Look at me, look at me!!!!!!!!

H/T to the New Liturgical Movement http://thenewliturgicalmovement.blogspot.com/2008/02/ideas-and-their-import-for-liturgy-and.html for this article http://www.catholicculture.org/library/view.cfm?recnum=8000.

It speaks to the notion that rather than letting bad "Spirit of Vatican II" ideology bear all the blame for the far too common Ugly-As-Sin-Modern-Catholic-Church, we need look into the rancid (not his word,) concepts already running amuck in architectural circles.
Read the entire thing if it interests you, but two MINOR points struck me -- the first made me laugh, a reference to my personal bete noire, the fetishization of "eye contact."

A liturgical architect, engaged in the popular sport of convincing people they want what they don't want, said, "There was a very lengthy and difficult process as we worked through a Vatican II Diocese and a Pre-Vatican II Mission Church. The parishioners just wanted their church back and could not understand what inflecting the pews to insure eye contact had to do with being a good Catholic....It was a grueling process."
(Poor baby.)
I personally have no problem with eye contact, (I may be an introvert, but I am a loud-mouthed, confrontational introvert... you didn't know there were such people? well, now you do,) but I am sick and tired of the attempts to enforce it as an absolute and universal value. (I am not saying the architect in question did this, although notice he did not put it, "to insure eye contact WAS POSSIBLE.")
When I cantor a psalm that is addressed to God, (yes, some of them are,) why am I instructed to try to make eye contact with as many members of the congregation as possible?
When a priest says, "lifting His eyes to YOU, Almighty Father...." in addressing God the Father recounting what God the Son said to his disciples, , why does he, in mid-sentence, switch to pantomiming the Last Supper, casting the congregation as the disciples?
Why are some EMHCs trained to wait until the communicant, who may prefer to be looking at the Body of Christ, looks them in the eye before pronouncing "The Body of Christ..."?
This ideology spills over into Confession, of course.
And it does not allow for the fact that many can hear better, can concentrate on sounds best with our eyes closed.
There is no place for the Publican in most modern Church buildings. Oh, there's room, there's space, All Are Welcome -- but it is space guaranteed to make him uncomfortable, aggressively lit.
No shallow end to dip your toe in to test the water, as it were.
Modern churches try to turn us all, regardless of inclination into That Family That Always Sits In The Front Pew. (We, the Louds, were such a family... no cry room in those days!)

This is too long, I'll address the other notion that struck me in another post. (or maybe I won't.)