Lavish ceremonies, harsh criticism await new $200m cathedral in LA

BOSTON GLOBE ^ | August 31, 2002 | Kathleen Sharp

[NYer]

LOS ANGELES - Against a backdrop of criticism for its timing and its guest list, the Los Angeles Archdiocese on Monday will open its new, $200 million downtown landmark, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.

The opening will be marked by an invitation-only Mass and three-hour blessing ritual, with about 3,000 guests. They include large financial donors, craftsmen, and construction workers who helped erect the cathedral, as well as 500 priests and 600 lay people. An elite group of dignitaries and Catholics will witness the ceremonies, which will feature Nigerian musicians, Scottish drummers, and Vietnamese singers.

[NYer]

Missing from the invitation list are most of the cathedral's low-income parishioners

AND St. Vibiana, patroness of the original cathedral.

[NYer]

One newspaper reports the cost at $193 million; this one claims it is $200 million ... actual cost ... ?????

[Sock]

They did a two minute walk through video of this cathedral on the Chicago local news tonight. I looked, but didn't see any kneelers.

[ninenot]

Mahony will ask his people to kneel on the concrete floor. Apparently they ran out of money.

[NYer]

Mahony will ask his people to kneel on the concrete = travertine marble floor. Apparently they ran out of money.

Kneelers, if any, were certainly at the bottom of his shopping list. As I recall, Fr. Dr. "the wreckovator" Vosko, was instrumental in the design elements. He is from right here in Albany, NY and the churches where he practiced his "new age techniques" have all had their kneelers stripped out.

[american colleen]

Pope says he shares joy of Los Angeles Catholics over new cathedral

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope John Paul II said he shares the joy of Los Angeles-area Catholics at the completion of their new cathedral, which was to be dedicated Sept. 2. In offering his blessing to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, the pope said he hoped it would "effectively contribute to the intensification of the true faith and the strengthening of authentic religious piety." The pope made his comments in a letter to U.S. Cardinal J. Francis Stafford, his special delegate to the dedication ceremonies in Los Angeles. Cardinal Stafford was to impart the papal blessing during the inaugural Mass.

[american colleen]

The rest of the story I posted above is in this post (I messed up and didn't post the entire thing).

Pope says he shares joy of Los Angeles Catholics over new cathedral (con't)

The pope said it was a cause of "joy and honor" for the faithful of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles that their new cathedral has finally been completed.
He said the event recalled to mind Christ's words in the Gospel: "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples."
"We are happy at the honor being paid to Christ Himself and to His mother, called Our Lady of Angels, through the consecration of this church," he said.

[NYer]

Pope John Paul II said he shares the joy of Los Angeles-area Catholics at the completion of their new cathedral

.... then asks that bones of St. Vibiana be returned post haste! LOL ... just kidding.

May God bless him, what else can he say? Whatever was Mahony thinking when he built this - this - edifice? It features a restaurant ????!!!! (wouldn't you just love to be the one responsible for assigning names to the various dishes being served!! Oh how my imagination flies with that.), and a convention center - play and pray??? Is he hoping to lure the Academy Awards there some time in the future?

Perhaps he imagines himself in competition with the "Crystal Cathedral". I am waiting on the list of invited guests ... Dr. Schuller and son were probably there, taking notes and planning their next addition.

[ninenot]

"effectively contribute to the intensification of the true faith and the strengthening of authentic religious piety."

Good luck with that wish, Your Holiness.

[NYer]

According to Erlenbusch, the bulk of the new cathedral's parishioners are working poor, some of whom live on as little as 7 percent of the national median income, or $3,000 a year. About 4,000 people in the cathedral's shadow sleep on the streets every night.

These are the people who will be absent during the gala events of the coming week. For $1,000 to $2,500 per person, attendees at the gala will sit in the cathedral's main terrace, dine on filet of beef and angel food cake, and sip wine brought up from the cathedral cellar. The event is expected to net $1.5 million, said Tamberg. The money will be used to help pay for the cathedral's operations, he said.

Expect to see a crowd of locals, carrying pitchforks, storm the cathedral the night of the black tie gala.

[Theresa]

I saw a news report of this on TV. They showed the Cathedral inside and out. Well I don't know. I guess its okay. It is 2002, time marches on. You can't expect brand new cathedrals to be built to look like the ones in the middle ages.

[Aliska]

Missing from the invitation list are most of the cathedral's low-income parishioners, who live down the street from the hilltop cathedral in one of the nation's poorest areas.

