Beauty is alive. It is alive with the living presence of the living God. It is God's grandeur shining forth His Presence in creation and creativity.
By Joseph Pearce
Crisis Magazine
May 11, 2026
If the Church is to continue to transform and humanize the world, how can she dispense with beauty in her liturgies, that beauty which is so closely linked with love and with the radiance of the Resurrection?
-Cardinal Ratzinger
This question, asked by the future Pope Benedict XVI, is purely rhetorical. The answer is that the Church cannot continue to transform and humanize the world if she dispenses with the beauty of the liturgy. "Without this," Cardinal Ratzinger continued, "the world will become the first circle of hell." Restoring the beauty of the liturgy is, therefore, saving the world from Hell itself.
For Benedict XVI, beauty is inseparable from holiness and truth. As he reminds us, "[t]he only really effective apologia for Christianity comes down to two arguments, namely the saints the Church has produced and the art which has grown in her womb."
There are few places in which the beauty of holiness, the beauty of the liturgy, and the beauty of sacred art are seen with such breathtaking splendor than at St. Joseph's Shrine in Detroit. Having been there recently to give the keynote address at a fundraising gala, I can testify personally to the astonishing beauty of the magnificent gothic church, which stands as a sacred sentinel, its spire pointing heavenward above the urban sprawl of the inner city.
Seldom have I seen a more glorious edifice raised to the glory of God Himself anywhere in Christendom, in the Old World or the New. It stands shoulder to shoulder, or spire to spire, with the greatest gothic churches across the globe. Upon seeing its majestic exterior-and even more so when crossing the threshold into its heavenly interior-I could not help but remember G.K. Chesterton's immortal words about the glory of the gothic:
The truth about Gothic is, first, that it is alive, and second, that it is on the march. It is the Church Militant; it is the only fighting architecture. All its spires are spears at rest; and all its stones are stones asleep in a catapult.
Allowing himself a flight of faithful fancy, Chesterton imagined hearing "the arches clash like swords as they crossed each other." The columns "seemed to go swinging by like the huge feet of imperial elephants." The foliage graven into stone "wreathed and blew like banners going into battle," while "the great bell shook down, as the organ shook up its thunder." The very stones cry out the love of God ! "The thirsty-throated gargoyles shouted like trumpets from all the roofs and pinnacles...and from the lectern...the eagle of the awful evangelist crashed his wings of brass."
In these words by the great Chesterton, we see that beauty is alive. It is alive with the living presence of the living God. It is God's grandeur shining forth His Presence in creation and creativity.
Since this is so, it is tragic, and dare we say scandalous, that such beauty should be allowed to die through indifference and neglect. Yet this appeared to be the fate of St. Joseph's Shrine until its remarkable restoration and resurrection under the wonderful watch of the Canons of the Institute of Christ the King, who were asked by the archbishop of Detroit to take over the dilapidated church 10 years ago.
St. Joseph Catholic Church was founded in 1855 by German immigrants. The present church was finished in 1873 and has been a towering presence throughout the history of the city, serving as a beacon of hope, even in the most hopeless of times. By the turn of the present century, the congregation had dwindled to such a degree that St. Joseph's parish merged with two neighboring parishes, and many were questioning whether the church itself could be kept open.
Then, in 2016, the archbishop had the vision to invite the Institute of Christ the King to take over the running of the parish and the restoration of the church. The canons launched the transformative Historic Renewal Capital Campaign, a multiyear, multimillion dollar undertaking designed to restore the church and its environs. In 2020, in recognition of the thriving spiritual life offered at St. Joseph's to parishioners and pilgrims alike, the archbishop elevated the church to a Shrine.
At the holy heart of the restoration and resurrection of St. Joseph Shrine is the splendor of the traditional liturgy and the music for the liturgy provided by the Choir, Men's Schola, Cappella, and the summer men's chorus, Cantatio. The liturgical life is reflected in the resurrected life of the parish. Decades after the parish schools had closed down, the Shrine is once again a hub of education, with a weekly homeschool cooperative and evening children's catechism classes taught by the Canons-each serving over a hundred children-as well as a growing children's choir.
In 2024, with the aid of generous benefactors, the Institute of Christ the King purchased a five-acre lot adjacent to the Shrine in expectation of the future continued expansion of the Shrine campus to meet the needs of the growing parish community.
As for the secret of the Shrine's success and the new life that it has brought to the Catholics of Detroit and to the city of Detroit itself, it is to be found in the daily Traditional Latin Masses, regular devotions, liturgical instruction, and an active parish life. None of this would have seemed possible 10 years ago when the Canons took custody of the church.
The magnificent beauty of the towering gothic presence in the heart of the city was crumbling to dust. The church was falling into ruins, its neglect the bitter fruit of negligence. Only a few dozen aging parishioners attended Sunday Mass. Those without faith in the future of the Faith fell into hopelessness. There seemed nothing to do but lock up the church doors for one last time and let St. Joseph's die.
But it didn't die. It rose from the dead. Its resurrection might be seen as miraculous, but it is also living proof that Benedict XVI was right. The Church can only continue to transform and humanize the world if she restores the beauty in her liturgies, that beauty which is so closely linked with love and with the radiance of the Resurrection.
This article was originally published on Crisis Magazine.
Joseph Pearce is Visiting Professor of Literature at Ave Maria University and a Visiting Fellow of Thomas More College of Liberal Arts (Merrimack, New Hampshire).