Considering this photograph, the reader gifted with an artistic sense will surely sense the violent contrast in it. This monumental pulpit, crowned by a canopy with noble and elegant lines that confer upon it a princely quality, dates from the eighteenth century and is part of the parish church of La Ferté-sur-Aube in France. But there could be no greater contrasting deviation from this solemn assemblage than the electric fan that was recently placed on it. This fan looks like a packing crate or a small model of a cement building designed for our times. It is the very opposite of the delicacy, elegance and solemnity of the décor to which it was added. To use a French expression the fan and the pew “hurlent de se trouver ensemble,” howl upon finding themselves together.
In a sadly eloquent way, this juxtaposition expresses the indifference, if not irreverence, in many churches today that is taking place ‒ in France as well as in the rest of the world ‒ the “aggiornamento*.”
*Aggiornamento roughly means bringing up-to-date, updating or modernizing.
Ambience Customs & Civilization“Catolicismo” no. 192 ― December 1966
