Thursday, November 5, 2009

What is Wrong with this Picture?


One word: obsolete.

Tricky to inspire Anglicans with a set-up like this. 

Photo taken in a Rome chapel that was just re-opened after having been fixed-up.


14 comments:

  1. Either that's a very big tabernacle, or a very small altar... Where does one put the mass cards?

    Can you tell us the name of the church/chapel? Looks nineteenth century to me.

    Giles.

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  2. Just fixed up? Then they wasted their money if this is the result!!

    As for impressing Anglicans...don't bother.
    If you wish to impress them with our own Catholic traditions, that is great.
    But to try to get them into the Church where they can keep their own Protestant liturgy and traditions....no way.
    Give me the "old fashioned" conversion methods for Protestants. Convert to the True Catholic Faith, and leave your Protestant baggage at the door.

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  3. Heh. I recognise the place. What a heartless thing to do to place the tabernacle off to one side of the chapel... and, to add injury to insult, make the thing so ugly.

    Is there any reason you're being coy about which chapel it is? Because I think "name and shame" would be highly appropriate here. They did a marvellous job of restoring the building; now they need to do a similarly sterling repair job on their attitude to the Blessed Sacrament!

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  4. at the english college!

    -mary ann

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  5. Someone wake me when the last hippy is dead. We can have a big party.

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  6. Looks like the horrendous wreckovation that is the English College chapel. When will they restore it to something suitable for Catholic worship? While the Blessed Sacrament is invisible to one side there is a great "throne" for the 'presider' where the high altar once was - Where God once was, man now sits!

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  7. "Venerable" English College, Rome.

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  8. It would not be tragedy if they close this "venerable"(??) college forever (at least so long they do not come back to roots) and redesignate it to a pilgrim hospice. It has not any connection neither spritual nor doctrinal with the holy martyred priests once trained there from the 1580ies onwards.

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  9. It is supposed to be reverted to a hospice when England returns to the true faith. (condition attached when turning it into a college)
    Fortunately, many of the seminarians there do understand their roots and do strive to serve the church properly and fittingly (and recognize what is wrong within the college).

    -mary ann

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  10. This is someone's "fix up" or "improvement"? Just another bad interpretation of Vatican II.

    ps. I am a high church Anglican, and yes, this does not inspire me. In our world, a tabernacle belongs at the center of a High Altar not pushed to the side in a sterile "modern" box. Where are the candles? Where is the tabernacle veil, frontal? crucifix? I could go on and on, but the liturgical hippies - like the new priest at my church - will never understand.

    We go to church for many reasons, not the least of which is what is contained in the tabernacle.

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  11. This is pretty poor in several respects, but what strikes me most is the orientation of the benches in the foreground.

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  12. They have like 3-4 seminarians....right?

    So what's the problem. It;ll be closed in a year or two.

    Just like Scotland...no seminaries left there anymore at all. And Ireland has only 1. LOL!!!
    And some people wonder why? They speculate what went wrong?
    The fruits of Vatican II. Like, duh!
    I always have to laugh when I read the words " Pontifical French College", or "Pontifical English College" etc. It sounds so impressive. And it was, 50-60-75 years ago. Filled seminaries with seminarians dressed in colorful national cassocks living holy lives, in preparation to celebrate the Holy Mass.
    No more. This picture is proof that the hippies in their 60's and 70's (and even 80's) still rule.

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  13. There are over 20 seminarians here.

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  14. For goodness sake people! At least this has a purification bowl with purificator - where do you see that in the universe of "Eucharistic Ministers" and Communion-in-the hand???? Maybe these people are pious compared to those in the "right" Baroque churches of Rome.

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