Churches - Their Plan and Furnishing

CHURCHES THEIR PLAN and FURNISHING by PETER F. ANSON. EDITOR'S NOTE: Peter Anson has asked me to Americanize his book, and to add such notes as will make it provocative for the reading public in this country. He insistently told me not to pull any punches, and to be my own self as he knows me from articles and letters. Peter and I are old friends from the days when he drifted into our rectory at Bremerhaven to our last meeting in Ascot and my visit to his temporary home near Gravesend, where he had time to indulge his passion looking at ships. His marine background and love for the sea should not deceive us. As a former Anglican and then Catholic monk of Caldey, and as a Tertiary of St. Francis and addict of quiet little monas teries in small Umbrian towns and on Tuscan hillsides, his architectural train ing and ecclesiastical background are more than sufficient to equip him to write this book, and to write it well enough to make it not only interesting, but also safe and instructive reading for priests, architects, seminarians, and sacristans. It competes with any ordinary book on matters rubrical and liturgical by its use of common sense and historical knowledge, instead of piling up moun tains of authors, authorities, and mere legal decisions. The outstanding feature is the fact that Peter Anson represents the liturgical wing of art, architecture, and rubrics. He is thoroughly and refreshingly British, but not to a degree which might make him appear as foreign on our shores. He is imbued with what is good in tradition, and modern with an ingredient of Anglo-Saxon humor. I had little to add, and less to change, and when I did so, the initials H. A. R. warn the reader of it. In a few places, as Anson's excursion on rood-screens, I registered mild disagreement. In a few places I felt called upon to reinforce the color of the author's statement, which seemed too pale to me, in view of the fact that he had touched on a subject more burning here than in Britain. This is a practical book. It will help any man who feels that he agrees with the tenets of the liturgical movement, but cannot find a down-to-earth application of its lofty principles. Especially the parish priest and the architect who can not go to the expensive places that make the right things well will welcome this book as a good friend for those who have to make small means do. . A. R. March 1, 1946. FOREWORD: The object of this book is to provide the clergy and laity with a practical guide to the building and remodelling of Catholic churches, and to give a summary of the laws governing their planning and furnishing. When it was being written nearly four years ago I imagined that in all the war-stricken countries of Europe, once peace had been declared, there would be a revival of church building on a scale that had never occurred for many centuries. Many churches needed to be rebuilt. Others which had been destroyed by enemy action might not be required, for ev