Online Edition: June 2010
Vol. XVI, No. 4
News and Views
Journal on Church Architecture | “Sacred, Beautiful, Universal” on EWTN | Pope on “Offering up” | A New Alliance?
Journal on Church Architecture
Sacred Architecture is a semi-annual publication of the Institute of Sacred Architecture, an organization of architects, clergy, educators and others interested in the discussion of issues related to contemporary Catholic architecture. The magazine is devoted to issues of church architecture from a Catholic perspective, and is copiously illustrated.
Sacred Architecture is edited by Duncan Stroik, a professor of architecture at the University of Notre Dame. Editor Stroik’s architectural practice grows out of a commitment to the principles of classical architecture and urbanism. His work has been instrumental in the new renaissance of sacred architecture. He is also the principal of Duncan G. Stroik Architect, LLC (www.stroik.com).
The editorial board includes Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput; Notre Dame professor/architects Thomas Gordon Smith and Duncan Stroik, architect John Burgee; and Father Cassian Folsom, OSB, founder/prior of the Benedictine monastery in Norcia, Italy, and former head of the Pontifical Liturgical Institute in Rome.
A report on the recent conference of the institute and a book review from the most recent issue of Sacred Architecture appear in this issue of AB.
For subscription information, contact: Sacred Architecture Journal. PO Box 556, Notre Dame, IN 46556-0556 – phone: 574- 232-1783, fax: 574-232-1792.
To order online: www.sacredarchitecture.org/subscribe/.
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“Sacred, Beautiful, Universal” on EWTN
The 2009 Colloquium of the Church Music Association of America (CMAA) will be telecast on EWTN in July. The video, Sacred, Beautiful and Universal: Colloquium XIX, is an hour-long documentary produced by Corpus Christi Watershed, as noted in the March AB.
The video includes a 45-minute interview with chant authority Dr. William Mahrt, CMAA president and long-time professor at Stanford University. A CD of Colloquium XIX is also available for purchase.
The entire documentary, along with a trailer of the video and numerous examples of music from the CD, will be shown on EWTN on the following dates: July 4, July 7 and July 10 — check local listings for airtimes.
It can also be viewed online: musicfortheliturgy.org/cmaa. Both the video and CD recording may be ordered online at ccwatershed.org/cmaa.
Information about the 2010 CMAA Colloquium can be found on the CMAA web site: musicasacra.com/colloquium/.
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In his March 19 Letter to the Catholics in Ireland, Pope Benedict XVI asked for prayerful “concrete initiatives to address the situation”. He specifically called for “offering up” prayers and penances, and Eucharistic adoration to “make reparation for the sins of abuse that have done so much harm”.
I now invite all of you to devote your Friday penances, for a period of one year, between now and Easter 2011, to this intention. I ask you to offer up your fasting, your prayer, your reading of Scripture and your works of mercy in order to obtain the grace of healing and renewal for the Church in Ireland. I encourage you to discover anew the sacrament of Reconciliation and to avail yourselves more frequently of the transforming power of its grace.
Particular attention should also be given to Eucharistic adoration, and in every diocese there should be churches or chapels specifically devoted to this purpose. I ask parishes, seminaries, religious houses and monasteries to organize periods of Eucharistic adoration, so that all have an opportunity to take part. Through intense prayer before the real presence of the Lord, you can make reparation for the sins of abuse that have done so much harm, at the same time imploring the grace of renewed strength and a deeper sense of mission on the part of all bishops, priests, religious and lay faithful.
Pope Benedict’s letter is on the Vatican web site: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/letters/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_let_20100319_church-ireland_en.html
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A Day of Russian Culture and Spiritualty at the Vatican held promise for a new alliance between Catholics and Russian Orthodox. Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Department of External Affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate, affirmed this at a press conference in the headquarters of the Pontifical Council for Culture on May 19.
The event was sponsored by the Moscow Patriarchate, the Pontifical Council for Culture, and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and featured a concert in honor of Benedict XVI, sponsored by the patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, His Holiness Kirill I.
Archbishop Hilarion noted that art and music are indispensable in Catholic-Orthodox dialogue. Through this language, the archbishop said, “we can say what we cannot express with diplomatic or political words”.
“The whole of Russian culture has been founded on a Christian world”, Archbishop Hilarion said. “When we were banned from all activities, culture enabled us to go forward”.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said this cultural event can become an opportunity “to deepen our ecumenical relations themselves in a new dimension”. “The sad age-old separation between East and West was not only caused by theological differences or political conflicts but especially by distance and a cultural alienation”, he observed.
“This distance must be overcome … in the sense of a mutual enrichment, a communion without fusion or absorption”, the cardinal said. Such a communion can be “a strong common testimony of the richness of European culture and its Christian roots — today, lamentably forgotten by many and even denied and rejected”.
Archbishop Hilarion commented that for many Orthodox, “the election of Benedict XVI was received positively”, especially because of “his position on moral questions.There is a commitment [among the Orthodox] to observe and promote traditional values”.
Past rivalries should stay in the past, the archbishop said, and observed that cultural changes, particularly the “de-Christianization of our countries”, is calling for “greater collaboration”.
In view of the complex and profoundly troubled history of the Churches in the former Soviet nations — between the Russian and Greek Orthodox Churches as well as between the Orthodox and the Eastern Catholic Churches outlawed by the Communist regime — overcoming rivalries and achieving “greater collaboration” would be an outcome devoutly to be wished.
Pope Benedict has reportedly agreed to visit Ukraine in 2012, where conflicts between the Churches have been intense and persist.
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