JB Powers at the Society of St. Barbara blog warns us that someone has the bright idea that the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Springfield Illinois is in need of some wreckovation. The want to destroy the work of renowned architect Joseph McCarthy.

He relays an anonymous email that tells of the dastardly plan:
“They want to remove the old high altar entirely as well as the communion rails and add some sort of semi-circular steps to the sanctuary”
No! No! No! Powers has his suggestion on how to renovate the Cathedral:

I get asked all the time “how can we renovate our Church”. In most cases (Post WW2) , the whole thing needs torn down and rebuilt. In this Cathedral, the answer is “with a vacuum cleaner”. This is as near perfect as an Illinois Cathedral gets. Vacuum, dust, sweep, but do not make any changes to the masterpiece as McCarthy designed.

He suggests that we have two options:

1) Shout “STOP” at the top of the Capital Building before this interior is ruined (Seriously call Bishop Lucas and politely suggest he consider the Liturgical Intent of the original architect)

2) Start raising funds now so that 20 years from today we can put this Church back into order after it is wrecked.

I like option number one better. If you agree, send a polite message to the Bishop to aks him to please leave well enough alone. Just this once.

P.S. Please let people know about this if you can. Maybe we can stop it.