Pope: Design and style of sacred architecture need to movement from Church’s liturgy

By Devin Watkins

As the Pontifical Academies held their 26th Community Session on Tuesday, Pope Francis mirrored on the significance of sacred architecture, which formed the concept for this edition of the Community Session.

He recalled his 2022 Apostolic Letter Desiderio desideravi, which was focused to the liturgical development of the people of God.

Rediscovering symbolic language

Sacred architecture, explained Pope Francis, have to request to rediscover “symbolic language and be able to interpret it.”

“To have lost the capacity to grasp the symbolic value of the entire body and of each creature renders the symbolic language of the Liturgy practically inaccessible to the contemporary mentality,” he said, citing his Apostolic Letter. “And however there can be no problem of renouncing these kinds of language. It simply cannot be renounced because it is how the Holy Trinity chose to achieve us as a result of the flesh of the Phrase. It is instead a issue of recovering the potential to use and comprehend the symbols of the Liturgy.”

Inspiration from liturgical existence of Church

Artistic and architectural creative imagination, extra the Pope, must also draw inspiration from the liturgical lifestyle of the Church and the motion of the Holy Spirit, fairly than basically from human choices.

He explained the liturgy and the artwork that surrounds the liturgical place need to be totally free from “subjectivisms” and the “invasion of cultural elements”.

Winners of Pontifical Academies Award

The Pope went on to congratulate the winners of the Pontifical Academies Award for their contributions to sacred architecture.

The gold medal was awarded to “OPPS Architettura” studio in Florence for its work to renovate a chapel in Rome belonging to the Foundation of Sts. Francis of Assisi and Catherine of Siena.

The silver medal went to the architect Federica Frino for her challenge for a new church focused to St. Thomas in the central Italian town of Pontedera.

The Pontifical Academies Awards were assigned based mostly on the requirements of “design, outfitting, liturgical adaptation, renovation, and reuse of areas committed to worship, having into account new specifications and modern architectural language.”

Fruitful investigate

In summary, Pope Francis thanked the Pontifical Academies for their “fruitful attempts in their spots of exploration and service”.

And he entrusted their users to the maternal security of the Virgin Mary, the “Temple and Ark of the New Covenant.”