The city’s Commission on Historical and Architectural Preservation approved plans for exterior restoration work on the national landmark Basilica of the Assumption last night, but postponed a vote on the hotly contested removal of its nine stained-glass windows sought by the Archdiocese Of Baltimore.
…Among the critics last night was Stuart Seiple, 27, a graduate student who grew up in Baltimore and who comes from an eighth-generation Catholic family whose members have attended Mass at the Basilica throughout its history. “Removing the stained glass is contrary to history and the will of many congregants,” he said.
Leaders of the Basilica want to replace the windows, which depict biblical scenes as well as events of Maryland history, with clear glass windows in keeping with the original 1820s neoclassical architecture of the cathedral, considered a masterpiece.
Clear glass symbolizes freedom of worship in American society and allows natural light into the cathedral – an occurrence welcomed by many in prayer, said proponents of the restoration plan.
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I find it hard to understand replacing stained glass windows with clear glass. I ddn’t realize that all the windows in my house and car “symbolized freedom of worship”. I think clear windows in modern churches symbolize the empty cathechisis that Catholics have received. Most churches now our empty enough without removing even more. Churches that now even iconoclasts could like.
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A mortal sin against artistic and aethetic sensibilities! The clear glass symbolizes the emptiness of their heads, as well.
Funny how the money is always found for stuff like this.
Symbol of Religious Freedom
Plain glass is a symbol of religious freedom.
Two thoughts, both story based, so deal…
1) A child was in church with his mother. HE saw the saints in the windows and asked, “Who are they?” She said, “They’re saints.” LAter, his Sunday School teacher asked, “Who are the saints?” He answered, “Saints are people who let teh Light shine through.”
2) At one time, the windows served as Bibles for the illiterate. Are we to remove them now that we are literate? What about the children who don’t know how to read? How are they to learn?
Sorry for the rant.
I have been to the Cathedral. The windows are not only beautiful in themselves, but in their depiction of the history of the Church in America. The Cathedral had a life after it was built. Why can’t the windows reflect that life? Aren’t they pieces of history in their own right?
Besides, there’s not much nice to look at outside the windows.
I’m in New Zealand and I can see from here that plan is ugly modernist nonsense.