Editorial: Death by diocesan committee

Any visitor to Australia who had never been here before could, conceivably, look around and take careful note of the buildings which they see and wonder what such structures might tell them about the nation they visit. Among such public buildings as they might be wont to notice are the Catholic churches of the land, from the humblest rural Mass station to the grandest of the nation’s Cathedrals.

If they were looking at Catholic churches, they would notice something strange, a clear dividing line between the older churches built in the 19th and early 20th centuries and those that coincided with the second half of the 20th century onwards. Among the lessons such a visitor might deduce is a clear contrast between an earlier style and, after a certain historical point in Australian life, an explosion of experimentation in form and structure in individual churches without any apparent cohesion or relationship with any other of their contemporary ecclesial buildings.
The great British art historian Kenneth Clarke opened his landmark 1968 BBC television series Civilisation with memorable words on the subjects of art and architecture and their deeper significance. Standing on the opposite bank of the Seine, with the Cathedral of Notre Dame behind him, he posed the question which developed into the central motif and theme of that truly remarkable documentary series.
“What is civilisation? I don’t know. I can’t define it in abstract terms – yet. But I think I recognise it when I see it; and I am looking at it now,” he says as he turns his gaze across the river to one of the greatest churches in the world. By way of introducing the series, Clarke, who converted to the Catholic faith late in life, went on to quote the 19th century English art historian John Ruskin on how to properly understand a civilisation. ‘Great nations,’ wrote Ruskin, ‘write their autobiographies in three manuscripts: the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others, but of the three the only trustworthy one is the last.’
One wonders what either Ruskin or Clarke would make of the architecture of the very large number of Catholic churches erected in Australia in the last half century. One strongly suspects a mixture of revulsion and horror, not only at their appearance but at what they would feel such structures undoubtedly signify. Rather remarkably, part of the tale of the long slide of Australian Catholic church architecture is also a paradox. A hundred years ago, Catholics were discriminated against at almost every level of society and generally poor. But they built beautiful churches out of stone and brick, the exterior and interior of which were often, to put it as simply as possible, works of art and craftsmanship. Whole Catholic communities voluntarily raised funds for years to build the best churches they could.
In the 20th century, however, as Catholics became more affluent they began to build churches that reflected something else. As the century wore on, it seemed, the idea of what a church should be, at least in essentials, seemed to fracture and fragment to the point where no such idea could be said to significantly exist any more. In ecclesial architecture, in other words, anarchy appeared to gain the upper hand so that the latest fads – artistic, pseudo liturgical, cultural, whatever – apparently became the dominant informing spirits of those who designed, approved and built such things. The results were an increasing number of what can often only be described as inanities or monstrosities and, just as often, banal, bland or anodyne structures which lacked any capacity to inspire. In church architecture, it seemed, the word ‘inspiring’ was droppped from the very lexicon.
If one looks about the Catholic parish church architectural landscape now, here in Perth and across the nation, one sees the apparent victory of the bland and inoffensive – and uninspiring. So many of our parish churches appear to have been modelled on the Fuehrerbunker and the last days of the Third Reich. Built often in the sixties and seventies, they were dated within three or four years of being erected. Interiorly, they are often little better and become a form of suffering for those burdened with the enthusiasms of those who went before. There is little that is harmonious, reasonable or humane about them.
Ironically, the buildings most loved and desired by non-religious Australia are precisely those which are no longer built. The most expensive mansions in the suburbs are almost always the older style of leafy, suburban mansions in which people imagine they could languish the hours away on summer afternoons reading novels by EM Forster. In other words, such buildings, public or private, are redolent of something gone but, at least, not forgotten and still desired. Some of the best examples of public architecture in Australia are not the billion dollar palaces of industry and commerce but post offices and train stations across the country that were built a hundred years ago.
Architecture really does express the spirit of something and really is important. It is true, as Clarke and Ruskin thought, that you can tell a lot about people by the buildings they erect, especially when a consistent pattern is apparent. Part of the renewal of the Church in this country will also come and be expressed when we begin building churches not designed by anonymous diocesan committees made up of everyone with an opinion but no actual experience in history or church architecture. Parishes building parish churches should be encouraged to break free from diocesan suffocation by committee and to think in terms of the possibilities, to think big and aim high. After all, where there is a will, there is also a way. This is an important issue.