Catholic News Agency reports (January 8, 2026) on plans to construct what would become the world’s largest 3D-printed “church” in Neratovice, Czech Republic – a town originally conceived by communists as deliberately church-free. The proposed structure, designed by architect Zdeněk Fránek with an estimated cost exceeding $8 million, features an “ark-like” design with green roofs and rainwater irrigation systems. The Archdiocese of Prague oversees the project through its Neratovice Community Center Foundation, promoting the venture as an architectural innovation that will “put Czechia back on the architectural map.” This technological spectacle epitomizes the conciliar sect’s abandonment of sacred tradition for modernist experimentation.
Sacred Architecture Reduced to Technological Exhibition
The article revels in the building’s proposed construction method, noting that “the decision to 3D-print the entire above-the-ground part of the building should be made in the near future.” Such preoccupation with construction novelty directly contradicts the Church’s perennial understanding of sacred architecture as domus Dei et porta caeli (house of God and gate of heaven). Pius XI’s encyclical Quas Primas explicitly states that churches must serve as “visible memorials” of Christ’s kingship, not laboratories for architectural experimentation. The reduction of church construction to a technological puzzle – with its “520 3D-printed blocks, assembled like a puzzle” – sacrilegiously subordinates the supernatural to the technical.
Modernist priorities are evident in the project’s stated goals: “energy efficiency,” “rainwater retention,” and becoming a tourist attraction “visited by people from all over the country.” These utilitarian considerations displace the primary purpose of a Catholic church – the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and worship of the Triune God. The article’s description of “green roofs irrigated by means of rainwater retention tanks” reads like specifications for an industrial facility rather than a house of worship. No mention is made of the sanctuary’s orientation, altar placement, or provisions for sacred art – all essential elements of Catholic ecclesiology since the Council of Trent.
Community Center over Sacrificial Altar
The very nomenclature exposes the project’s theological bankruptcy. The structure is designated the “Church of the Holy Trinity and of Cardinal Josef Beran Community Centre” (emphasis added), revealing its true purpose as a multipurpose gathering space rather than a consecrated temple. This deliberate conflation echoes the conciliar revolution’s destruction of sacred distinctions, where “active participation” replaced adoration and the altar became a “table of assembly.” Pius XII condemned such confusion in Mediator Dei, warning against innovations that “turn the altar into a throne of misery” rather than maintaining it as “the center of worship of the divine Redeemer.”
The article’s reference to a “park with a pond and a children’s playground nearby” being planned completes this naturalistic picture. While the pre-conciliar Church certainly encouraged wholesome recreation, it never conflated these with sacred spaces. The Code of Canon Law (1917) mandated strict separation between churchyards and secular activities to preserve the consecrated ground’s dignity. This project’s deliberate integration of playgrounds with the church building manifests the anthropocentric shift condemned in the Syllabus of Errors, which rejects the notion that “the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Error 55). Here, the sacred is not merely separated but dissolved into the profane.
Historical Revisionism and Beatification Abuse
The article attempts theological legitimacy by invoking Cardinal Josef Beran, whose beatification process is underway. However, the conciliar sect’s beatification of figures persecuted by communists serves its political agenda rather than doctrinal integrity. True martyrdom requires death in odium fidei (out of hatred for the faith), not mere political resistance. The article’s description of Beran refusing “to pledge loyalty to the atheist regime” carefully avoids mentioning whether he maintained doctrinal opposition to religious liberty and ecumenism – principles later abandoned by the Vatican II sect.
Moreover, the historical context presented contains crucial omissions. While accurately noting that communists intended Neratovice as a “church-free city,” the article fails to identify the conciliar sect’s complicity in continuing this eradication through doctrinal demolition. The replacement of sacramental worship with architectural spectacle constitutes a more sophisticated form of the same atheistic materialism, now dressed in technological garb. As Pius XI warned in Divini Redemptoris, communism and modernist liberalism share the same “false messianic idea” of human self-redemption through material progress.
Financial Priorities Reveal Spiritual Bankruptcy
Parish administrator Peter Kováč’s statement that the project must be “sustainable and meaningful financially” exposes the conciliar sect’s inversion of priorities. The Church’s tradition consistently teaches that no expense is too great for divine worship. The Book of Exodus details God’s meticulous instructions for the Tabernacle’s construction using the finest materials, while King David declared “I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing” (2 Samuel 24:24). This 3D-printed venture reduces sacred construction to cost-benefit analysis, precisely fulfilling Pius XI’s warning in Quas Primas about societies that “renounce and do not wish to recognize the reign of our Savior.”
The involvement of business magazine Forbes in praising this “exceptional church” that could “change the foundations of construction” reveals the project’s true audience: secular admirers of technological novelty rather than the faithful seeking sanctification. This is architecture designed for photographic spreads in design journals, not for inspiring compunction in sinners. The Ceremoniale Episcoporum (1948 edition) mandated that church architecture should “excite piety in those contemplating it,” not admiration for engineering prowess. The proposed wave-like blocks with “acoustic function” prioritize auditory spectacle over the silence proper to Eucharistic adoration.
Conclusion: Neo-Modernism in Concrete Form
This project embodies the conciliar sect’s complete capitulation to what Pius X condemned in Pascendi as the modernist belief that “truth changes with man, because it develops with him, in him, and through him” (Error 58). Just as the Novus Ordo replaced the immutable Mass with constantly evolving “liturgical creativity,” this 3D-printed structure makes architectural novelty its guiding principle. The preservation of Cardinal Beran’s memory through this technological experiment compounds the outrage, using a pre-conciliar prelate’s name to legitimize post-conciliar apostasy.
Ultimately, this venture demonstrates the conciliar sect’s inability to build anything lasting because it has rejected the petra (rock) of Peter’s confession. As our Lord warned: “Every one that heareth these my words, and doth them not, shall be like a foolish man that built his house upon the sand” (Matthew 7:26). When the storms of divine judgment come – and come they must – this sand-printed structure will collapse like the theological novelties it represents, while the true Church endures in those who maintain the faith “once delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3).
Source:
Czech town may build world’s largest 3D-printed church in historic reversal (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 08.01.2026