> The reaction you're talking about with the palm reading seems like it could have mostly been because of the presence of a loaded tabernacle?
Yes, I think the tabernacle was the crux of the issue here.
> Spaces aren't holy because of the consecration, they're holy because of the people that come there to worship together regularly over many years.
That's a more modern, and dare I say, Methodist view of the church. If a space has a tabernacle in it with the body of Christ in it, within the Catholic tradition, that space is holy and consecrated even when there isn't a human soul in the place, because by definition there is a belief that the soul of Christ is in that space.
You can deconsecrate that space and remove that blessed sacrament and then it's just a building, but in the eyes of most Catholics the space itself has a mystery even in the absence of worshipping congregations.
Like I said I'm orthodox and have never been much exposed to protestant theology other than it just being sort of in the air in western secular culture.
I think you'd get interesting answers if you polled lay catholics with a question like "which is more holy, a consecrated but never-used church, or a parish recently desacralized after centuries of regular use."
There's definitely one "correct" answer if you asked a bishop or a catholic theologian. But I have noticed that there is often a big difference between lay religious experience and hierarchically controlled official dogma. A poll a few years ago had less than half of american catholics believing in transubstantiation, for example.
Yes, I think the tabernacle was the crux of the issue here.
> Spaces aren't holy because of the consecration, they're holy because of the people that come there to worship together regularly over many years.
That's a more modern, and dare I say, Methodist view of the church. If a space has a tabernacle in it with the body of Christ in it, within the Catholic tradition, that space is holy and consecrated even when there isn't a human soul in the place, because by definition there is a belief that the soul of Christ is in that space.
You can deconsecrate that space and remove that blessed sacrament and then it's just a building, but in the eyes of most Catholics the space itself has a mystery even in the absence of worshipping congregations.