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Like many visitors to Paris before the disastrous April 2019 fire at Notre Dame Cathedral, I was glad I had an opportunity to see the 851-year-old church before its possible architectural wreckovation by opportunistic modernists.
In other words, what would happen to the design of the cathedral when the architects of the new Church world order set to work on reformatting one of the most famous cathedrals in the world?
I wasn’t being cynical. So many Catholic churches and cathedrals all over the world have been gutted and reframed with heavy Brutalist minimalism: high altars removed and replaced by Ikea-esque stone or marble “kitchen” tables plunked down in the middle of churches as barren-looking as airport hangars.
This reductionist mentality — the spirit of Vatican II, as it is often called — is obsessed with “less is more” to the point of “zero is even better.”
The “zero” in the “new” Notre Dame Cathedral, reopened earlier this month after five years, is definitely the queer upside-down, egg-shaped blob posing as an altar. We should be grateful perhaps that the redesign masters didn’t remove the high altar itself (but no longer used for Mass) that has stood for centuries — Joan of Arc once knelt before this beautiful masterpiece — creating even more empty space that comes very close to looking like an auditorium.
In a perfect world, a finer celebration of the reopening of the cathedral would have been a traditional Mass in front of the high altar rather than the cluster-frenzy we witnessed as hordes of concelebrating bishops and priests crowded around Mr. Egg in a scene somehow reminiscent of the ending of that 1977 film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
But if the table altar was from outer space, then the vestments worn by clergy during the opening Mass put me in mind of the L’Oreal counter at Macy’s.
Some have called the liturgical vestment design created for the occasion a nod to freemasonry. The New York Times spoke volumes when it referred to the vestments by French fashion designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac as fitting for a “cathedral catwalk.” The liturgical pop-art aesthetic — both Madonna and Lady Gaga had de Castelbajac design clothes for them — was further proof that the world of western (liturgical) Catholicism is a place of constant reinvention to the point of absurdity.
Contrast this to the regal traditional vestments worn by Boris Gudziak, Metropolitan-Archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia. Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox don’t try and reinvent the wheel when it comes to the sacred. No reinventions of altars; no reinventions of icons; no reinventions of liturgical vestments to fit fashionable catwalks. The fact is, there are no redesign options for vestments and liturgical garments in the Eastern Churches. Liturgical garb worn today is what was worn 400 years ago.
It’s called the apostolic tradition.
I “felt” for Notre Dame immediately after the fire. I knew that architectural revolutionaries would be rubbing their hands together and making plans to downgrade the cathedral’s grandeur to make it “accessible” and “relevant.” To that end, of course, architects originally wanted to put a café on top of the cathedral — sip your latte as you read Sartre or Andre Gide — but that plan was dismissed as being too outré.
So, who is this French designer who told The Times that the shard-like red, blue and yellow patches on the vestments were meant to symbolize Notre Dame’s stained-glass windows?
He is a Marquis with a family legacy going back to the Crusades. He was also a friend of American artist Keith Haring, a gay man who died of an AIDS-related illness in 1990. The shard patches on the vestments were also meant to recall Haring’s famous “Radiant Baby” drawing.
The Marquis is openly gay himself, a fact that bears some attention if only because gay designers tend to work and invent in “orbits” that buck tradition. (I would imagine finding an openly gay top designer who is also a Traditional Catholic would follow the needle-in-a-haystack model.)
The Marquis’ family isn’t all “catwalk chic,” however; Claire de Castelbajac, a deceased cousin of his who died at the age of 21, may someday be declared a saint in the Catholic Church. In 2008, the Church’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints approved her possible beatification.
It’s no secret that many Catholic modernists want to change church and cathedral Sanctuaries into something bland and ugly, devoid of beauty and sacredness. They are the equivalent to today’s woke Democrats who want to change the language with pronouns, replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day, and remove statues celebrating the Confederacy. These Catholic modernists are often clergy.
