Does anyone else get a strong kitsch vibe when you walk into a Catholic parish? I'm Orthodox, so I'm probably biased...

I mean stuff like this

There was a thing called the new church movement or something like that in the mid-20th century. It was more or less followed by both the Catholic church and the various national Protestant churches of Europe (e.g. CoEnglad, CoSweden etc) to create modernist churches in order to "get with the times" and remain relevant. It seems like rather than trying to appease the public sentiment, the Orthodox church went in the other direction and tried to remain as original as possible to bolster its claim of being the "one holy catholic and apostolic church". The results are actually quite interesting. I'm not sure where you live but google "coventry cathedral", "modernist uk churches" or "sigurd lewerentz church" and you'll see what I mean. I actually quite like most of them.

Yeah, I have mixed feelings about it. But it's humble, and when the light hits it just right the shadows cut it in odd ways and it's stunning.

Well I dont like it, and it certainly looks like newer style church art. But like I said there are no codes for Catholic art like in iconography, so it follows trends, and has throughout the ages

It's interesting, I kinda like it. Bonus points for not choosing some hideous cream brick.

After Vatican II unfortunately the Catholic Church got more permissive with art, music, architecture, etc. and people took it as far as they could with ugly churches.

I think that the ugly liturgical music from that era is slowly dying away though. I will never understand how people thought that replacing timeless chant and polyphony with hippie 70s hymns that already sound dated was a good idea.

This is proper Catholic music

youtube.com/watch?v=rUIg0d6pgGA

Isn't that a First Civ complex?

Yeah, that's how Western Rite Orthodoxy sounds

See (try Music for Special Occasions and Music to be Sung during Communion, the rest have poor acoustics): stgregoryoc.org/article/audio-files/

Beautiful, though you do get similar things with Catholicism. If I'm lucky I'll attend a Western-rite Orthodox liturgy some day.

youtube.com/watch?v=egar8MKQrUA

I'm probably biased because I'm Latino and Latin America probably pumps this stuff out more than anywhere else, but I find the kitschy aesthetic of modern Catholicism to be incredibly endearing.

Well that's from our Liturgy of Pope Gregory the Great

Here is from our Liturgy of St. Germanus (notice the Western Rite carved icon): youtube.com/watch?v=GI92g8JWwn8

Both are Western Rite, but Saint Gregory is Western Latinist Rite, whereas Saint Germaus is Western French Rite

Gorgeous.

Not really related but have you heard the Agni Parthene in French?

youtube.com/watch?v=O11gaR9KA-M

Nice! Here is an Orthodox hymn in Spanish
youtube.com/watch?v=xc91xrGtaKo

This is awesome, this music is ballin

I went to Mexico when I was really young, my father took me into a cathedral in the city, and I got so freaked out by all of the bloody iconography and eerie singing that we had to leave.

Here is an online radio of it if you dig it
myocn.net/the-rudder/

If anybody's into this, the oldest playable organ in the world in the Valere Basilica in Sion Switzerland. Built in 1435, it's nuts and sounds fantastic. Must have been like magic to those people.

youtu.be/jxwZTfILJDA

youtube.com/watch?v=SxW_VLn2CB4

I always thought modernist churches are very beautiful, especially the ones with abstract stained glass and the sweeping curves that look like dove wings. It's just as good as Gothic, and a far cry better than faux-Gothic.

>organs
youtube.com/watch?v=Y8r5r4R2yuE

oh, ok

I'm just pulling your leg. We generally don't like to use organs in Orthodox Church (because, well, it's supposed to be a mystical representation of the Cherubim singing, and the idea of one of them playing an organ clashes). But we do appreciate all the great religious music composed for instrumental accompaniment. His Eminence Hilarion is a tremendous fan of Bach and considers his music very spiritual. His Eminence has indeed been very influenced by Back in his own compositions (which aren't used in worship though).
youtube.com/watch?v=-4w11kN1lsQ (vocalization starts at 2:35)

influenced by *Bach

It's incredibly kitschy, to the point of being annoying.

Felt great to destroy and smash all those shitty cheap ceramic virgins and saints when the family converted.

But Protestantism can be just as kitsch.

But Protestantism can be just as kitsch.

Can't say I have. The local church close to my former home was as a church should be, a place of worship not some fucking fun house. Blessed be Eire

I'm pretty much against having TVs in church. Theoretically, there's nothing wrong with it, simply being an evolution of books and the like. In practice though, it just creates a disconnect between me and the mass.

I don't mind them much in places like hospital chapels though, anywhere that's a place where mass is said but can't be consecrated entirely for that purpose. At that point, it flips around from being a holy place desecrated into a secular place being uplifted.

I don't know what to feel about this. I don't like it as a church, but I do think it looks pretty awesome and conveys similar feelings as an old gothic building despite the change in appearance.

Not all of the newer songs are bad. Here is a good one:
youtube.com/watch?v=Gq_gzOOcAo8

Is this even used in liturgy?

disgusting kill yourself
>Orthodox
kill yourself

Assblasted papist detected

I dunno, it's probably 100% just because that's what I grew up with but I dig this stuff.

youtube.com/watch?v=qwasHfyLpYs

I don't care for the "timeless" pieces if they're tuneless. Some of that is good, but others are boring and hard to sing along to, and I think that's the most important part - getting everybody in the congregation raising their voices together, feeling the same spirit. Hard to do that these days when you warble all over the scale in endless quarter-notes without rhymes.

>tuneless
youtube.com/watch?v=_a6-u_6dZ8M
youtube.com/watch?v=AE1FzSC8DBs

Church from 1750s in the jungle of Bolivia.

To me, it does not evoke the feeling of sacred space (in the sense Eliade defined in difference to Profane space)

>victimae paschali laudes
>new

The words are 1,000 years old m8