Crypts That Keep On Giving
Karen
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-000009859feb08.story
Beneath the new L.A. cathedral, a massive mausoleum will hold thousands of
remains, and generate an endowment to pay for operating expenses.
With a starting price of $2,000 per square foot, it will be by far the
city's costliest address. And its most exclusive--residency is strictly by
invitation and based on one's personal goodness and contribution to the
community. On the downside, space is available in one standard lot: 8 feet
by 3 feet with a 2 1/2-foot ceiling. On the upside, utilities are included
and ownership is guaranteed for eternity.
Beneath the Spanish marble floor of the almost-finished Cathedral of Our
Lady of the Angels is a mausoleum that promises to be the most prestigious
Catholic burial place in the city, if not the country. With almost 1,300
crypts and 5,000 niches for cremated remains, it is one of the largest
cathedral burial vaults in the world, and certainly the grandest
premeditated design. The Basilica in St. Peter's may have more graves
beneath its floor, but that's because it was built above an existing
cemetery. Many Catholic cathedrals and churches have small crypts, often
beneath the altar, for bishops and other notable clergy and perhaps a few
lay people deemed extraordinary by the archdiocese: kings or queens, perhaps
a wealthy family that paid for the building, a great artist. But no American
cathedral has what amounts to a full-blown mausoleum in its basement. St.
Patrick's Cathedral in New York City, for example, has but 14 crypts; all
the former New York bishops are buried there, as well as Pierre Toussaint, a
former slave who died in 1853 and is a candidate for canonization.
Plans call for the remains of five of California's bishops to be interred in
Our Lady; they are to be moved from their current resting place in East
L.A.'s Calvary Cemetery when the new cathedral downtown on Temple Street is
consecrated in the fall. St. Vibiana, the patroness of the archdiocese of Lo
s Angeles who also rests at Calvary, will also be interred beneath the
cathedral. She will have her own chapel, which is adjacent to the mausoleum.
But many crypts will be made available to select supporters of the
archdiocese, including those who made substantial donations to the
construction of the cathedral.
The archdiocese says it does not have any sort of "A list" yet. But
officials acknowledge that major donors to the cathedral could be
considered. They include Sir Daniel Donohue, head of the Dan Murphy
Foundation, which contributed the initial $25 million; Rupert Murdoch and
his former wife, Anna, who gave $10 million; Betsy Bloomingdale; Roy and
Patty Disney; former Mayor Richard Riordan; former Dodgers owner Peter
O'Malley; comedian Bob Hope; and former talk show host Merv Griffin. Many of
them--Murdoch, Roy Disney, O'Malley, Hope and Riordan--were awarded papal
knighthoods, the highest honor a pope can bestow on a meritorious lay
person, in 1998.
Anyone can request crypt burial, but the selection rests with the
archbishop, now Cardinal Roger M. Mahony. Those chosen do not have to be
Catholic; church policy throughout the diocese allows an individual who is
married to a Catholic or who comes from a Catholic family to be buried in
consecrated ground, and that will hold true in the cathedral. But those
invited will have to pay for the honor. Considerably.
There is not yet a price list for the resting places, but officials say they
are looking at the crypts as an ongoing fund-raiser. Revenues would go into
an endowment, which, they hope, will pay for the upkeep and maintenance of
the cathedral. How much will that be?
"Until we have at least a year up and running, we really won't know," said
Tod Tamberg, spokesman for the archdiocese of Los Angeles. Ballpark figures,
based on the budget of New York's St. Patrick's, run about $3.5 million a
year. According to Tamberg, the suggested donations for the crypts will be
based on the needs of the endowment.
"Let's put it this way," said another church official. "The crypts cost us
about $20,000 apiece. So they aren't going to be cheap." A starting price of
$50,000, he added, would not be unreasonable.
For space in the semiprivate chapels, of which there are six, or a crypt
near the 26 stained-glass windows and lunettes brought over from the
original cathedral, the cost will be considerably more. The four crypts in
the sarcophagus directly under the altar are the most exalted: When the name
of one millionaire was mentioned, it was jocularly suggested by one church
official that he could not afford such an honor.
Like a 'Sky Box' for Deceased VIPs
There is some uneasiness arising about commercial considerations in such a
sacred place. "It's the ecclesiastical equivalent of a sky box," said one
theologian who declined to be named. On the other hand, making the cathedral
self-supporting certainly is an answer for those who contend that the
construction money could be better spent aiding the poor and the suffering.
"I think it's a great idea," said Lawrence Cunningham, a professor of
theology at Notre Dame University. "So many people are against spending
money on cathedrals that [selling crypts] makes a lot of sense."
Neither the price of a crypt nor those eligible for burial will be
officially decided until after the cathedral's completion. "We need to
finish fund-raising for the construction before we get onto the marketing
end of things," Tamberg said.
And, he added, it's important to remember that the cathedral is built to
last hundreds of years, so the crypts will not be filled quickly. Still,
people already are asking how they can reserve a space for themselves or
family members. The answer is, they can't. "Folks keep asking me, 'How do I
get in there?' " said one official. "I say, 'Well, first, you have to die.'
"
Throughout Europe, the crypts of the great cathedrals are tourist stops,
often requiring an extra fee to view the marble slabs and sarcophagi within
which lie the remains of queens and geniuses, inventors and stewards, the
holy and the lauded, and the rulers and the rich.
Westminster Abbey has its poets corner; 71 kings and queens are buried
beneath St. Denis in Paris; Michelangelo rests in Santa Croce in Florence;
and the crypt of Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, one of the largest in
the British Isles, was recently refurbished to accommodate receptions and
other gatherings.
