Can you spot the cathedral?
Inside:
Posted on 08/22/2012 2:04:50 PM PDT by marshmallow
Three miles from Disneyland there is another famous theme park, which proclaims itself as “America’s Television Church.” The Crystal Cathedral, perhaps the first mega-church in the United States, is about to undergo conversion classes so that it can finally get the cathedra and bishop it has always wanted. The Diocese of Orange, California, has purchased the thirty-one-acre property and its four buildings for $53 million, a steal even in this real estate market. Realizing that recent cathedrals built from scratch have cost upwards of $200 and $250 million on the West Coast, retrofitting sounds like a financially savvy move. However, turning this prismatic beacon of televangelism into a house of God may be easier said than done.
Does this purchase signal a new role for Catholic charity: to buy up properties of bankrupt Protestant ministries? If so, there may be some good opportunities in the future. How does the bishop encourage full, active, and conscious participation in the liturgy by purchasing one of the buildings most associated with religion as theater? Begun as an open-air service at a drive-in theater, the church was designed around Rev. Schuller’s flamboyant preaching. Associated with glitz and money, it was the site of fancy and expensive holiday celebrations including trapeze artists, live animals for Christmas, and a lavish $13 million production called Creation.
Said to be the first all-glass structure built for religious purposes, it is associated with the feel-good theology of the 1980s. How to convert a building like this and at the same time disassociate it from its founder and his theology? Crystal Cathedral Ministries was a religion about self-promotion, and, appropriately, its main buildings were designed in disparate modernist styles by three well-known architecture firms: Richard Neutra, Philip Johnson and John Burgee, and Richard Meier. Each building is a personal expression....
(Excerpt) Read more at crisismagazine.com ...
An article written by a person with apparently little knowledge of the situation in the Diocese of Orange. I lived in this diocese for 24 years. It was spun off from the LA Archdiocese, and one of its existing larger Catholic parish churches, was turned into a cathedral. It was totally inadequate.
An opportunity to secure an existing house of worship that is 4 times the capacity, plus office and meeting space which will meet the diocese needs for a long time was a near miracle, especially considering the price.
The location is central to the entire diocese. I am confident the diocese has the ability to convert this facility into a beautiful Catholic cathedral. Certainly, it will be a far more fitting cathedral than the one built in LA by Cardinal Mahoney.
As to the Rev. Schuller, I wonder how many Catholic priests could have accomplished what he did building-wise. Plus, fill it to capacity every Sunday.
1. The church is not a building;
the church is not a steeple;
the church is not a resting place;
the church is a people.
I am the church! You are the church!
We are the church together!
All who follow Jesus,
all around the world!
Yes, we’re the church together!
Really? Duncan Stroik is perhaps the most important American Catholic architect. His analysis of a situation that has caused so much consternation to so many Catholics, most with little or no fundamental knowledge of how architecture should relate, and traditionally has related, to worship, is of great importance to the Catholic national conversation. On what authority do you dismiss this?
He’s speaking above and beyond the situation in Orange. He is disregarding the pragmatism of the decision, which is central to your defense of this atrium. His concern is for the faith, for how it shapes our churches, how it influences the future. Pragmatism solves a practical problem right now in the most efficient way. To hell with pragmatism, I say! It rears its ugly head everywhere in the life of our Church, and we should resist it at every turn.
Great point. If some building isn’t fit to worship God in, then you are not a far cry from saying some people aren’t fit to worship God with you. You should be able to worship God just fine in a tent, a catacomb, or a rusty shack, if that is what you have to work with. God’s not going to be offended.
whatever MAN!
‘weak article; nothing new’:
6 weak short paragraphs;
its an initial reaction article;
nothing new;
I live near the Crystal Cathedral read everything on it;
I hope you stay impressed with the author though.
Amen brother!
A church building is not something we worship God in, it is something we worship God with.
If you’re not worshipping God in it, then you’re doing it wrong.
That’s actually pretty simple. #1 is a prison, #2, probably a government or office building, so I’m going with #3, you know the building with the giant cross on the side.
If some building isn’t fit to worship God in, then you are not a far cry from saying some people aren’t fit to worship God with you.
However, if any building is fit for use as a cathedral then you are not a far cry from saying that any action is fit to worship God with. Is anything at all suitable as worship or equally valuable? Can I go to a building, watch an NFL game with a cold beer and call that worship? If not then we are discriminating between various actions and motives as to their relative value as worship. If we can do this then we can also do it for the buildings we use as cathedrals. After all, physical churches are also elements of worship and should reflect the seriousness of our faith just as our actions do.
Sure, I can understand, in ideal circumstances, wanting the church to reflect the serious nature of your faith. What I’m saying is, we shouldn’t give in to that desire to the point where the external trappings of the worship seem more important to us than the spiritual act itself. God will not be any less pleased with me if I worship Him in a rundown shack instead of a majestic cathedral, as long as I am worshipping Him in good faith.
Now, if the place of worship is a rundown shack because we’ve simply neglected the upkeep out of sloth, or because someone’s been dipping into the maintenance fund, that’s a different problem entirely.
Designed to win Architectural awards,yet it was beat out by the small THORNCROWN CHAPEL in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
Well stated.
Way to go, bishop, don’t leave a good property like this available for George Soros, Occupy Wall Street, or some bunch of mohammedans.
Way to go, bishop, don’t leave a good property like this available for George Soros, Occupy Wall Street, or some bunch of mohammedans.
Only if he intended to demolish it and replace it with something that looks like a Catholic Church instead of some fantastic skating rink.
LOL! Right over your head.
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