Catholic traditionalists found some things to celebrate in the “new” Notre Dame. Michael Matt of The Remnant, for instance, wrote:
The Cathedral is an absolute jewel. I’ve been there dozens of times over the years for the opening TLM of the Chartres Pilgrimage, and I can tell you they have done a magnificent job. It is as it was five hundred years ago. The table altar is temporary, and I pay it no mind because it can be so easily removed when sanity is restored.
Cleary Matt is a man of great faith and hope: “when sanity is restored” suggests a coming counter-revolution that will overturn ‘spirit-of-Vatican II’ disasters like that upside-down egg table altar, which are much easier to dismantle or destroy than three- and four-tiered high altars. Matt finds consolation in the fact there were no altar girls, liturgical dancing, or “guitars or zippy zithers.”
He rates the vestments as “a mixed bag,” liked that The Ordinary and Pater Noter was sung in Latin and that the distribution of Communion was done only by priests and bishops, not unvested laypeople — especially Catholic women feminists — pretending to be priests.
When Robespierre ruled France, untold numbers of religious statues throughout the country were destroyed. As Michael S. Rose states in his book about modern Catholic Church architecture, Ugly As Sin, “At Notre Dame, every statue on the Western façade was plucked from its niche and smashed in the streets or thrown into the Seine.”
Rose also quotes the young Victor Hugo’s claim that most of the grave damage that Notre Dame suffered came not at the hands of atheistic revolutionaries but in the name of fashion. Some of these damages included the removal of colored glass-stained windows, the whitewashing of the interior, and the removal of the tower over the central part of the cathedral.
“Fashion, perpetrated by school-trained architects,” Hugo claimed, “has cut to the quick — it has attacked the very bone and framework of the art.”
Meanwhile, 545 miles to the north of Paris in the city of Berlin, another great cathedral celebrated its reopening in November. St. Hedwig’s, completed in 1887 by order of Frederick the Great, was designed after the Pantheon in Rome. The cathedral was rebuilt several times in the 19th Century, most notably after bombing nearly destroyed it in WWII.
In 1918, the cathedral prepared for a renovation (or modernization). Architect for the project, Peter Sichau, said his remodeled cathedral is a “space of celebration…to help people experience God.”
As The Jerusalem Post put it:
The chairs for the congregation are arranged in a circular formation around the altar, and there are no colorful pictures, large cross, or steps leading to the altar or between the believers and the priest. In the center, directly beneath the dome and beneath the altar, there is a baptismal font in the shape of a cross with running water, unusually large for Catholic churches, being big enough to immerse an adult person during baptism.
No colorful pictures (icons, frescoes, statues, etc.) or crosses means only one thing: Ugly as Sin.
The wreckovators are far from finished with St. Hedwig’s, however. Plans are already taking shape for another reformatting. That’s when the cathedral will become a church-in-the-round, with — as The Jerusalem Post adds — “a circular white altar shaped like a coffee cup.”
Further proof that “when sanity is restored” — if indeed that ever happens — may be centuries away.
Have they maulef Chartes Cathedral?
Uglification of cathedrals is nothing new. M.R. James’s short story “The Stalls of Barchester Cathedtal” was first published in 1910. “Barchester” is, of coursex fictional, but I believe it is based on places James was familiar with. He describes it as “a very bare and odiously furnished place,” then writes “Careful engranings of a hundred years ago show a very different state of things.:”
Bram Stoker’s story, “The Squaw,” written in the 19th century and supposedly narrated by a British tourist, honeymooning in Nurnberg, Germany, mentions a “most beautiful old place which not even the well-inrentioned efforts of the Gothic restorers of forty years ago had been able to spoil-though their restoration was then glaring white-.”
My thoughts exactly. I was worried that some woke idiot would turn Notre Dame into a post-modern mess. I was lucky enough to see it before the fire.
