The World's Debt to the Catholic Church

The greatest contribution that the Church has made to civilization, that is to the human cult of the beautiful, is in architecture. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever," is thought a modern culture formula but Church edifices all over the world, whenever the Catholic Church has been free to express herself, have been an exemplification of this and have lifted people up by the beauty that they expressed. This was all the greater because the people felt that these beautiful edifices belonged to them; indeed, at the time of their erection, they knew that their fellow citizens, often their relatives, sometimes those who were very close to them, had labored in the production of all this beauty. They themselves had by their contributions of money, or, oftener still, of labor or of materials, made possible the erection of these wonderful structures. No wonder then that they had a definite sense of ownership which made them appreciate the splendor of the churches and helped to arouse in them a taste for what was fitting and to develop a sense of beauty which is almost the highest faculty that man has. Besides, the Church by providing manifold opportunities for the exercise in handiwork of any and every kind for all those who had the talent or the power to produce the beautiful, was lifting people above the sordid round of every day life. There is probably nothing which reacts more for the happiness of mankind and for the development of the best that is in man than an opportunity of this kind.

The beautiful buildings which were erected for Church purposes thus became themselves an important source of education in so far as one extremely significant part of that is the training of taste and the development of the sense of beauty. Christianity did not stop with the Church beautiful. Besides churches, monasteries, convents and schools, guildhalls and hospitals were made beautiful architecturally and were studiously fitted with appropriate decorations, interiorly and exteriorly, and thus of themselves were a very valuable educational feature. Contact with these beautiful structures and with the painting, the sculpture and the fine arts and crafts products so patiently and genially made for them, was of itself an education, a liberal education, that counted for much in the genuine cultivation of the human intellect in its taste for beautiful things. This is the sort of education that cannot be tested by examinations nor measured by rules of thumb, but it is very real and extremely significant. We are gradually working back in this generation to a recognition of what was accomplished in this matter, and we too are making our school buildings beautiful and decorating them as finely as possible, because we appreciate how much this means for education. When we do so, we go back for our models to the time when the Church was the beneficent patron of education and wished to educate not only the mind but also the heart and the soul in the sense of developing a love for beauty and a desire for the bringing out of what was best in man. All this is quite intangible and incommensurable according to material standards; but then, most of the things in the world that are really worth while are quite intangible.