Building a church to bring people together in the presence of God also deepens their unity with one another. "The house of God is the true house of humans," as one famous author puts it.
"Where people just want to inhabit the earth by themselves it becomes uninhabitable," he continues. "Nothing more is built up where humans only want to build by themselves and for themselves. But where...people let themselves be claimed by God,..where they pull back and part with their time and their space [for Him], there the house of the community is built, there...the impossible on earth becomes a present reality. The beauty of the cathedral does not stand in opposition to the theology of the cross but is its fruit. It was born from the willingness not to build one's city by oneself and for oneself" (Josef Ratzinger).
