Mother Church of a Secular City?-Mahoneys Palace
Oliver Cromwell
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August 25, 2002
Mother Church of a Secular City?
The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels could become the spiritual center
of this disconnected city. Then again, it could become a $200-million
reminder of just how little we have in common.
BY LARRY B. STAMMER
Two dramatic processions, one joyous and one solemn, will advance toward the
new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels within nine days of each other next
month.
During the first, 3,000 people, including Nigerian and Scottish drummers, a
family carrying the relics of saints, and 700 deacons, priests, bishops and
cardinals in vestments of various hues of white and adobe, will approach the
cathedral's three-story bronze doors to be greeted by Cardinal Roger M.
Mahony.
"Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is a day of rejoicing," he will begin.
Then, to the exultant strains of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," the entourage of
believers will proceed into the 21st century cathedral for the first time,
joining in an ancient Roman Catholic rite of consecration. That will be
followed by a nearly three-hour liturgy steeped in poignancy and power,
faith and tradition, to commission the $200-million cathedral and conference
center as the Mother Church of the nation's largest Roman Catholic
archdiocese.
Nine days later, on Sept. 11, a second procession of uniformed firefighters
and police officers will leave City Hall in emergency vehicles following a
moment of silence on the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New
York and Washington. They will drive the two blocks to the cathedral for an
interfaith prayer service infused with patriotism and national resolve.
The processions, one rich in Roman Catholic theology and tradition, the
other an expression of solidarity in the public square, represent two
distinctly different missions the cathedral hopes to claim for itself as the
city's new spiritual showcase. It should become, in the vision of Cardinal
Mahony, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Los Angeles, the fulcrum where the
secular and sacred are joined for the glory of God and the good of the city.
"The cathedral is not only the center of the life and prayer of the local
church," Mahony declares, "but also a symbol evocative of the deepest
aspirations and hopes of the whole polis, the whole people of Los Angeles,
t! he earthly city yearning for consummation, the completion yet to come in
the new Jerusalem."
It is a noble vision, and a tall order, but the cardinal is not alone in his
hopes. The cathedral is seen as the place where the soul of the church is
enshrined in sacred architecture, a spiritual center for seekers of all
kinds, a booster for downtown development, a servant of the poor and
disenfranchised, a patron of music and the arts, and a place where prophetic
preaching and political activism call individuals to a higher moral
consciousness, and shape public policy.
But in a horizontal city that even now is straining to remain unified in the
face of centrifugal forces that threaten to spin off the San Fernando Valley
and Hollywood, will Mahony and the archdiocese have not only the faith but
the marketing moxie to make it work? Can the cathedral become common ground
in an urban geography that is economically and culturally disjointed, a fact
that shows up on U.S. Census maps as multicolored islands of disparity and
difference? And, in an entertainment capital where diversions are many, will
the cathedral be as important to the vast majority of Southern Californians
as say, the Getty Center, or Staples Center, where nearly 18,000 fans come
out to cheer during each Lakers game?
In short, can the cardinal pull it off?
Infinite futures await this cathedral. "what are we going to do with it?"
asks Pam Haldeman, chair of the sociology department at Mount St. Mary's
College in Los Angeles. "The people involved are going to be so crucial. It
doesn't matter what it looks like in its form. The players, the actors, will
provide all of the meaning it has as a symbol in Los Angeles."
It will take more than heart-rending preaching, beautiful music, liturgical
excellence and ministries for the poor. In many ways, the degree to which
the new cathedral is embraced by Los Angeles will involve its
user-friendliness-everything from knowledgeable tour guides and the cost of
cathedral parking to the accessibility of the cathedra!
l conference center for groups interested in meeting there.
Daunting public relations challenges also lie ahead, among them the national
scandal over the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests and bishops, and
a controversy over the costly price of cathedral burial crypts that may
limit that last resting place to the rich and famous. Just getting people
downtown-teeming with commuters during the week but forsaken on weekends-can
be a challenge.
There will be precious little time to get all this right.
"The first six months are going to be really critical in setting the tone of
welcome and inclusion and engagement with the broader community," says
Stephen D. Rountree, executive vice president and chief operating officer of
the J. Paul Getty Trust, who played a key role in overseeing the building
and the opening of the Getty Center.
Mahony has a game plan right out of the Bible, a passage from Isaiah. Our
Lady of the Angels is to be "a house of prayer for all peoples," as is
inscribed on the cathedral's cornerstone.
