Haven't we had enough of the 'new' iconoclasm?
Haven't we had enough of the 'new' iconoclasm?
The short answer is: yes.
Diagnosing the illness is the first step on the road to recovery. A diagnosis of obesity requires a new attitude toward food, a serious change of habit. To remain stuck in the bad habit of eating excessive amounts of junk food or massively overeating even healthy food is to consign oneself to the likely possibility of an untimely death, or protracted health problems that make getting out of bed as difficult as running up six flights of stairs.
People have become indifferent to real beauty by having consumed for far too long a steady diet of trite "music", i.e., iconoclastic sound-craft or saccharine ditties, vapid architecture and cheap sermons that sound more like horoscope predictions from a trashy tabloid rag than authoritative exhortations to pursue the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Banality, unwanted guest that it is, has barged its way into the Church and has invited legions of crass companions to join it. Art, real art, liberates hearts and minds and souls. Other stuff masquerading as art imprisons the mind in the warped understanding that Christians should prefer social justice programs over the salvation of souls. Minds infected with the virus of a politicizing relativism which skews perception accept as fact a false dichotomy born of a faulty theology. Indeed, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, etc. Christ dwells in our disadvantaged brothers and sisters. And what of their souls? Do not souls require beauty and truth to allow them to rise to meet God, the same Lord Who saves souls for eternity? The "transcendentalists", i.e., lovers of truth, goodness and beauty, as well as building great churches tend to be most committed to serving their brothers and sisters in the soup kitchens, by working in hospice care and hospitals, and by visiting the sick and imprisoned to bring the light of Christ to those in most need of God's mercy and goodness. People disposed to the true, the good and the beautiful are passionately aware of the necessity to seek from God the grace to do His will, to be transparent to His love so as to be able to be a conduit of grace for others.
Evidence of a 20th Century iconoclasm abounds: the "wreck-o-vation" of church sanctuaries; church building designs that look like shopping malls or bunkers; chintzy statuary (if there are any statues at all!); flaccid music; vestments that resemble costumes from a bad science fiction movie. Thankfully, there are many examples of an emerging restoration of the beautiful. Old churches are being restored to their former glory. Many new church buildings are oriented to God, Who possesses the transcendentals to an infinite degree.
The short answer is: yes.
Diagnosing the illness is the first step on the road to recovery. A diagnosis of obesity requires a new attitude toward food, a serious change of habit. To remain stuck in the bad habit of eating excessive amounts of junk food or massively overeating even healthy food is to consign oneself to the likely possibility of an untimely death, or protracted health problems that make getting out of bed as difficult as running up six flights of stairs.
People have become indifferent to real beauty by having consumed for far too long a steady diet of trite "music", i.e., iconoclastic sound-craft or saccharine ditties, vapid architecture and cheap sermons that sound more like horoscope predictions from a trashy tabloid rag than authoritative exhortations to pursue the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Banality, unwanted guest that it is, has barged its way into the Church and has invited legions of crass companions to join it. Art, real art, liberates hearts and minds and souls. Other stuff masquerading as art imprisons the mind in the warped understanding that Christians should prefer social justice programs over the salvation of souls. Minds infected with the virus of a politicizing relativism which skews perception accept as fact a false dichotomy born of a faulty theology. Indeed, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, etc. Christ dwells in our disadvantaged brothers and sisters. And what of their souls? Do not souls require beauty and truth to allow them to rise to meet God, the same Lord Who saves souls for eternity? The "transcendentalists", i.e., lovers of truth, goodness and beauty, as well as building great churches tend to be most committed to serving their brothers and sisters in the soup kitchens, by working in hospice care and hospitals, and by visiting the sick and imprisoned to bring the light of Christ to those in most need of God's mercy and goodness. People disposed to the true, the good and the beautiful are passionately aware of the necessity to seek from God the grace to do His will, to be transparent to His love so as to be able to be a conduit of grace for others.
Evidence of a 20th Century iconoclasm abounds: the "wreck-o-vation" of church sanctuaries; church building designs that look like shopping malls or bunkers; chintzy statuary (if there are any statues at all!); flaccid music; vestments that resemble costumes from a bad science fiction movie. Thankfully, there are many examples of an emerging restoration of the beautiful. Old churches are being restored to their former glory. Many new church buildings are oriented to God, Who possesses the transcendentals to an infinite degree.
What is or has been the root cause of so much wanton destruction in our churches? Bad architecture starts with bad theology, or rather an imitation of theology. Lazy thinking permeates iconoclastic culture—better called anti-culture—because to act according to one's baser instincts which rend the head from the heart and which renders the conscience numb, is far easier for those accustomed to the sun orbiting their petty wants than to act in deference to authority with the heart and head united and purified of selfish pride.
