BY JULIE IRWIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The Rev. J. C. Allison.
(Michael Keating photo)
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The coming renovations at St. Philip Catholic Church in Morrow are familiar ones in the post-Vatican II Roman Catholic landscape: four sides of upholstered chairs replacing rows of wooden pews, a low altar at the center of the room, the tabernacle in a side chapel. The changes aim to encourage Catholics to become active participants rather than spectators at the Mass.
But some St. Philip members -- including several who sit on the parish council -- are sufficiently opposed to the renovations to hold a protest meeting tonight at Morrow's VFW Hall.
"They're removing all that is sacred and holy in the main body of the church, which is the tabernacle and the statues and our crucifix," said Lois Westerheide of Lebanon, a parish council member who helped organize tonight's meeting. "I've been in these churches in the round -- they're awful. Even non-Catholics have told me there's something different about a Catholic church. Why are we Protestantizing them?"
Although church renovations are by nature contentious, professionals in Catholic church design say they have caused a greater degree of dissent in recent years. Several pastors in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and the Diocese of Covington, bruised from the renovation or building process at their own churches, would agree.
"There's so much emotion," said Joanne Lopez Kepes, a certified liturgical design consultant from Kettering, Ohio. "People seem more polarized. Maybe they feel a little more threatened." The issues illustrate how Vatican II, held from 1962 to 1965, continues to affect the daily lives of Catholics. The council sought to reform and revitalize Catholicism by switching the Mass from Latin to the vernacular and by giving the laity a greater role in the church.
But many are divided over how to implement the reforms that the Second Vatican Council promulgated. Some believe that central configurations and lower altars embody the spirit of Vatican II, just as the involvement of lay people as readers and Eucharistic ministers does.
"The assembly is the primary symbol of the presence of Christ. What we are trying to do is have the space say that, and in doing that we're restoring the earliest church's manner of gathering for the sacred meal," Mrs. Kepes said. "When we're around a table we focus on celebrating the Eucharist, whereas the tabernacle is the place we save it, for those who can't be at Mass, and for adoration." But even those who design churches are divided over the direction of Catholic church architecture in the United States. Thomas Gordon Smith, former chairman of the University of Notre Dame's School of Architecture, maintains that the Vatican II changes did not rule out traditional church design and were written by liturgists more familiar with words than buildings.
In many recent renovation projects, "All the symbols and the architectural elements such as the communion rail have been taken away which traditionally created a separation between the sacred and the secular, which enhanced the sacred nature of the sanctuary," he said. "In those cases there is what is felt to be a de-sanctification of the church so it becomes more like an auditorium."
Several years ago St. Philip leaders met to address the problem of the Rev. J.C. Allison's leaky, one-room rectory, but talk quickly turned to expansion. About 7,000 new homes are approved for building within the parish's boundaries, and at that rate of growth the parish's 520 families will soon outgrow the church's 360 seats.
The planned construction, estimated to cost just under $1 million, calls for a church that would seat 510. It would also add eight meeting rooms or offices in a building that now has none.
Once the decision was made to expand, Father Allison said he and others also wanted to bring the church in line with Vatican II guidelines on worship.
St. Philip was established in 1965, the year the council ended and before the reforms affected church architecture. Worshipers in the current church sit in a rectangular room with two rows of pews facing a raised altar, a tabernacle and a large wooden crucifix. "The hierarchical church is sort of the priest up here and the people out there. Now (under the planned renovation) the whole church is the sanctuary. Everybody is celebrating together with the priest," Father Allison said.
"People are gathered together around the altar as we are called to do. The Eucharist is central to the whole faith and that means the sacrifice of the Mass and not the tabernacle."
The renovations have the approval of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati's Office of Worship, and apparently of many St. Philip parishioners. Father Allison said the congregation has exceeded its $575,000 fund-raising goal by more than $25,000. And he received sporadic applause at one Mass last weekend after he urged people not to attend tonight's meeting.
"It's been very unpleasant," he said of the objections raised by opponents. "They're really taking all the joy out of the whole process. It's a beautiful thing that could happen to this parish." One leader of the opposition, Roseann Siderits of Maineville, said the beauty of the current St. Philip drew her from the more modern setting at St. Margaret of York in Loveland. She came for an Easter vigil four years ago with her family, including sons who are now 6, 9, and 11, and never left.
"It was hard to get our boys to kneel after they were used to" a more modern setting, said Mrs. Siderits, who is also on parish council. "I don't think we should be forgetting our customs and traditions and the church of yesterday just because someone is telling us to forget yesterday and live for today."
Mrs. Siderits and others hope their meeting will attract people from outside St. Philip who are concerned about the direction of Catholic church design. Father Allison hopes to start work on the church around mid-October.
