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High altar, St. Luke’s Church, St. Paul, Minnesotachanges at the altar, he claimed, weremeant to “direct the attention of our peopleto the inner significance of the Action performedat it.” The simplification of the altarand sanctuary was intended to help thealtar resume “its functional significance asthe place of Sacrifice; its very austerityserving to focus the mind and soul uponHim who is there enshrined, rather than onthe shrine itself.” 8 Chapman also critiquednineteenth century architects for reducingtabernacles to mere cupboards and reiteratedthat liturgical law forbade the nonethelesscommon practice of putting a statueor monstrance atop a tabernacle.The common abuse of using tabernaclesas stands for statues and altar crucifixes becameone of the immediate issues to resolve.This small but significant problemtied directly to the Liturgical Movement’saim to clarify the place of the Eucharist inthe life of the Church. Maurice Lavanouxlamented with “a sense of shame” that hehad once designed an extra-shallow tabernacle“so that the back could be filled withbrick as an adequate support” for a statue. 9Altar, tabernacle and statues were meant tobe brought into a harmonious wholethrough placement, treatment, and number.The various parts would amplify thetrue hierarchy of importance without diminishingthe rightful place of any individualcomponent of Christian worship orpiety. One author in Church Property Administrationtitled his article “Eliminate Distractionsin Church Interiors,” and suggestedthat all things which “distract attentivenessand reduce the powerof concentration” be removedor improved. 10 As H.A.Reinhold, one of the pioneers ofthe liturgical movement, put it,liturgical churches would “putfirst things first again, secondthings in the second place andperipheral things on the periphery.”11In the years leading up to theSecond Vatican Council, muchdiscussion continued concerningthe appropriate churchbuilding and the kind of designit required. The great majorityof architects and faithful held totheir traditions without fear ofappropriate updating. Whilecertain Modernist architectsbuilt high profile churchprojects, such as Le Corbusier’sNotre Dame du Haut (1950-54)and Marcel Breuer’s St. John’sAbbey in Minnesota (1961),most church architects avoidedthis type of modernism. Evenin 1948 when Reinhold suggestedthe possibility of semicircularnaves, priests facing thepeople, chairs instead of pews,and organs near the altar andnot in a loft, he would preserve his moretraditional sense of architectural propriety.Before the Council, a middle road of architecturalreform emerged, one that sharedideas with the Liturgical Movement andMediator Dei. 12Photo: Cram, American Church Building of Today, 1929The Spirit of Mediator DeiIn his 1947 encyclical Mediator Dei, PiusXII praised the new focus on liturgy. Hetraced the renewed interest to severalBenedictine monasteries and thought itA R T I C L E Swould greatly benefit the faithful whoformed a “compact body with Christ for itshead” (§5). However, one of the introductoryparagraphs explained that the encyclicalwould not only educate those resistantto appropriate change, but also addressoverly exuberant liturgists. Pius wrote:We observe with considerable anxietyand some misgiving, that elsewhere certainenthusiasts, over-eager in theirsearch for novelty, are straying beyondthe path of sound doctrine and prudence.Not seldom, in fact, theyinterlaid their plans and hopes for a revivalof the sacred liturgy with principleswhich compromise this holiest ofcauses in theory or practice, and sometimeseven taint it with errors touchingCatholic faith and ascetical doctrine(§8).Pius was concerned with abuses of liturgicalcreativity, a blurring of the lines betweenclerics and lay people regarding thenature of the priesthood, and the use of thevernacular without permission. In mattersmore closely related to art and architecture,he warned against the return of the primitivetable form of the altar, against forbiddingimages of saints, and against crucifixeswhich showed no evidence of Christ’spassion (§62). Mediator Dei offered strongrecommendations for sacred art as well, allowing“modern art” to “be given freescope” only if it were able to “preserve acorrect balance between styles tending neithertoward extreme realism nor to excessive‘symbolism’…”(§195). He deploredand condemned “those works of art, recentlyintroduced by some, which seem tobe a distortion and perversion of true artand which at times openly shock Christiantaste, modesty and devotion…” (§195). JesuitFather John La Farge, chaplain of theLiturgical Arts Society, lost no time in tak-Blessed Sacrament Church and Rectory, Sioux City, Iowa, 1958SacredArchitecture Fall 2000 15Photo: Church Property Administration, March-April 1958