Infinity Lover

I've been inside a variaty of Christian churches in my home town, Catholic, reformed, etc. to see how the different approaches to Christianity translated into different architecture. RC churches clearly offering the more impressive visual manifestation.

To me, not being a religious person, the Roman Catholic church is a very clasic, lavish, expression of a life's phillosophy that simply isn't mine.

Eudaimonist

Same for me, and I'm an ex-Catholic. I agree with you that RC churches were designed to be humbling.

I prefer a different style of building to symbolize my life's philosophy -- something like the Temple of the Human Spirit found in Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead; or its physical inspiration, Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple at Oak Park, IL; or perhaps Frederick Gibson's Temple of Triumph concept.

Echo

Good impressions of the Catholic Church: Ten years ago, when Father Kibby was still in his mid 30s and used to stand outside the Cathedral in Nashville, smoking a cigarette and wearing blue jeans and a tight wifebeater tshirt.

Bad impressions of the Catholic Church: Everything else.

brighid

As a recovered Catholic ... I would also so I truly appreciate the beauty and complexity of the architecture of the Cathedrals and the artwork contained therein. I am also generally in agreement with their anti-war stance and their call for the removal of debt to Third World countries.

I deplore most everything else about the Church: their rabid refusal to understand the liberating necessity of birth control, including their unconscionable opposition to the use of condoms in preventing the spread of AIDS, their opposition to stem cell research integral in developing cures and treatment for some of the worst diseases that afflict millions of people, their refusal to allow women to be ordained, their hypocritical stance on homosexuality and equating it to pedophilia, their long history of hiding and shuffling abusive priests, downplaying and ignoring child abuse in the priesthood, and their bribes and hush money to victims and their families, their secrecy, their trickle down "wealth" that serves nothing but to fill the coffers of the Vatican while millions of their dutiful followers starve and live in deplorable conditions and justifying it by saying this suffering brings them closer to Jesus, celibacy requirments, prohibition against priestly marriage, the historical maltreatment of Jews and non-Catholics, their obfuscation and denial of their historical involvement in the slaughter of Jews, the willing participation of some priests, Bishops, Cardinals, etc. in genocide (see Rwanda), the ridiculous notion their support that life begins at the moment of conception and thereby their prohibition against abortion, the support of "miracles" and sainting men and women who are actually deplorable human beings in order to further their agenda, the concept of Original Sin, their allegation that only the Catholic Church has the WHOLE truth, the involvement they have had with dictators, mafia Godfathers and organized crime, as well as with genocidal maniacs like Hitler and Mussolini, their malicious attacks on the advancement of science, their historical (although not modern) support of slavery, the existence of witches, demons, etc. that lead to the murders of 10s of thousands of people, their misogyny .... and the list goes on and on ....

Brighid

faustuz

It is impressive.

Ab_Normal

Once, again, brighid saves me the trouble of posting anything more elaborate than:

:notworthy :notworthy :notworthy

faustuz

I think the gothic cathedral, at least, was indeed designed to make people feel small and insignificant. It was designed to make them loath their bodies and this world but to gaze up and see the promise of the next. They tend to be dark and gloomy at the ground level but become bright and airy above. The earthly images are grotesque and the heavenly images are beautiful. And of course there is the sheer size that can’t fail to at least make one feel small.

That said, I’ve never felt anything quite like the moment I stepped into Chartres Cathedral. I don’t think that the most jaded atheist could fail to feel the overwhelming sense of awe the place evokes. The light, the soaring vaults, I don’t think there has ever been a more beautiful structure created by human hands. Then there is that view from the bell tower, the sense of vertigo created by all those odd angles below, it feels like being inside an Escher painting. Of course, let’s not forget that it was created by human hands. I think that fact, and that they 14th century human hands, is what impressed me the most.

DMB

Brighid has said a lot of it for me.

A few days ago I saw a play on TV in which Derek Jacobi played a cardinal inquisitor in 17th-century Spain. I wasn't able to watch the whole thing, but it expressed a lot of what I dislike about the catholic church. The cardinal was interrogating a young man whom he believed to be Jesus reincarnated. He explained at length why it would be necessary for the church to condemn him to death as a heretic.

The point is that the church exists and is maintained by its hierarchy for the greater power and glory of the church. Any decisions are taken with this object in mind, whether it be to attempt to cover up scandals such as the paedophiliac priests, to deny "artificial" birth control, or to silence opposition within the church.

The whole concept of a human being who in certain circumstances is to be considered "infallible" is a total nonsense, but convenient for suppressing dissidence.

Many individual catholics are good and admirable people (although I cannot admire their membership of the church). The church as an organisation is a monstrosity.

Gemma Therese

Was it Fulton Sheen who said something like, "Only about five Americans actually destest the Catholic Church. The rest detest what they believe the Catholic Church to be."

Let me guess, Admiral, you're one of those five?

Gemma Therese

CALDONIA

Geez, an incoherent, idiotic cult like the Catholic religion cannot be all bad: at least they serve wine during Communion instead of grape juice!