The Church’s weekday readings are making their way through the glory days of kingship in Israel, the reigns of David and Solomon. (That is to contrast them with the less-than-glorious rulers, subsequent to the division of Israel and Judah.) On Saturday, the First Reading featured Solomon’s prayer for wisdom, wisdom in the Biblical world meaning how to live on proper terms with God and one’s fellow man. On Monday and Tuesday, the focus is on the dedication of Solomon’s Temple.

You’ll remember that the idea of building a temple originated with David who, sitting in his palace of cedar, thought it incongruous that the Ark of the Covenant was still in a tent. God, not to be outdone, promises instead to build a different dwelling place among men, in the line of David, in the incarnation of the Son of God.

Solomon is the one who eventually builds an imposing physical temple in Jerusalem, one that will last almost half a millennium until the Babylonian invasion around 589 B.C. Its dedication is the subject of Tuesday’s reading.

Tuesday’s Responsorial Psalm has the refrain, “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God!”

Alexandre Cingria was an early 20^th century painter, artist, and stained glass maker. He was also an intellectual (as was his brother, Charles-Albert, an author). One of his important works was La décadence de l’art sacré (The Decadence of Sacred Art; 1917), subsequently reprinted and expanded. I’ve translated it and am looking for a publisher.

In Décadence, Cingria cites various reasons for why religious art has declined in quality: artistic movements incompatible with Christianity, mass production, and so on. But he opens the book with moral reasons for the decline of religious art, one of which is simply the devil. The devil “loves” (if he loves anything) ugliness and banality. If the ancients were right in their saying corruptio optimi pessima (the corruption of the best becomes the worst) then there is no “better” place to alienate people from God. A church should be beautiful. It is the house of God and our houses should speak of their owners.

The Psalmist captures that truth when he sings “how lovely is your dwelling place!” The question is: If the Psalmist were teleported into many a modern Catholic church, would he sing another tune?

I am not against modern architecture. In Poland, where church construction was stymied by communist control, there are many modern churches, and they are lovely dwelling places of the Lord. I’ll say the same in my current diocese of Arlington. Across half a century, the presence of Catholics — many active and faithful in federal government employ — meant the expansion of churches across northern Virginia. Many are modern and many are lovely.

But much of modern architecture is not. Much of it is alienating, especially for a church. Much of it is ugly. Ugliness and church do not go together.

In recent years, various modern philosophers and theologians have focused on beauty as an attribute of God. Bishop Robert Barron makes it a key point in many of his talks, showing the influence of the Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar upon him. There’s something to be said for this perspective. Beauty attracts and invites. Ugliness repels. It’s why Cingria calls ugliness the diabolical mark on sacred art.

As we meditate on what inspired both Solomon and the Psalmist, let us resolve to commit ourselves to a renaissance of art and beauty in the Church. Long ago I wrote about Fribourg, Switzerland, about the visibility of Christian symbols in the everyday art and architecture of the times, focusing on a well that bore the keys of St. Peter on it. I argued that art — what was once the responsibility of the clergy and was endowed — is now the responsibility of the laity.

In the 1960s, Lady Bird Johnson led a campaign to “beautify” America by planting trees, bushes, shrubs, and flowers. Solomon, in his time, marveled at the beauty of the Lord’s Temple, filled with the glory of the Lord. What are we doing to beautify the Lord’s house?