New Roman Committee to Critique Churches

Vatican sources are reporting the establishment of a Liturgical Art and Sacred Music Commission by the Congregation for Divine Worship. Its task will be to collaborate with commissions in charge of evaluating church construction projects. The team will also be responsible for the further study of liturgical music and singing. Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, and Pope Benedict XVI consider this work “very urgent.” Critics charge that in recent decades churches have been replaced by buildings that resemble multipurpose halls or boldly shaped structures that risk denaturing modern places for Catholic worship. Too often, critics complain, architects do not use the Catholic liturgy as a starting point and end up producing avant-garde constructions that look like anything but a church. Tabernacles are obscured and sacred images are almost nonexistent. The new commission will be devising regulations on church design that will give precise instructions to dioceses.