Church renovations questioned.

Michael S. Rose's The Renovation Manipulation: The Church Counter-Renovation Handbook (Aquinas Publishing Ltd, Cincinnati, OH, P0 Box 11260, 45211-0260, 161 pages, 2000), was born of the bitter experience of many people who have approached the author, as editor of the St. Catherine Re view, with stories of church "restoration" projects which roll into unsuspecting parishes like an occupying army, to depart only when they have succeeded in transforming a classically designed house of God into something closer to an International House of Pancakes.

The most disturbing quality of this small volume is that it has become necessary to write it at all. It is oddly reminiscent of that genre of books identified with American campus radicals during the sixties: the manual and manifesto of a resistance movement against dark forces of conspiracy and repression.

The good news is that Rose's book is aptly sub-titled. There clearly is a "counter-renovation" movement gaining ground in North America, evidenced by Rose's own St. Catherine Review. Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, the magazine covers all issues of interest to faithful Catholics, but reflects Rose's training as an architect in its special emphasis on church design and renovation. Sacred Architecture is another new journal, edited by Duncan Stroik, a professor of architecture at Notre Dame where he leads the vanguard in the movement to define and reclaim the sacred in Catholic church design. Finally, there is hope to be found in the testimony of American bishops themselves (given at their November 1999 meeting) that church architecture speaks to us about what we believe, and that the architectural gibberish of the past few decades has had tragic consequences.

The 1960's revolutionaries

However, there is still bad news abroad concerning church architecture, with the casualties mounting as aging flower children remain determined to create in brick and mortar the Church they have failed to remodel in heart and soul. Michael S. Rose lays out in detail the carefully crafted process by which this is done, with enough anecdotal evidence to dispel any doubt the reader may have about its accuracy. You want to doubt what you read in this book, because its message is that there are parish priests who, when seized with the impulse to remake your "worship space," are prepared to misrepresent their plans, fund-raise under false pretenses, and squander your contributions on hired "experts" brought in to manipulate, to bully, and ultimately to lie to you in order to achieve their ends.

If this sounds paranoid, Rose's description of the typical renovation process is more of the same. The "liturgical design consultant" (LDC) is "invited into a parish community to undermine the devotions, methods, and faith of its people." He (or she) begins with a slide-lecture on the history of Christian architecture, the purpose of which is "to disparage traditionally arranged spaces and to challenge parishioners' notions of what a church should look like." This is followed by presentations about specific design elements, which become the vehicle for introducing the grating "worship space/presider/table" lexicon, a phase of the programme "characterized by deliberate misinterpretation of Vatican II."

"The consultant aims to make parishioners feel guilty and...divisive.... The renovation process is specifically designed to wear out the opposition." Numerous committees are formed to "forge the impression that the whole project...is democratic...." A design workshop (with some catchy title) features small discussion groups led by facilitators "coached and indoctrinated to promote the consultant's program....The pre-ordained plan is trotted out and ratified."

The villains

There are two villains in this piece, one of flesh and one of paper. The paper one is Environment and Art in Catholic Worship (EACW), the document, produced in 1978 by the liturgy committee of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in the United States, which has since become the ultimate resource and rationale for the worst in modern church architecture.

The human villains are an elite class of approved (if not especially qualified) LDCs who have made careers, and considerable money, Out of their elaborate "restoration" roadshow. They number about 100 in the U.S., and are mostly graduates of a program at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, home of Liturgical Training Publications.

Rather than cataloguing the content of EACW, Rose concentrates on its impact as relied upon by the "wreckovators". The document is one of many essential resources listed in various chapters of the book, including a comprehensive set of references to all relevant official Church documents regarding the correct interior arrangement of churches.

Rose does provide some less well-known background on the origins of EACW. Its ideas were largely lifted from a 1973 book by Protestant architect Edward Sovik, and then carefully reworded to appear as positive principles, masking Sovik's straightforwardly negative, antichurch attitudes. Another interesting detail is that EACW is generally accepted as being the work of only one author, a Fr. Robert Hovda. The late Fr. Hovda, editor of Living Worship, wrote the foreword to Church Architecture and Liturgical Reform by Theodor Filthaut, in which he described himself as "neither a liturgiologist nor an expert in sacred art" but an ardent supporter of Filthaut's theories, especially "on the absolute primacy of the living assembly." (Published in 1968, the book is a grim foretaste of EACW, its illustrations even more repugnant.) Hovda's only criticism is that Filthaut's book is too timid in expressing the mandate for change. After all, he writes, regarding "the progress of Catholic worship reform... we are on our wa y, and there is no turning back."

Michael S. Rose begs to differ. He emphasises in several places that EACW in its original form was never a binding or authoritative document for anyone, even in the U.S. However, he fails to note that where duly constituted diocesan architectural committees have embraced its principles and wording, EACW has assumed the binding authority to wreak havoc on old churches and new. Fortunately its influence is now recognised as so pernicious to the faith that it is being wholly abandoned in favour of Domus Dei, a draft document debated and revised by the entire assembly of American bishops (as EACW never was). But when the Americans finally discredit and replace EACW, this is no remedy for countries like Canada where it still forms the basis of many diocesan architectural guidelines.

As to the flesh and blood villains--Rose's observations about them and their methods are certain to shock anyone lacking direct experience of them. Those who have been through the "restoration" mill, however, will only nod in rueful recognition. Among the most prominent names in the profession is that of Fr. Richard Vosko, "an expert in sacred space" who hails from Albany, New York. He was a key player in the protracted battle over the Church of Our Lady Immaculate in Guelph, Ontario, which ended with the renovation project stillborn, thanks to the persistent and overwhelming opposition of parishioners.

For me, Rose's summary of the standard LDC campaign rang true in every detail because I had been an early consultant to the Guelph "resistance movement." At the announcement of the planned "restoration," certain parishioners had immediately smelled a rat. They had received a flyer inviting them to a series of "Restoration Information Sessions" (under the zippy title, "A fresh look inside!"): three sessions on each of two Saturdays in April and May, 1998. Some quick research on Fr. Vosko revealed that his Ph.D. was in Adult Education (with no credentials in architecture beyond LDC certification), and that he came at a high price (later discovered to be $60,000!).

Disturbing rumours began to circulate as to what sort of changes might be contemplated, and a small group decided to seek help before the process was too far underway. I was contacted by a parishioner who asked me to address an informal meeting on the basics of historical church architecture. It didn't take much imagination to guess which architectural milestones Fr. Vosko was likely to discuss, and how they could be selectively described to bolster his case for an EACW vision of a church interior. As it turned out, my guesses were spot on.

While The Renovation Manipulation does an excellent job of setting out the false claims which LDCs will typically make about "Vatican II directives" on adapting architecture to the new liturgy, I think it would have been equally helpful if Rose had also anticipated some of the bogus art history being peddled by these "experts", and had provided just enough technical data to throw them entirely off their guard when parishioners are invited to respond to their proposals.

To take one example: no survey of early Christian architecture would fail to include the "house church" at Dura-Europos in Syria. It is a mid-3rd-century house, the most reliable example of a domestic building used for Christian worship, and therefore dear to the hearts of those who push the image of the Eucharist as "table fellowship." During the opening lectures, the LDC will tell his audience that the earliest house churches were still family homes, so they probably just rearranged the furniture a bit and held the Eucharist around the dining room table. "Probably" is the operative word here. In From Age to Age (a popular history of the Mass by Fr. Edward Foley, professor of Liturgy at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago), the two-paragraph treatment of house churches is riddled with words like "suggests", "probably", "might have", "is believed to be". Bottom line: nobody really knows.

The LDC will report that, at Dura-Europos, two rooms were joined and converted into a place of worship. He might even give the room's dimensions, 43' x 16'. He will add (correctly) that we do not know for certain where the altar/table was located. But he may well omit that at the base of the eastern wall is a raised dais, with a small circular recess in the plaster floor beside it, suitable for holding a lampstand. (From Age to Age shows the dais in a diagram but omits any mention of it in the text.) A dais for an altar, or a chair and ambo? Impossible to say. But it would be peculiar indeed to create such an elongated room to gather people around anything in the centre.

Most telling of all (and most likely to be omitted) is the fact that the floor of this double room was raised and plastered over on a slight downward slant toward the dais. Furthermore, the raised floor covers up the built-in stone benches around the perimeter of the former dining room where the family had reclined around a table to eat their meals in other words, the standard domestic dining arrangement has been deliberately obliterated. The evidence is clear: these early Christians did not find fellowship around a tilted table in the middle of this tilted room. Rather, the earliest extant Christian "worship space", renovated to that purpose, was designed to accommodate a congregation facing one way, toward the priest and the sacramental action taking place at the far end of a long, narrow nave. Any other conclusion is nonsensical.

Though the parishioners at Guelph were armed with this type of information, it was too much to absorb in a rush and they did not feel secure enough to argue with the expert on his own turf. But they were grateful to have had just enough exposure that his presentation did not overwhelm them with alien place-names and terms (as it was no doubt designed to do). It seems to me that, as an architect, Michael S. Rose could have served his readers better had he compiled a handy digest about the key styles and works of historic Christian architecture, sufficient to help parishioners challenge the LDCs misrepresentation of traditional design, similar to the way in which he has provided the necessary tools to challenge misreading of Vatican II and other Church teachings. As one of the Guelph resisters said of Fr. Vosko, "He thought that we were so stupid, he could tell us anything and we'd believe it." A prepared and determined congregation gave Fr. Vosko a big surprise.

The Guelph success story merits two lengthy footnotes in Rose's book, and these were my first confirmation that the church had in fact been saved. (Having chosen to stay at arm's length from the parish conflict, I have never actually seen the building itself or met again with parishioners.) But even as we congratulate them, other parishes have been gravely vandalised or are being led down that path. The grandiose new cathedral for Los Angeles, a Vosko-directed monstrosity currently under construction, is probably the highest profile example. And, not content to do his dirty work in Catholic churches, Fr. Vosko has also worked as the LDC to a national Jewish project called "Synagogue 2000."

Its website ( www.s2k.org ) and others (www.stmore.org/church/html, or www.stcolumban.org) show the design consultancy process as Michael Rose has now exposed it -- revisionist history, cute workshop titles, multiple committees, abundant jargon -- playing itself out on fresh prey.

The Renovation Manipulation is required reading for any Catholic who has felt the Mystical Body being bruised by the desacralisation of the House of God. It is a window into the genesis of many bizarre attitudes about worship which have grown up during the nearly forty years in which we have wandered in a liturgical desert looking for a place where we felt at home. But, most importantly, this book is a genuine manual of resistance for any Catholic faced in his own parish with the possible ruin of a traditional church building which has served its community and nurtured their faith simply by being what it is: the embodiment of what we believe, the complex icon of the gifts of an incarnate God.

Claudia Sommers Brown contributes to Catholic Insight on art and architecture topics, and serves on the building committees of two Toronto area churches.