consultants adding formation and professional qualifications for this
role and ministry.
Fr.
Hovda's Environment and Art in Catholic Worship had the NCCB
administrative committee's approval—but not that of all the Bishops.
Some were concerned that only Frank Kacmarcik's contemporary design
projects were illustrated, as opposeto a diversity of designers an a
diversity of styles. Others questioned its stance on then “highly
recommended” placement of the tabernacle in Blessed Sacrament chapels.
The
National Conference of Catholic Bishops invited Bishop Frank Rodimer to
chair a committee representing different professions to author Built
of Living Stones. This document proved more congenial. It resolved
the objections leveled at Environment and Art’s use of
Kacmarcik's projects as exemplars by featuring atmospheric photos of
people and eliminating all architectural illustrations, which is a
puzzling decision for a document whose purpose is to guide and inform
the visual expression of liturgical values. It also advocated they new
prioritized placement of the tabernacle in the more remote sanctuary
area.
The
major ancient Roman Basilicas provide historical precedent for proximate
and accessible Blessed Sacraments chapels. Acknowledging the local
Bishop's judgment, a tabernacle locus in the restricted sanctuary can
offer visual competition with the action at the altar. However, besides
a tabernacle's sacramental presence there is still a need to discern
Christ's presence in today’s events and persons.
In
the 1970's Jesuit John Gallen founded the ecumenical North American
Academy of Liturgy (NAAL) at a Scottsdale, Arizona retreat house. Among
the founding members were several first generation liturgical
consultants were involved with the Liturgical Conference. At annual
meetings the Environment and Art section makes pilgrimages to cultic and
cultural sites and presents assigned scholarly papers and slide
presentations all of which engender lively discussions.
Until
recently Chicago’s Liturgy Training Publications under Gabe Huck’s
and David Philippart’s leadership produced "E & A", the
valuable environment and art letter.
I
have been fortunate to share my three score years in the liturgical
movement with stellar colleagues—in the Liturgical Arts Society, The
Liturgical Conference, the Catholic Art Association, The Vernacular
Society, the North American Academy of Liturgy, the Interfaith Forum on
Religion, Art and Architecture, and here in the Federation of Diocesan
Liturgical Commissions.
Societies
and institutions that are primarily concerned with liturgy have coupled
an appropriate interest in those arts (music, liturgical furnishings,
art and architecture) that properly serve worship with a commitment to
issues of social justice. Worship and witness are complementary. We are
commanded to wash feet, and to share blessed and broken bread and the
cup
"Reform
the reform' and 'Semper reformanda" are post Vatican II polar
opposites. I am concerned about those architectural and sacerdotal
formation centers that champion past architectural styles for churches
today. This is retroversion not renewal, and confect liturgical Potemkin
Villages. Our work is not to replicate but to replicate but to
understand history, because as Le Corbusier said “who
understands history knows how to find continuity between that which was,
that which is, and that which will be."
Nostalgia
also can forfeit the interest in and collaboration with the creative
geniuses of today and tomorrow. It can re-duplicate the 19th century
estrangement between church and contemporary artistic talent in this,
the third millennium. Eclecticism reflects a world that no longer exists
and can prompt a divorce between ritual action and social consciousness.
Religious
art and architecture should be of today, for today's participatory
liturgy, and witness to today's realities and the needs of people.
Hurricane
Katrina demonstrated the gospel (Matt. 25) imperative of judgment
accountability for Eucharistic mission: to feed the hungry, give drink
to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked and visit the
sick and those in prison.
New
instructions will emerge from the October Synod on the Eucharist, but
here and now we remember and honor the liturgical prophets and giants
who brought us and the church this far, to Vatican II and after, making
its promises manifest. Physicist Sir Isaac Newton wrote in 1675 "If
I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants".
Pray
we, as in the past, are sent more such giants to help us envision an
ever renewing Church and her future.