This year I am redoing the WWII Normandy Beaches tour. I will be spending time in some of the cities that have the great cathedrals as well including Paris.
Please keep the Muslims away from them.
And the restorers and renovaters and reconstructers. Do you plan to visit Chartes? I’ve never been there.
Yes. And the Reims Cathedral. And Mt Saint Michel.
Was Mont St.Michel the one that was very difficult to build because they could only get the stones across the beach when the tide was out?
Exactly. Plus parts of the beach were actually quicksand. And the monastery/church was built on a hill basically offshore when the tide was in. It took hundreds of years to complete,
BTW, the nuns sing beautifully….like angels.
Nothing like a satanic worshiping catholic nun being covered up in an islamic Burka…
The satanic catholic/islamic connection exists…
Intrepid, bon voyage. Chartres is awesome & yuge. Amiens is nice too. If you have time after visiting Mt. San Michel (the tide is 30-40 feet!), head W past St. Malo (pirates) to the wild & pristine La Côte de granit rose – the pink granite coast. The main towns are Trégastel & Ploumanac’h. The friendly natives are Celtic like the Welsh across the Channel. It’s a ~2h drive. It rains a lot in Dec/Jan, though. The paths are right on the edge & mostly flat. You won’t regret it.
Notre Dame has become another example of the passing of Western Civilization. Unspeakably sad.
The satanic catholic fake church… worships the fake god allah of satanic islam…
,Tske a pill and lie down
The satanic CCC #841… specifically says the satanic catholic fake church worships “together with us”… “the one, merciful god” of satanic islam…
catholicism is satanic… which is why the Poop says prayers together with muslims…
If you’re a catholic… you’ve been duped…
I thought CCC meant Civilian Conser.vation Corps.
But if you write this kind of BS, you are cracked.
Editorial attention required: “The cathedral was rebuilt several times in the 19th Century, most notably after bombing nearly destroyed it in WWII.”
There is a place in religious architecture for modernity, however seldom it succeeds. Le Corbusier’s chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp and Philip Johnson’s Crystal Cathedral (before it was renovated for the Diocese of Orange0 in Garden Grove, CA are (or were) spiritually enriching spaces. Granted, they are the exception, but we must recall that many ancient places of worship no longer survive, suggesting that mediocrity was not preserved – but greatness was respected until the latter 20th Century.
The article says… “the new Church world order”…
Which means… churches becoming satanic… worshiping the fake god allah of satanic islam…
The homosexual approved, satanic ELCA Lutheran denomination has decreed that they worship the fake god allah of satanic islam…
The satanic catholic fake church has decreed that they worship the fake god allah of satanic islam…
And all the other satanic churches which states they worship the fake god allah as their god…
Are all satanic !!!
The fake god allah is NOT the same god of the Jews & Christians…
Pope Francis thinks that by buttering up Moslems and supporting the now so called “Palestinians,” he is delaying the time when the Italian Moslems will demand that St. Peter’s be converted to a mosque. HE ISN’Y.
‘coming counter-revolution that will overturn ‘spirit-of-Vatican II’ disasters”
Speed the day.
I believe Christ’s message was personal. You do not go before judgment as a ‘community’.
What does it matter anyway since it will be turned into a Mosque within this century.
Unless God intervenes – but the current Pope is not giving Him much reason to do so.
You may very well be right.
Dear Intrepid: There’s a wonderful description of Momt St. Michel in Peg Bracken’s book But I Wouldn’t Have Missed It for the World
Thank you. I’ll check it out.
I hope you enjoy it.
Thom,
Concur the egg-thingie is tacky, however, the restoration has been done faithfully w/ good taste over all. They used ancient methods & materials including the stain-glass windows. Thanks to spectroscopy they noticed 13th & 19th Century glass, e.g. The oak rafters were redone just like originals. You’re barking on the wrong tree, mon vieux. Politically, not so much. The Frenchies have been leaning left since the guillotine possessed 1st commies (les communardes).