Art requires thought; its production relies on a faithful orientation to the transcendentals: truth, goodness and beauty. By contrast, iconoclasts are slaves to the anti-virtues: relativism, anarchy and banality. The artist embodies skill; the charlatan lacks skill so he merely imitates art, and because it is an imitation, he must try to convince others through manipulation of one kind or another to value his imitations. Most of the sound-craft that has found its way into Catholic churches is merely an imitation of great music. Music, of all the disciplines, is the craft most susceptible to producing the Emperor's new clothes. Few have the vocabulary to challenge the iconoclasts who, lacking any depth and appreciation of history—because a comparison with history would judge their works impotent—and whose works model their own anarchy, depend on bamboozling the academy (colleges and universities) and governments for financial help to pay them for producing their stillborn offspring.
Beware of academic musicians who insist on hoisting the banner of research to justify the inclusion and support of their craft. That universities must be "research facilities" is the mantra of ideologues who routinely attempt to fleece citizens of their money in order to promote their narcissistic productions that hardly represent anything possessing artistic merit. Be it known, most new soundcraft, born of relativistic philosophy, is merely an attempt at a therapeutic consolation for a composer's inability to write works of high artistic merit. Too often, said composers elevate one aspect of composition, e.g., frequently its degree of difficulty, as justification for a piece's artistic merit. It is one thing to move musicians beyond a technical boundary in an artful way. It is quite another thing, and arrogantly so, to proclaim something as a work of art merely because it builds a wall so high that its height somehow makes it a work of art. The world is polluted with compositions that are unplayable even by virtuosic musicians but which continue to receive performances because of some idolatrous fixation on the composers who produced them.
As is always the case, sanity is better served by looking deeply into the past for a reasoned perspective to move forward.
The Ordinariate preserves an incorrupt tradition of great music, both simple and complex. There is English chant and English polyphony of the highest order. And, the great music of the Latin repertory frequently finds a prominent place in Ordinariate liturgies. A cursory online search makes clear that among Ordinariate Catholics the polyphony of Palestrina, Vittoria and Allegri is truly appreciated, as is Gregorian chant.
Tradition-minded Catholics, be they Ordinariate Catholics, Extraordinary Form Catholics or Eastern-rite Catholics, recognize and celebrate beauty, because authentic beauty is of God. Hence, the same try to offer the most beautiful liturgies for love of God. It might be said that where beauty is absent, so are truth and goodness. A lot can be said about a community that settles for cheap "music" and tacky decorations. A parish that has forgotten the transcendentals typically behaves like Jesus is not present in the Eucharist reserved in the tabernacle. A lack of awareness of Jesus, i.e., the Real Presence, tends to go hand-in-hand with a lack of awareness of beauty, truth and goodness.
Art requires thought; its production relies on a faithful orientation to the transcendentals: truth, goodness and beauty. By contrast, iconoclasts are slaves to the anti-virtues: relativism, anarchy and banality. The artist embodies skill; the charlatan lacks skill so he merely imitates art, and because it is an imitation, he must try to convince others through manipulation of one kind or another to value his imitations. Most of the sound-craft that has found its way into Catholic churches is merely an imitation of great music. Music, of all the disciplines, is the craft most susceptible to producing the Emperor's new clothes. Few have the vocabulary to challenge the iconoclasts who, lacking any depth and appreciation of history—because a comparison with history would judge their works impotent—and whose works model their own anarchy, depend on bamboozling the academy (colleges and universities) and governments for financial help to pay them for producing their stillborn offspring.
Beware of academic musicians who insist on hoisting the banner of research to justify the inclusion and support of their craft. That universities must be "research facilities" is the mantra of ideologues who routinely attempt to fleece citizens of their money in order to promote their narcissistic productions that hardly represent anything possessing artistic merit. Be it known, most new soundcraft, born of relativistic philosophy, is merely an attempt at a therapeutic consolation for a composer's inability to write works of high artistic merit. Too often, said composers elevate one aspect of composition, e.g., frequently its degree of difficulty, as justification for a piece's artistic merit. It is one thing to move musicians beyond a technical boundary in an artful way. It is quite another thing, and arrogantly so, to proclaim something as a work of art merely because it builds a wall so high that its height somehow makes it a work of art. The world is polluted with compositions that are unplayable even by virtuosic musicians but which continue to receive performances because of some idolatrous fixation on the composers who produced them.
As is always the case, sanity is better served by looking deeply into the past for a reasoned perspective to move forward.
The Ordinariate preserves an incorrupt tradition of great music, both simple and complex. There is English chant and English polyphony of the highest order. And, the great music of the Latin repertory frequently finds a prominent place in Ordinariate liturgies. A cursory online search makes clear that among Ordinariate Catholics the polyphony of Palestrina, Vittoria and Allegri is truly appreciated, as is Gregorian chant.
Tradition-minded Catholics, be they Ordinariate Catholics, Extraordinary Form Catholics or Eastern-rite Catholics, recognize and celebrate beauty, because authentic beauty is of God. Hence, the same try to offer the most beautiful liturgies for love of God. It might be said that where beauty is absent, so are truth and goodness. A lot can be said about a community that settles for cheap "music" and tacky decorations. A parish that has forgotten the transcendentals typically behaves like Jesus is not present in the Eucharist reserved in the tabernacle. A lack of awareness of Jesus, i.e., the Real Presence, tends to go hand-in-hand with a lack of awareness of beauty, truth and goodness.
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