Sunday, February 23, 2014

Clifton Cathedral...

....is a truly dreadful lump of concrete, and Sunday Mass there a most depressing experience. The place leaks - plastic buckets stacked in a row - and it was more than half empty. I counted just over 130 people at the 11 am main Sunday Mass.  There are horrid chairs with soft seats and spindly legs, and it's arranged like a theatre, and several people sat through Canon of the Mass.  For the psalm, a lady got up at the microphone and waved her arms at us,  in that infuriating way that they do when assuming that we won't know how to sing the response unless they indicate it to us. So I waved back. A guest choir sang Panis Angelicus at Communion much, much too fast. The Stations of the Cross are ugly and the whole place feels bleak.

4 comments:

Aitch said...

I've just had a look on Google - I see what you mean.

Anonymous said...

They have strange priorities in Clifton Diocese. Like publicising ACTA on the diocesan website under Services and Commissions, for instance.

G. Thomas Fitzpatrick said...

Very depressing that the people who are in charge of church building and literature abandoned the great example if Pugin, just 120 years after he built some of the most beautiful modern churches!

Anonymous said...

Suggest you take another look in person and not make such a biased judgment. There may have been a leak and there may have been a visiting choir for the Solemn Mass at 11am on that day of the visit, but why not attend the 9.30 and see and hear a vibrant community of faithful taking a full and active participation in the sacred liturgy?