But visions of Europe's mournful cherubim and cascading marble wreaths do
little to prepare a visitor for the crypts beneath Our Lady of the Angels.
Just as the cathedral itself challenges assumptions of ecclesiastical
design, so do its crypts, beginning with their sheer number.
"Los Angeles always does things in a big way," said Cunningham, who
expressed surprise at the crypts' capaciousness.
Many modern cathedral builders intentionally left space in their crypts for
dignitaries. But Cunningham said he could not think of another cathedral
that used, or planned to use, its crypts as a funding base. "I've never
heard of a link quite that intimate before," he said.
The original plans for the cathedral did not include such a large burial
vault. Digging into the ground adds millions to the budget of such a
project, and originally the archdiocese settled for the chapel and a utility
area beneath the vestry. But two years ago, when it was decided that
underground seismic work was necessary, officials leaped at the chance to
create the second floor, and Mahony soon gave the plan his approval.
Until the crypts are occupied by the noteworthy and the saintly, pilgrims
visiting the crypt of Our Lady will be drawn to two things: the chapel of
St. Vibiana and the windows from her former cathedral. A stairway behind the
baptistery of the main cathedral leads to the crypts. To the right of the
final step is the chapel, designed by cathedral architect Raphael Mineo,
where Mass can be said or visitors may pray or meditate.
A Ray of Light for St. Vibiana
The far wall of the chapel is of the same alabaster that forms the cathedral
windows; behind it will lie the sarcophagus of St. Vibiana. It is the only
portion of this basement floor bathed in natural light, from a skylight cut
a story above--a tribute to the saint, who will lie almost directly across
from the entrance to the crypts.
The mausoleum follows the same cruciform floor plan as the cathedral above
it, acting as a symbolic foundation for the living church. From the entrance
just past the chapel, one looks down the main aisle, which bisects the space
to the far wall where a back-lighted stained-glass window depicts Jesus as
the Good Shepherd. Just in front of that window, and also visible from the
entrance, is a four-person sarcophagus situated beneath the altar in the
cathedral above.
In addition to being an underground mirror of the cathedral itself, the
mausoleum was also designed to accommodate the 26 windows and lunettes
salvaged from St. Vibiana's, which was damaged in the Northridge earthquake.
"It was the first thing they decided," said Walter Judson of L.A.'s Judson
Studios, which removed, cleaned and restored the windows.
The windows, which depict such biblical scenes as the Annunciation, the
Nativity, the Ascension and the Resurrection, were put in shadow boxes and
lighted by color-corrected fluorescent lights that shine through plastic
diffusers. The result is as close to natural daylight as is technologically
possible underground, which was very important given the crucial role
natural light plays in the design of the cathedral.
"We paid a lot of attention to lighting," said John Gary, who oversaw the
design of the crypts. "There are soft vaults in the ceiling and portions are
lit at the edges, which, with the windows, gives the psychological effect of
natural light."
Mineo approved all plans for the crypts, but he did not design them. John
Stuart Todd, a Houston design firm specializing in mortuaries, came up with
the original plans. Lead architect Barry Boudreaux worked toward creating a
space that was both consistent with the overall design and particular to its
purpose.
"One of the early design concepts was to use the beautiful windows to
incorporate the old and the new," Gary said. "But we tried to stay true to
the cathedral. It's very clean, no applied ornamentation."
Indeed, the lines of the walls, the rows of crypts--five high and as many as
20 across depending on the length of wall--the urn niches, and even the
small semiprivate alcoves are sleek and bright.
The color palette is consistent as well. Marble artisan Louie Carnevale
designed the floors and steps for both the cathedral and the crypts, as well
as the walls of the crypt. He used a light-colored Spanish marble in both,
although the marble of the mausoleum comes from a different quarry and is
creamier, closer in hue to the stone shutters on the crypts, which are
French limestone.
Ornamentation Subject to Church Approval
Even the sarcophagus under the altar will be simple and subdued in design,
although that, and the faces of any of the crypts, may change once names are
engraved and ornamentation added by the families. The niches for the
cremation urns also have stone shutters that can be engraved. Strictures
against cremation were loosened by the Second Vatican Council in 1963.
Any changes to the crypts would have to be approved by the archdiocese.
"It's like any subdivision," Gary said. "You need to have a general design,
a master plan."
The altar sarcophagus is the premier space and, as yet, no one will venture
a guess as to who might be invited to be buried there. (Mahony, a natural
choice, has, according to Tamberg, already declined; he is content to be
among the other bishops for whom spaces are reserved to the right of the
altar crypt.)
The entrance of the mausoleum is flanked by two alcoves in which
stained-glass windows are surrounded by full-length crypts--"sofa coffins"
in which the body is interred lengthwise, rather than headfirst as in most
of the crypts. The main window depicting the Good Shepherd is likewise
surrounded by crypts.
"I think any of the spaces by the windows would be considered premium," Gary
said.
The cremation niches come in a range of locations and positioning. On the
right side of the burial vault are several rooms devoted to niches, one
containing a large, free-standing cross in which two layers of urns can be
housed. In several of the semiprivate rooms, there are niches amid the
crypts, giving family members an option in form and price. The niches, said
officials, will obviously be less expensive than the crypts, although,
again, the cost will depend on the location. They, too, will be by
invitation only.
And who knows? A hundred years hence, European tourists may be paying a few
extra dollars to see Southern California's saints and scholars, its rulers
and elite. The region might not have any kings, but undoubtedly there'll be
a celebrity or two. This is L.A., after all.