Why Not Beautiful Churches?
One of my cousins is a Capuchin priest. He has worked very closely with the very poor and disadvantaged for decades, and he bristles when people talk about “frivolous beauty” or “liturgical pomp”, and when they declare that beautiful things should be stripped down and sold for the poor. “You help the poor by being with them, living and working with them; being one with them, because one of the biggest needs of the poor is the reception of a simple message: ‘You’re as important as anyone; you are loved and loveable.’ You don’t send that message by making the world uglier for them.”
Sell everything in a church, strip it down and you buy some temporary assistance; then the people who sold all that sinful, frivolous beauty go back home, feeling pretty good about themselves and all the ‘help’ they gave to ‘the poor.’ But when the money runs out — and my cousin says money running out is one of the few things you can bank on — then for the poor who remain, “it’s back to business as usual, but with nothing beautiful for them, anywhere.”…….(more)
(((I wouldn’t go so far as to say that those who criticize liturgical beauty hate beautiful things; I just think they don’t fully understand how it’s utilized within the Church.)))
Kind of like someone saying Anchoress, I’ll give ya a thousand dollars if you close down your blog tomorrow.
They just don’t realize how much good works your blog is doing for U>S (usual sinning) poor people! Right Folks?
Peace