HORIZONTALISM
The trend today is against the sacred.
Who is celebrated here? God or man?
Church or mausoleum?
“There really are people who have imposed themselves on the Church who have no feeling for holiness”.
“They are on church committees. They have forced their way to the front, and we have been slow to react. They have imposed themselves on the priest as the "voice of the people." (Although the priest has in some cases sought them out).” Source


Church buildings are traditionally vertical structures - the vertical dominating the horizontal. Verticality is a “reaching toward Heaven” thing for Catholics… or at least it’s used to be. But horizontalism has taken over the church both in architecture and in the liturgy. The physical environment ALWAYS reflects the type of activity it supports and church architecture is no different.



Cardinal Arinze’s address "Horizontalism … Does Damage to Catholic Faith and Worship" to the Institut Supérieur de Liturgie deals with this issue. Source
