Myles, you’re not wrong about the aesthetic problem; but it’s not accidental, and it’s not just about poor taste or tight budgets. What you’re seeing in those 1960s–70s churches is the architectural expression of a theological shift.
After the Second Vatican Council, the emphasis moved away from the sacred, transcendent, and sacrificial nature of the Mass toward something more horizontal, community-focused, simplified, and “modern.” Brutalist and functionalist architecture fit that new vision perfectly: stripped-down, utilitarian, almost deliberately anti-beautiful. Concrete boxes, low ceilings, circular seating; these weren’t just design choices, they reflected a new way of thinking about worship. The old language of mystery, hierarchy, and heavenward orientation was replaced with something closer to a meeting hall. New churches for a new religion.
That’s why so many of those churches feel, as you put it, like bunkers or tents, they were never really trying to evoke the divine in the way older churches did. It was purposeful.
If you want a stark contrast, look at Sagrada Família. It’s technically modern, but it’s rooted in a deeply Catholic imagination, organic, symbolic, reaching upward, saturated with meaning. It shows that “modern” doesn’t have to mean sterile. The problem wasn’t the century, it was the ideology driving the designs. Interestingly, the facade of the church that was done when Gaudi was alive is vastly superior the the modern facade on the other side of the building which was done after he died. The two fighting aesthetics/ideologies contained in one building.
And it wasn’t just the exteriors. The interiors were systematically altered too. Eamon Duffy in
The Stripping of the Altars documents how, historically, the richness of Catholic worship; altars, statues, screens, devotions, was dismantled during earlier reform movements. What happened after the 1960s echoes that pattern: high altars removed, sanctuaries flattened, tabernacles sidelined. The focus shifted from sacrifice to assembly. In other words- Protestantism.
Even the layout of many modern sanctuaries, freestanding tables, the priest facing the people, emphasis on a central “meal”; has parallels that critics have long pointed out with non-Catholic ritual arrangements, including those found in Masonic-style gatherings. Whether one accepts that comparison or not, the visual and symbolic break from tradition is undeniable. Google - “do modern Catholic altars compare to Masonic temples” and see what comes up.
View attachment 8880