That's the way it is now. Some of those "invitation only" civic leaders probably aren't even catholic.

This sucks bigtime. Can't have the rabble ruining the splendor of the day. Wouldn't look good on tv.

They are only fit to be "ministered to".

[Over50Million]

American Colleen quoted this, "effectively contribute to the intensification of the true faith and the strengthening of authentic religious piety."

In my local newspaper they ran an Associate Press story:

"The $195 million cathedral - intentionally a foot longer than New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral..."

So much pride and ego on display and it is this little fact that makes me the most sad and deflated.

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

Mahony said St. Vibiana's couldn't be repaired but the developer he sold it to says otherwise.

http://www.losangelesmission.com/ed/articles/1999/1299mg.htm

ARTICLES December 1999 ARTICLES LETTERS NEWS CALENDAR ROAMIN' CATHOLIC FREE BOXES Contents © 1999 by Jim Holman. All rights reserved. lamission@tminet.com

A Trendy Though Profane Use CARDINAL MAHONY SELLS ST. VIBIANA'S By Maggie Garcia A November 2, 1999 article in the Los Angeles Times announced the sale of St. Vibiana's Cathedral in downtown Los Angeles for $4.65 million dollars. The developer that bought the earthquake damaged cathedral, Tom Gilmore, announced that he wanted to convert the cathedral, its rectory, and school buildings into a "trendy residential loft district." "This is really a chance of a lifetime," he said. "I don't think that there are a lot of guys who go out and buy a cathedral". Gilmore's plans for the Cathedral and adjacent buildings include classroom space for Cal State Los Angeles, housing a charter school, a small hotel, a new apartment building and a restaurant. The proposed complex has been dubbed "Cathedral Place" and will cost, Gilmore estimates, about 40 million dollars. Construction is not scheduled to began for another year. Gilmore said that it is estimated that the cathedral itself will require at least $4 million in seismic repairs. According to the Times, Gilmore formed a corporation to purchase the cathedral. The corporation made a "sizable down payment and will pay interest to the archdiocese for two years." After that, the remainder of the $4.65 million will be paid off. Gilmore is looking towards both public and private financing for the project. The sale of the cathedral was announced at a November 3 news conference heavily attended by city leaders, including Mayor Richard Riordan, who said that Cathedral Place would be another magnet which would draw people downtown. "With this project, Gilmore and Associates will safeguard the legacy of our beautiful cathedral which has given us so much for so many years." Mayor Riordan had assisted Cardinal Mahony in his quest to raze St. Vibiana's. After the 1994 Northridge earthquake damaged the cathedral, Cardinal Mahony began the process of tearing it down. The Los Angeles Conservancy, however, filed suit to stop the demolition of St. Vibiana's. The Conservancy won the lawsuit and the archdiocese appealed to the California Court of Appeals, which reaffirmed the lower court's ruling in favor of the Conservancy. On July 26, 1996 Cardinal Mahony issued a decree stating that "the Cathedral of St. Vibiana has suffered a loss of sacred character." In order to satisfy canonical requirements, the cardinal listed three reasons for his decree. His first reason was, because "the damage to the Cathedral of St. Vibiana is so extensive that it can in no way be employed for divine worship... since July 2, 1996, the City of Los Angeles has declared the Cathedral a 'public nuisance'.... Long before that I had recognized that further use of the Cathedral of St. Vibiana posed an extreme danger. Hence to protect the faithful it was necessary to cancel all services and forbid any access to the Cathedral. It has been closed since May 22, 1995." Mahony's second reason in the decree states that, according to an earthquake evaluation report issued by Nabih Youusef & Associates in September of 1995, "during a major earthquake in the downtown area, the Cathedral of Saint Vibiana would suffer extensive structural damage with possible collapse." The decree goes on to state that, according to the report, "the foundations beneath the exterior walls are constructed of rubble with questionable support capacity." The "unreinforced masonry walls ... would perform very poorly" in any earthquake. The third reason given by Mahony in the decree was that ...it is not possible to repair the damage to the Cathedral and to restore it without exorbitant costs. The Earthquake Evaluation Report of Nabih Youssef & Associates citing the cost estimates of Peck/Jones [contractors], indicated that to repair and retrofit the cathedral would cost at least $20,900,000 [The cost of the new cathedral is approximately $163 million dollars]. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has no source of funding for such a huge amount. Even if such a large sum of money was available, to use it to repair the current Cathedral would be very poor stewardship of the resources of the people of God of this Local Church. Even completely retrofitted, the present Cathedral would remain the type of building that would be easily damaged in future earthquakes. Nor is the Cathedral of Saint Vibiana of a size and liturgical design to serve the current needs of the Archdiocese. Thus in accord with the provisions of Canon 1222, section 1.1, I have concluded that it is 'impossible' to repair the Cathedral. The cardinal concluded the decree stating that "for the reasons summarized above, I have determined that the Cathedral of St. Vibiana has, in fact, lost its sacred character. Thus ... I hereby relegate the Cathedral of Saint Vibiana to profane use." Cardinal Mahony sought a canonical opinion from the very Reverend Lawrence A. DiNardo. A canonical opinion dated January 8, 1997, revealed that, initially, Cardinal Mahony sought to discover whether or not the archdiocese could sell the cathedral to "another religious group," and so the opinion issued only concerned itself with the possibility of selling St. Vibiana's to "another religious group." The opinion states that "there are no canonical prohibitions which would prevent the ultimate sale of the former cathedral to another religious group. However," the report continued, "several canonical issues must be resolved prior to the consummation of any sale." The first issue involved removing all sacred objects "since they cannot be sold or given to any other entity except another public juridic person. Second a determination must be made as to whether or not any of the ecclesiastical goods were given to the former cathedral with restrictions by the donor as to its use. If so, the intention of the donor must be fulfilled or commuted by agreement with the donor if possible. Third, since the transaction would seem to be an act of extraordinary administration, Canon 1277 requires that before such an act can have valid force the consent of the Archdiocesan Finance Council and the Archdiocesan College of Consultors is required. Fourth the sale of Saint Vibiana Cathedral is a matter of alienation of ecclesiastical property, a sale in excess of $3,000,000 would require permission of the Holy See in accord with Canon 1292, section 2 and the rescript of the Congregation of Clergy." When asked for comment, archdiocesan spokesman Father Gregory Coiro's secretary said it was his policy not to talk to the Mission. -- from the Los Angeles Lay Catholic Mission, December 1999 TOP

