Although the Second Vatican Council never issued a single document or dictate that made architectural changes to churches compulsory, that didn't stop zealous pastors from getting carried away with their efforts to bring the Mass closer to the people. All over the country, drastic renovations were initiated that seemed more like “wreckovations” to parishioners who loved their ornately decorated houses of worship. High altars, elevated pulpits, reredos, side chapels and part or all of the altar rails were removed. Statues and frescoes were whitewashed. Some churches even saw stained glass windows covered over because they were thought to be a distraction. These changes must have been almost universal because during my lifetime, I've only been to a couple of churches that still used an intact altar rail during the distribution of communion. Things were getting so out of hand, the Vatican published Opera Artisis in 1971 which called for restraint in dealing with the artwork that adorned churches. The National Conference of Catholic Bishops appeared to counter these recommendations with a 1978 booklet entitled Environment and Art in Catholic Worship and this only seemed to quicken the pace of these heavy-handed renovations.
A friend's mother mentioned the hurt feelings that were caused when most of her church's marble altar rail was removed because working class immigrants had scraped up whatever money they could to fund its installation. My mother's childhood parish of the Immaculate Conception of Salem, MA saw colorful statues painted white and many ornamental details lost. Both she and my uncle have a bit of sadness in their voices whenever they talk about these changes. “It's so different now. It looks nothing like it did when I was a kid,” she laments.
While changes to St. Mary Star of the Sea in Beverly were minor by comparison, a couple of prominent statues did not escape the whitewash treatment. During the 1990s, our pastor was Fr. Charles Hughes and he brought these sculptures back to their original colorful luster. When a parishioner offered to pay for gold leaf to be added to St. Anthony's rosary, Fr. Hughes insisted it wasn't necessary because a good Franciscan would have carried a wooden rosary. Today some parishes have instituted “re-renovations” in order to undo many post-Vatican II changes. It's enough to make you wonder what it was all for in the first place?
Playing musical chairs with a church's decor does very little to get people to go to Mass but in times of uncertainty, undertaking such a renovation provides the illusion that something very tangible and achievable is happening. The 1960s saw tremendous societal upheaval but instead of confronting the evil of these times, Vatican II's poorly-timed renovations were a distraction that caused many parishes to focus on inward things that really didn't matter all that much.
Unfortunately, the trend of unnecessary renovations didn't begin with Vatican II. Seeing historical photos of the lower church at St. Mary's in Beverly reveals a very beautiful altar that seemed more than adequate. It was replaced with a new altar of a much simpler design because Fr. Francis Shields found it necessary to have the lower church completely gutted shortly after his instillation as pastor in 1958.
During the post-World War II years, modern design took hold in America and anything old and ornate was often seen as being obsolete and disposable. When the Great Salem Fire destroyed St. Joseph's Church, its 1949 replacement was constructed with International Style architecture. While some grew to cherish this plain-looking building, others thought it was ugly. When the Archdiocese of Boston wanted to demolish this house of worship many years later, its modern design was occasionally cited as a reason for not saving the building.
Long after Vatican II, many pastors still can't resist “sprucing up” what they feel are tired-looking churches and I've seen some pretty frivolous and downright baffling renovations over the years. If you look at exterior of St. Paul's Church in Hamilton, everything seems normal. Upon entering the building, you notice something isn't quite right. In 2003, someone got the bright idea to place the altar up against the left wall. Pews in a semitransept off to the right now have a nice view of the Mass. Unfortunately, worshipers in the main church don't despite an attempt to angle those pews so that they are more in line with the sanctuary. I sometimes call St. Paul's the sideways parish.
The Carmelite Chapel at the Northshore Mall once featured partitions that slid along tracks in the ceiling but they had long been disused. A tasteful but very minimal renovation saw the instillation of new ceiling panels without tracks and a pink curtain behind the altar to replace an unattractive green one. Other than that, the chapel still retained much of its original look. In 2010, a more extensive renovation took place which saw an entire section of pews removed so the altar could be extended farther out. The pink curtain was removed and replaced with a wood facade that held two artificially lit stained glass windows from the closed Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Chelsea. To top it all off, large rectangles of soundproofing hung from the ceiling from chains. Removing seats is one way to make a house of worship seem more crowded but during the reduced capacity of the Covid-19 lock down, I bet our priests wished they had those extra pews.
I thought St. Mary of the Annunciation of Danvers was a nice-looking church yet when Fr. Michael Doyle was installed as pastor, talk of making the parish more “liturgically appropriate” began. Controversy erupted when plans were made to demolish a neighboring funeral home for extra parking. When all was said and done, the historic house was gone and the church's interior was completely done over but the renovations seemed gaudy to me. Instead of adopting a less-is-more approach, the parish went overboard trying to make everything so fancy. Not long afterwards, Fr. Doyle complained in the church bulletin of dwindling collections and the need for parishioners to give more.
The interior of St. Mary Star of the Sea in Beverly was already beautiful but in the early 2000s, our pastor decided to have it fully repainted. The parish had just paid off a considerable amount of debt thanks to a one-time land deal with a real estate developer. Talk of boiler repairs, snow removal costs, the possible installation of a sprinkler system and about a hundred other expenses made me wonder if it was really a good time to spend money on such a superficial thing? After a change in leadership a few years later, our collections no longer met the parish's weekly needs.
And this highlights a very good point. Priests who place a great deal of importance on exterior changes need to realize they get very little bang for their buck when it comes to improving the spiritual health of their parishes. In this blog's second entry, I described the disastrous renovation of St. John the Evangelist in Beverly. Despite “improvements” that were at times painful to look at, my mother, brother and I continued to attend Mass there. It wasn't the horrible decor that drove us away from the parish. Rather, it was the realization that our souls were no longer being fed. Sadly, this is why we left St. Mary's too. Perhaps pastors need to do a better job building loving and caring communities within the walls of their churches rather than wasting so much time debating what color paint those walls should have.
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