What's in the box?

Or more precisely, what is the box?

If you answered, "an artist's rendering of the altar in the newly renovated Rochester, N.Y., cathedral," you'd be correct.

And that would be a natural answer, because this block, this cube, just cries out "altar," doesn't it?

Seriously, though, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle's virtual tour of the renovated Sacred Heart Cathedral is instructive, demonstrating anew the divide between those who claim to like this sort of thing, and those who don't.

I look at the images of the reconfigured interior and the new altar compared to the old and see a big hole where the sanctuary should be.

The diocesan communications director who narrates the Flash presentation says the effect is more intimate.

Well, it may be, if your idea of intimacy in interior design is to cart off all the furnishings in a place and replace them with folding chairs around a steamer trunk.

The diocese encourages visitors to go on a "Holiness Hunt" in the renovated cathedral.

Good luck, I'd say, and happy hunting.

But Dick Vosko, the liturgical designer who helped guide the $11-million rearrangement of this into this, says a fuller appreciation of Vatican II would bring me round:

Once people better understand the meaning of the Vatican II liturgical reforms, they are receptive to the changes, Vosko said.

At Sacred Heart, he said, the renovations would enhance the ‘‘cathedral for worship without negating or destroying its innate architecture and artistic beauty. It will be made more beautiful than it is now.’’

Maybe if you just keep pointing the camera up. Nice ceiling. Nice angels. Pity about the rest.

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This Russian Orthodox parish in Rochester does not share Vosko's vision of the sanctuary.

And this Eastern Orthodox parish in Rochester certainly doesn't.