Architecture in Communion:
Implementing the Second Vatican Council through Liturgy and Architecture
by Steven J. Schloeder
Ignatius Press, 265 pp.
1-800-651-1531
www.ignatius.com

For some time there has been the need for an accessible guide to liturgical architecture written by an architect who is also sensitive to the liturgical needs of the modern church, yet informed by the Tradition. It is wonderful to see this need fulfilled in Steven J. Schloeder’s Architecture in Communion. Every expert in liturgy will claim to be “liturgically and theologically sound” —it’s the right sort of thing to say and what people want to hear. It makes for a great publisher’s blurb. In Schloeder’s case, however, the phrase rings especially true. His stated goal in this work is:

to read the documents of the Second Vatican Council with the intention of finding the “continuity in tradition” of which the documents speak and to apply the appropriate theological and liturgical principles to the design of church buildings.1

Indeed, he brings to this project not only his architectural expertise, but also a careful reading of the Constitutions of the Second Vatican Council and the implementing documents from the respective curial Congregations, the encyclicals of Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II, as well as relevant portions of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the Code of Canon Law. Although he does not cite the 1985 Synod of Bishops’ Final Report,2 which enunciated the general guidelines for authentic interpretation of the Second Vatican Council, he does employ the same balanced approach the bishops called for in that document, and thus shows himself to be a trustworthy guide to finding a truly conciliar and theologically informed architecture.3 As a result, he rejects the typical explanations for the banality in much of modern church architecture, and maintains that the underlying causes are both theological and architectural. On the theological end, these churches reflect an unbalanced and one-sided view of the Council reforms; on the architectural end, there has been a loss of understanding on the “language” of architecture that the Church developed over the centuries. I believe he achieves his goals, and has provided us with a lucid, engaging and convincing guide toward improving church architectural planning and remodeling in the future.

In his reading of the conciliar texts he discerns three goals as embodying the intentions of the Council, namely “the sanctification of believers, the building of communities of love and service, and the true humanizing of the individual and of society.”4 At first blush these might seem to be goals that are far too abstract to translate into something as substantial and practical as architecture, but Schloeder does a masterful job of illustrating the social, psychological, and ecclesiological impact of different ways of structuring our worship space. The body of the book contains nine chapters. The first three chapters he uses to develop the historical, aesthetic and theological contexts for the discussion of architecture in relation to designing Catholic worship space for the Mass. Chapters four through six look at the specific architectural requirements, namely the furnishings of the sanctuary, design with other sacraments and rites in mind, and the communal aspects. The last three chapters go beyond the functional requirements to develop and promote an iconographic understanding of the church building, in terms of sacred images within, in terms of the building itself as an icon, and finally he looks at some possible directions for Catholic architecture in the next millennium.

Context
In the first chapter Schloeder illustrates how a one-sided ecclesiology (i.e., the church viewed only in its communal aspect, solely as an egalitarian People of God) and selective, acontextual interpretations of the conciliar constitutions have found architectural expression. This, combined with the minimalist aesthetic popular earlier in this century, resulted in buildings where barrenness is christened ‘simplicity,’ having an overall structure lacking articulation, and an obscuring of structural manifestations of the transcendence of God, the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist, and the diversities of ministerial function. In order for church buildings to reflect the Church’s characteristic response to the modern age, he maintains that architecture now should stress the incarnational:

We must forge a strong and vibrant architecture, rooted in the Church’s traditional and enduring forms, that speaks to contemporary society and modern humanity of the source of our faith: the Incarnation.5

The second chapter takes a general look at the relationship of the arts and theology to architecture, while chapter three explores in more depth the theology of the Mass, especially as promulgated in Sacrosanctum concilium and the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. Since Catholic theology holds the eucharistic liturgy as “central to every aspect of the Church . . . the liturgical requirements of the sanctuary and nave must necessarily take precedence over every other architectural consideration.”6 Trends to obliterate the distinctiveness of the sanctuary are therefore unsound both historically and theologically.

Specific Requirements
Chapter four focuses entirely on the sanctuary. Just as the sanctuary is to be the central characteristic of a Catholic church, so “the altar is the center of the church” —so much so that “the building is to be planned around the altar.”7 Some readers may be surprised at his re-evaluation of both the current practice of the priest celebrating Mass facing the congregation and the traditional communion rail. However, he provides excellent arguments for his point of view that should give future liturgists food for thought. He also gives detailed consideration to the crucifix, the chair, the ambo and lectern, the tabernacle, and the sacristy. He devotes considerable space to the discussion of the tabernacle. Countering popular misconceptions about the church’s theology in this regard (such as: posing reservation and celebration of the Sacrament as contradictory, claiming adoration is solely private devotion, or maintaining that the tabernacle in the sanctuary detracts from the altar), Schloeder explores the suitable options for reservation of the Blessed Sacrament. The following chapter takes up the baptistry and confessional in appropriate detail, while chapter six considers the design of the nave and narthex in light of the conciliar emphasis on “the laity, the royal priesthood of the people of God.”8 This has been an area of great misapprehension, both because of an unbalanced egalitarianism and a functional and primarily external interpretation of the “active participation” stressed so strongly by the Council; here, as elsewhere, Schloeder seeks to restore the balance and provide both historical and theological guidelines for appropriate design.

