Our gracious readers will be glad to hear my day of lectures and activities with the seminarians of Kenrick-Glennon went swimmingly. These guys are smart, perceptive, and quick on their feet--the future of the Church is in extremely good hands. This evening, while sorting through the bowels of the seminary library (literally a sub-sub-basement of it) I came across one of the final issues of Liturgical Arts Quarterly, a periodical which was magnificent in its first ten to twenty years, mediocre in its next period of life, and staggeringly, breathtakingly horrible as it went down in post-Conciliar flames in the 1970s. I have at hand as I type the fortieth anniversary edition of the magazine, published in November 1971, and it is a doozie. First of all, it is inexplicably dedicated to the theme "The Sea," and the general vibe is this is some sort of press material leftover from a film called The Life Aquatic with Teilhard de Chardin. It gets better. Here are some selected titles, many of which could make good rock band names:
"Triumphal departure of the BEA submarine chapel."
"A 'Batoid' Peace Ship, illustrated."
"Liturgy and Play in our Expanding Tele-Civilization."
Well, you get the feeling. The first one is actually a frontispiece, and looks like something Adolf Wölfli threw up. Its full title seems to involve something with the Indian takeover of Alcatraz.
A nugget of questionable wisdom from this quarter's edition: "In the stream of history, the possibilities of a chapel on the moon, illustrated in our November 1967 issue, could lead to an approachable reality in the twenty-first century. [Dude, where's my flying car? --MGA] In like manner, the underwater chapel, devoted solely to peace, illustrated in our fortieth anniversary number, is a posisble dream."
Random thought: Wasn't there a nuclear submarine named Corpus Christi?
More maunderings about this imaginary ecumenical submarine chapel and its imaginary voyages follow, in theory starting in 1976, and conclude with the very good question, "What has this all to do with liturgical arts?" Respondeo dicendum, the editor answers, "In a narrow sense, an underwater chapel may smack of the absurd..." Please, editor, I beg of you, stop there. It's just easier for us all. Of course, he does not, and follow a series of rather odd articles, including one with the following lines: "For the Vatican to show up spouting off Tierra del Fuego or submerging near Gibraltar [...], all this breathes of cinema..." and then goes on to start talking about God without remembering to capitalize the initial g of His name. Can the submersible Vatican be equipped with 32-pound guns? Can we elect Jack Aubrey pope, while we're at it?
Crackpot arcologist Paolo Solari gets, of course, a usual mention, and one page includes facing images of a map of Constantinople from the Liber Insularum Archipelagi of Cristoforo Buondelmonte, 1422, and some dolphins trying (it seems futilely from the caption, which describes the mammals as potential "ne'er-do-wells"), to be taught to sight-read sheet music of "Deep Side Blues," if that can be believed. There is a rather unexpectedly pretty image of a Dutch 72-gun warship named Gouda, 1665, all sails and Baroque stern curlicues, and precious little about liturgy.
Seriously, what were they putting on their cornflakes?
These were people who grew up -trained in the TLM. They must have been reasonably fluent in Latin...again the only explaination I can find is that space aliens landed and took over their bodies.
ReplyDeleteI just re-read that. English is my first and only language. I have no excuse. Should have been, "tooken".
ReplyDeletelove me some Soleri
ReplyDeleteHaving grown up in several Church's that were built or evolved during the period of 1970's inartistic expression in liturgical settings (complete with nuns with guitars, but not habits), I believe that the opportunity for expression that was afforded by the Council was used far too often as a vehicle to reshape the church, and even the liturgy, into the image of the one in control. God bless the reform of the reform
ReplyDeleteCongrats, too, on the successful speaking engagement Matt!
Yunno, it was the era. Not just liturgically. Everything was up for grabs. I don't know why folks want mid-century modern now, but they do. As for me, I wasn't that crazy about it the first time around.
ReplyDeleteBut we were going to the moon. I remember my parents making sure that I watched John Glenn lift off so that I could tell my own kids when they were going to Mars. I don't have kids, but if I did, they would hardly be setting off for Mars.
In the face of those kind of expectations, everyone threw everything into the air. Some really ugly lamps came out of the period too.
And you can't underestimate the effects of psychedelic drugs, either. :)
You put a church anxious to update itself in that mix, and of course you're going to have a few decades of disaster and polyester and felt and the whole nine yards of groovy.
We're all settling down. Some us (ahem) have the lovely experience of some of you laughing uncontrollably at the bad haircut, the what-were-you-thinking tie and the really, really bad liturgical art. To tell the truth, some of it didn't seem too tied to reality at the time. But nothing did.
If Vatican II had happened in a different social climate and design era, it would be a very different council for us now. One didn't lead to the other. It all just sort of happened at once.
Wikipedia is great on US Ships.
ReplyDeleteUSS City of Corpus Christi (SSN-705) is still in commission. It's a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine.
According to Wikipedia (though the statement is unsourced) the ship was named "USS City of Corpus Christi" instead of just "USS Corpus Christi" because protesters claimed it would be improper to name a warship "the Body of Christ". I see some talk around the web that it was Catholic protesters (not secularists or those who thought the name was too peaceful), but nothing concrete.
Also... this post needs pictures ;)
ReplyDeleteOh, I wish I'd had a scanner--you should have seen the Submarine Chapel/Peace Whatchamacallit. Hilarious. Looked like a 1970s manta ray.
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ReplyDeleteI've seen those late issues too, Matthew. It's always very sad to see how that fine publication degenerated--and soon after went belly up. My favorite article from one of those late issues is "Liturgy on the Moon"!
ReplyDeleteMatthew. I really really really need a scan of this article. Really.
ReplyDeletePlease.
As a die-hard fan of that fine Irwin Allen production "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", I cannot find it in my heart to object to a submarine chapel :-)
ReplyDeleteBesides, how else are we to evangelise the Atlanteans? You have to go where the harvest is, Matthew!
Three words: HP, Lovecraft, and Dagon. Seriously bad mojo folks!
ReplyDeleteWell, it's good to know that somebody's preparing for the day when we make evangelistic contact with the sentient oyster-beings of Epsilon Eridani V. You'd be amazed how many people don't even think about this: just try starting a discussion in your parish on the topic of "Is it licit to ordain a creature that can be either male or female, depending on its diet during the month before the mating season?"
ReplyDeleteNot to mention how one baptizes underwater species...
ReplyDeleteWell, you could always bless one particular area of ocean and have them pass through it in order to be baptized. (Probably the current where you first witnessed to them would be a good place. Imagine if St. Patrick could have used the Croagh as a giant baptismal font...)
ReplyDeleteThe trickier question is how to baptize someone who lives in an ammonia ocean. Assuming they could survive the heat of molten ice, they'd probably find it extremely caustic.
ReplyDeleteI was around when the City of Corpus Christi was being built and the name was under discussion. It was Catholic peace activists who were opposed to a vessel carrying nuclear weapons (instruments of war) seeming to operate in the name of Christ (although the convention is to name fast attack subs after cities and thus how this one was being named).
ReplyDeleteI wonder what they'd make of Santísima Trinidad, a monster 136-gun, four-decker launched in 1769 and later captured and sunk by the British at Trafalgar. There's a full-size replica of her anchored in the harbor at Malaga which functions as a restaurant and disco, of all things.
ReplyDelete