Call it marketing or call it holy hospitality, it is an irreducible
commitment that Mahony says he will stress in his inaugural sermon, one he
has been writing since late last year. "It is really critical that it be a
place for all people, that everyone feel at home," he says. "I'm hopeful
that a lot of people who are not Catholic, in a way, will walk away and say,
'I belong here. This is for me also.' "
That's exactly what a Los Angeles cathedral must become if it is to appeal
to Southern California's rainbow population. Public relations missteps could
leave the impression that the cathedral is aloof or unconcerned with the
lives of most people. But the cathedral has a lot going for it. People of
all walks of life and beliefs want it to bind the city together, not as a
symbol of a great faith's triumphalism-which it may be in part-but as an
icon of civic unity."
Angelenos deeply want to experience community," Haldeman says. "We don't go
about our lives acting that way, but I think we're! less individualistic
than we pretend to be. When there are solidifying events such as the Lakers
winning the championship, there's a tremendous rally and a strong sense of
group. I think the potential is there. It just depends whether leaders bring
it out in us. Cathedrals and Staples type places can bring us together in a
heartbeat, or divide us."
To succeed, the cathedral must make real the welcome implicit in its art and
plaza-a quilt of symbolism honoring diversity, from its statues to its
iconography to the stone in its fountains. It should, in short, practice
what its symbolism preaches. The cathedral and plaza must become a
crossroads where rich and poor, housed and homeless, share common ground. It
should be a place where lovers meet, school children gawk and learn, friends
meet over coffee, and where seekers of transcendence or those who simply
want a break from daily routine may sit in the silence of one of 11 chapels,
or bask in natural light streaming into the cathedral proper through
towering clerestory windows of Spanish alabaster.
Mahony, who may think as often about marketing as miters, says he is aware
of the challenges. Few details have escaped his attention. Recently, he was
"amazed" to learn that the 10 parking spaces planned for tour buses next to
the cathedral may not be enough. He also thinks they learned a few things
from the Getty Center about toilets. After hearing of how the center had to
quickly add portable toilets to accommodate the crush of visitors in the
opening weeks, Mahony says the cathedral decided to build more restrooms.
There will be 2 ? hours of free parking for worshipers during Mass,
otherwise it's $2.50 for each 20 minutes with a $12 a day maximum.
The archdiocese is working closely with the Los Angeles Visitors and
Convention Bureau, and Msgr. Kevin Kostelnik, Mahony's longtime secretary
who has been named pastor of the cathedral, sits on the Central City Assn.
Mahony has even talked to the MTA about improved directional signs at the
Red Line Civic Center subway station pointing the way to the cathedral. For
the longer term, he has personally lobbied the state transportation
department to build a new offramp from the Harbor Freeway for better access
to the cathedral and the nearby Music Center and Walt Disney Concert Hall.
The offramp is at least four years away. The state says it will cost $25
million and that construction will begin in six years.
Just getting people to come downtown may be a formidable challenge. European
cathedrals were located in the heart of the city. They were a focal point of
civic life. Indeed, one reason they were so large was so they could
accommodate everyone in town when events called for it. The 3,000-seat Los
Angeles cathedral is not in the hub of the city but in one of many urban
hubs. While the number of central city residents in apartments and artists
lofts is growing, downtown remains for now a daytime city filled by
commuters.
On weekends, the government buildings that surround the cathedral are empty.
It's as if a neutron bomb had exploded, wiping out all the people while the
high-rise towers and government buildings remained intact. "The county
government buildings on weekends don't have life. They draw life away
because no one likes to be near a building that is empty," says Los Angeles
architect and urban designer Doug Suisman. What is needed, he says, is for
the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to commit "a great act of civic
generosity" and give up its private parking lot near the corner of Grand
Avenue and Temple Street so that a restaurant can be built. "
In medieval cities there were always a number of cafes, restaurants, even
bars, right near the cathedral. That adds to the feeling of a place to go
and to stay with the family," Suisman says. At the moment, there is a risk
that the cathedral with its enclosed plaza will come off as a sacred
precinct.
Los Angeles architect Barton Myers is even more critical. He says the
cathedral, the new Walt Disney Concert Hall downtown and the Getty Center in
Brentwood are each located in "isolated" areas that don't generate activity
around them. "That's hundreds of millions of dollars spent that doesn't
leverage hundreds of millions of dollars," Myers says. "That's the
disappointment of Los Angeles; we haven't been able to build the connections
the way we should have."