Iconographic Understanding
The theology of sacred images constitutes the matter of chapter seven. In some quarters, post-conciliar reform took an almost iconoclastic form; here he surveys the history of sacred imagery and iconoclasm in the church, and documents the Council’s and the pope’s support and encouragement of sacred images. The following chapter complements chapter six and applies the iconic understanding developed in other chapters to the church building itself as being domus Dei, the house of God. The radical functionalism of the recent past has shown itself to be counterproductive, though highly influential. To counter this, Schloeder devotes a considerable portion of this long chapter to a detailed historical look at how the church buildings have expressed in their very architecture Christian doctrine of God.

In his last chapter, entitled “Catholic Architecture in the Third Millennium,” Schloeder tackles the question of what form Catholic churches should take in the future, avoiding the twin pitfalls of simply repeating the past without engaging the present and of designing according to contemporary fashions without respect to the iconic nature of church building. Again, Schloeder displays his ability at integrative thought in enjoining that:

the building must be both “modern” and “traditional.” Though these terms are commonly understood as being contradictory, we must consider that “tradition” in the Church is not a static deposit of concretized laws, definitions, and rituals (much less, of architectural styles) but a living and growing appreciation of the things of God.”9

Churches need to be modern in the sense of ‘contemporary,’ embodying the current ‘language of architecture.’ If it were not abundantly clear before, Schloeder’s discussion of future directions certainly demonstrates that he is no mere restorationist with a nostalgic penchant for a particular long-gone era of church architecture. In fact, he is at pains to show why certain Classical or Gothic features cannot be taken wholesale into a modern building and indicates that if older features are to be used, they must be transformed into something intelligible to people today. On the other hand, he carefully critiques Rudolf Schwarz’s attempt at a truly new iconography of the church building, appreciating its poesy and originality, but also pointing out its fundamental flaws. He ends the book with some hints on how architects might go about rediscovering the iconic in church design: paying attention to historical precedent, balancing both hierarchical arrangement and an integral unity reflecting the people of God as an organic whole, re-examining biblical and traditional structural metaphors, and articulating the building as a whole to give definition to the various functional parts.

Parting Remarks
Is this book “practical?” The answer is “no” if a how - to - design - your - church - in - ten - easy - lessons concept is what is meant by practical. Schloeder avoids giving any how-to directives for the excellent reason that any such injunctions would only reflect one person’s taste, and not what is called for in a particular locale for a particular congregation. But the answer is a decided “yes,” if by practical is meant a tool to guide both the architect and the pastor and his advisors in the principles and concepts they need to speak a common language and pursue a common vision of how to design or remodel a Catholic church. Toward this latter end, the book contains an excellent glossary of architectural terms. It might prove useful to supplement this with theological terminology to aid the architect who may not be up-to-snuff on the Catholic theological vocabulary.

At first I feared that this work was going to be far more polemical in tone than it in fact is. His very first sentence in the Introduction characterizes “most” recently constructed Catholic churches as “banal, uninspiring, and frequently even bizarre,”10 which is perhaps forgivable and a sentiment to which a majority of Catholics might even assent; but when on the very next page he speaks of the architectural tradition as “gagged by the neo-iconoclastic agenda of the Modernists,”11 I was afraid that a full-fledged rant might lie ahead. Fortunately, this is not the case, and after this perhaps unfortunate initial tone, he settles into an equally passionate but more moderated style of expression.

Architecture in Communion lives up to Ignatius Press’s usual solid production values. The volume is large enough that the various photographic illustrations are clear, but not so large as to be unwieldy.

I highly recommend this book for anyone with either a theoretical interest in Catholic church architecture or a more urgent practical need to plan a new or remodeled building. Steven J. Schloeder has rendered a great service to church leaders and architects alike in preparing this book.

1 P. 11. Unless noted otherwise, all citations in these notes refer to Schloeder’s Architecture in Communion.
2 Synod of Bishops, The Final Report, Origins 15:27 (December 19, 1985).
3 In the baldest terms, Schloeder takes a “both-and” approach to applying the Council, not an “either-or” mode of interpretation.
4 P. 12.
5 P. 34.
6 P. 51.
7 P. 63.
8 P. 128.
9 Pp. 225-26.
10 P. 9.
11 P. 10.