Prelude

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“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” - John 8:32

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What is truth? Underpinning this body of work lies my violent interest in the paradoxical inconclusivity that truth presents. How can truth’s claim to being both authentic and perpetual be accepted when it remains artificially constructed in the present through the use of history? “He who controls the present controls the past”(1) in the novel 1984 is echoed in Jonathan Hill’s maintaining of the provisional and selective nature of histories, where the past is subjected to a constant process of remaking to suit the present.(2) In themselves truths exist forever, unadulterated. Yet in being acquired by an entity that is subjected to time, truth gains a mysterious and disquieting temporality that affects the human mind.(3) If anything could be ascertained about truth is that it is ever inconclusive, an artificial construction by unknown forces. If truth no longer exhibits the authenticity of reality the moment it is purposefully warped by intention, what then are the unknown forces, their contrived modes of construction, and manners of perpetuation that justify their own artificial construction?

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In the unravelling of unknown forces, the thesis investigates how the Roman Catholic Church is held to the expectation or standard of truth-bringer yet its methods and intentions remain ambiguous and self-serving.

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Ambiguity in the Orthodox

“You cannot serve both God and money,” admonishes the Bible. However, this has not stopped the church from trying.(4) In the pontificate of Pope Francis, the doctrinal divide between these two activities has begun to blur. The intention of making money whilst concurrently doing good is growing in importance.(5) When the truthfulness of religion is read against the operation of self-interest and enterprise, assumptions are apprehended through the systematic exhibiting of the fallacy in how both the intentions and the Church as typology lend themselves to ambiguity and are thereby not fixed. This contention hints at an architecture that is not only an image but the possibility that the rituals associated with it are outdated or not the one and only.

 

The principal thesis of this report is premised upon the Roman Catholic Church's Image and Methods as it navigates ethically and doctrinally ambiguous practices in Congo, balancing profiting from and gifting to the people. It is clear that the old church as an archetype is no longer relevant, its economy weakening as people are breaking away to bastardize it. The Parallel World with its own laws has inevitably implicated the known architectural devices of the Catholic Church through collisions of differing intents and spatial use in manners that defy conclusion. Here, the unorthodox distortion of intentions and sacred space is argued as not a consequence but rather a necessity. It is in this dichotomy that ambiguity as critical method is used to ensure the survival of the Catholic Church. 

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In questioning the perceived rigidity of the Orthodox Church, revealed is how its architecture is often one of stability, truthfulness and reassurance as opposed to the ambiguity of right and wrong - straddling God and Money. It is located at the confluence of the Congo River, what novelist Joseph Conrad coined "The Heart of Darkness". Thus, the intervention inhabits the fluctuating intersection of the religious, environmental and fictional imaginaries.  

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Consequently, the ambiguous typology of the Catholic Church becomes a means of addressing the complexities created in both time and space. The thesis thus investigates the Parallel Presence of the Catholic Church and its ambiguous role in the Congo River – its architecture transformative and inclusionary as it reconciles survival practices with the Catholic faith. 

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Bibliography:

¹ George Orwell. 1984. (London: Penguin Books, 2020), 36.

² Jonathan Hill. Actions of Architecture: Architects and Creative Users. (New York, NY: Routledge, 2003), 17.

³ José Ortega y Gasset. What Is Philosophy? José Ortega y Gasset (Norton, 1964), 21.

4 “The Catholic Church Becomes an Impact Investor,” The Economist (The Economist Newspaper), accessed November 2, 2022, 
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2017/08/19/the-catholic-church-becomes-an-impact-investor.

5 Lee Mannion, “Pope Leads Catholics to Profit from, Not Just Give to, the Poor,” Reuters (Thomson Reuters, September 6, 2018), 
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-investment-catholic-development-idUSKCN1LM2J8.