It will be important for private property owners, the city and the county to
follow through with plans they have talked about for five years to transform
Grand Avenue-which connects the financial district, the Museum of
Contemporary Art, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Music Center and
cathedral-into a landscaped, pedestrian-friendly promenade. Another phase
calls for development of shops, entertainment and restaurants.
Until then, the cathedral is not without attractions. The Cathedral
Conference Center, located across the plaza from the church, will have a
coffee shop and restaurant. Its conference rooms are similar to those
available at major downtown hotels. The conference center's second floor
seats 700 and the kitchen has the capacity to serve 1,000 meals. A number of
groups are meeting there even before the cathedral's dedication, among them
the Downtown Rotary Club. There are 600 underground parking spaces. Plans
are afoot for a food festival on the plaza.
At the same time, the cathedral hopes to leverage its location near the
Music Center and the Walt Disney Concert Hall to attract worshipers and
visitors. Indeed, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Esa-Pekka
Solonen, will perform at the cathedral on Sept. 27, followed by the Los
Angeles Master Chorale on Nov. 10. Also planned are recitals featuring the
cathedral's 6,019-pipe organ, including one in January 2003 by Samuel Soria,
who was organist at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago before coming to Our Lady
of the Angels as cathedral organist and assistant director of music.
"The mission of the place is to bring people together and to bring them
closer to God," says Frank Brownstead, the cathedral's director of music.
"Music is the thing that can most easily do that."
Cathedral officials also plan to coordinate evening prayer services with
events at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Music Center. Msgr. Kostelnik
thinks patrons may wish to stroll Cathedral Plaza or attend evening prayer
services before proceeding to concerts and plays a block or two away.
The city around the cathedral surely will change over the centuries, as did
the Pantheon in Rome that once stood remote and supreme but is now
surrounded by apartments and cafes. In time, Our Lady of the Angels could be
the center of life in this secular city. The more immediate and formidable
challenge will be shaping perceptions of the cathedral. What feelings will
stir visitors as they stand in the nave and look to the ceiling 10 stories
above them, or when they lift up their eyes to the 15-story bell tower from
which will eventually ring 18 bells heard for six miles. Will those feelings
bring us together?
Cardinal Mahony says the pealing of the bells in times of public joy, the
tolling of bells in times of public mourning, the daily ringing out to
invite the faithful to Mass will help connect the community that surrounds
the cathedral. "People are very used to seeing the cathedral now," Mahony
says, "but they're not used to hearing the cathedral. When the bells are in,
there will be many people who will not see the cathedral but will be touched
by it-people in the too many downtown prisons who can't see them but will
hear the bells, patients at the neighborhood hospitals, rest homes, people
who are lonely and can't leave their homes. The bells have their own way of
saying, 'Don't worry. Don't be concerned. God is nearby.' "
That's how the cardinal sees it. But cathedral art and architecture, even
the sound of bells, are merely suggestive. "It's sort of up now to L.A. to
create the meaning," says Sandra L. Harte, a sociology professor at Mount
St. Mary College.
The church's location in Los Angeles' principal business and government
power center may send mixed messages. On one hand, it s! peaks of a
commitment to the city. But in the eyes of some, among them the Catholic
Worker, a grass-roots activist group which serves the poor, the location and
the monumental size of the cathedral peg the cardinal as part of the power
structure.
At the cathedral's southwest corner at Grand and Temple stands the Music
Center. The Walt Disney Concert Hall is one block farther south, followed by
the Colburn School of Performing Arts, the Museum of Contemporary Art and
the financial district, with its towering high-rises. Two blocks to the
southeast is Los Angeles City Hall. The county supervisors' chambers are
directly across Temple from the cathedral. For the dispossessed and
marginalized-and perhaps many in the middle class-these cultural,
governmental and business venues may come off as centers of wealth, power
and privilege.
But downtown also is a melting pot where many cultures and income groups
work in close proximity. Within walking distance of the cathedral lie Little
Tokyo and Chinatown. Then there's Olvera Street-the historic core of Latino
Los Angeles-and the teeming Broadway commercial district, which largely
caters to Spanish-speaking shoppers. And if some people live in luxury
apartments and condos on Bunker Hill, others sleep beneath freeway
overpasses.
Within the downtown boundaries the cathedral will serve as a parish church,
the median household income is $14,193, according to an estimate this year
by Claritas Inc., which tracks demographic information. