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New Document on Church Architecture

In November, the US bishops will be discussing a controversial document on church architecture. Commissioned more than five years ago, the document, originally entitled Domus Dei but now known as Built of Living Stones, was first presented for discussion at the bishops’ open meeting in Washington last fall. Its stated purpose is to set forth practical principles in the design and renovation of Catholic churches.

Many of the American churches built or renovated in the past two decades have been guided by principles set forth in Environment and Art in Catholic Worship (EACW), the 1978 booklet that has come increasingly under fire for its lack of authoritative directives and its architectural reductionism. Critics of the older document, which is known as the “Renovator’s Bible,” say it has produced uninspiring and banal Catholic church architecture. Few in the pews disagree with this assessment. With this in mind, the new instruction is meant to supplant EACW once it is approved by the US bishops’ conference. The final form of Built of Living Stones could significantly influence the design of Catholic churches in the new century.

Unfortunately, the first draft of the document posed little threat to the status quo. Aside from its deficiencies regarding the various design considerations that bear on church architecture, the key issue from the perspective of ordinary Catholics in the pews is that these directives have an impact not because of what they say, but because of what they allow and what they can be used to justify. In a sense, the norms themselves are less important than the interpretation which will be placed on them.

If Domus Dei had been approved last year by the bishops, the “liturgical design consultants” who dominate the field of church design and renovation would have been able to use it to justify most, if not all, of the subjective and contrived ideas they have been long promoting.

To justify status quo fads such as bubbling baptismal pools, displaced tabernacles, and a paucity of sacred works of art, the proposed instruction made a contrived appeal to their “symbolic value.” This method of appealing to strained symbolism is known in the world of architecture as “post-rationalization.” The designer approaches the project with a preset idea of what he wants to accomplish and how he will do so. Once the project is designed, he contrives the reasons or justifications for his design decisions, oftentimes relying on highly dubious symbolic references or other rationalizations not of a practical nature. In the profession of law, this is known as “The Yale Thesis.” As Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. explained it some years ago: “The Yale thesis, crudely put, is that any judge chooses his results and reasons backward.” Domus Dei started with a conscious acceptance of the various liturgical/architectural trends of the day, and reasoned backward in an effort to support these conclusions.

That is not to say the first draft of this new document on church architecture isn’t an improvement over EACW. It would be hard to argue otherwise; but even with most points on which Domus Dei is a clear improvement over EACW, the proposed norms allow loopholes that will only serve to empower the liturgical design consultant to continue with his planned program of architectural changes to the liturgical elements of the church. That is the bottom line, and, judging from the discussion at the bishops’ conference last year, they too may realize this. With this awareness it is hoped that the newest draft of Built of Living Stones may be evaluated from the practical perspective of what the proposed instruction will allow and what it will justify. If, as it has been often stated, the new document is to serve Catholics by providing a solution to the problem of banal church architecture and divisive renovation jobs, the new document will not be a success if it simply ratifies the status quo.

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