CHURCH AS REDECORATED . . . unfortunately . . .

Undeniably tart comment in 2002 by Reader D-1, who reports her church

redone in “a rainbow of colors,” including purple and pink and “new shades of blue-greens . . . all radiating from [a] once dramatically stark huge crucifix above the sanctuary, which now looks like a Divine Mercy wannabe, clashing with modern stained glass windows already there in bold blue, green and yellow.

“The ‘liturgy committee’ . . . saw autumn approaching and brought out last year’s hangings on either side of the crucifix in vivid orange and yellow, with nosegays of artificial orange/yellow flowers. Streamers of artificial leaves cascade down the walls of the nave between stations of the cross.

“We have either become the Rainbow Coalition or been taken hostage by Puerto Ricans. Not to say that would be such a BAD thing, but if you are not color blind you wish you were.”

I have a book about this problem by Michael Rose (author of the startling Goodbye, Good Men. It’s The Renovation Manipulation: The Church Counter-renovation Handbook (Aquinas Publishing Co., Cincinnati), which I have only skimmed so far.