[Siobhan]

DATELINE: 25 March 2007

(SANTA FE- AFP) The Presidential Commission looking into the 2002 Los Angeles earthquake has established that the epicenter of the quake was the new Catholic cathedral, nicknamed "The Rog Mahal" after the disgraced ex-cardinal Roger Mahony who built it.

Because southern California and Nevada were completely submerged during the megatemblor, it has taken painstaking work to determine the actual epicenter.

RELATED STORIES:
(SANTA FE-AFP) A reliquary containing the relics of St. Vibiana washed ashore on the Pacific Coast of Arizona near the Mexican border. St. Vibiana had been the patroness of the Los Angeles Cathedral before it was condemned and replaced by the Our Lady of the Angles mega-cathedral.

(SAINT LOUIS, F.D. - AFP)The Papal Nuncio at his residence in St. Louis announced that St. Vibiana would now be named the patron saint of all who live on geological fault lines...

[Siobhan]

But you can expect them to be beautiful and to glorify God.

Mother Angelica proved that it could be done with the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, Alabama.

[american colleen]

You are right, what else can JPII say? Notice he did not comment regarding the physical building at all.

May God forgive me, but I think it is a modern monstrosity straight out of Orwell's "1984."

Whatever was Mahony thinking when he built this - this - edifice? It features a restaurant ????!!!! (wouldn't you just love to be the one responsible for assigning names to the various dishes being served!! Oh how my imagination flies with that.), and a convention center - play and pray??? Is he hoping to lure the Academy Awards there some time in the future?

God only knows what Mahony was thinking. I was always willing to give him the benefit of the doubt until months ago I read those e-mails he wrote regarding his role in the scandals. Among the many sad thoughts going through my head when I read them, were 1. Mahony speaks like a guilty CEO and not the shepherd of the flock. 2. No mention of victims 3. No mention of God. So, I don't know what goes through his head, but it doesn't seem to be what should be going through his head.

Naming the dishes would be a pretty funny thread! A restaurant and a convention center... I like "play and pray" a lot! How about "meet, greet and eat" to combine both?

Mahony has gone Hollywood, for sure.

[american colleen]

...after the disgraced ex-cardinal Roger Mahony..

oh! wishful thinking... (but I always feel guilty for saying stuff like that, even if it is about Uncle Rog)

[american colleen]

Thanks for the Mission article. Very sad. Where did poor St. Vibiana's remains go to?

[Siobhan]

Better to feel guilty about eating chocolate than feeling guilty about anything said of Mahony...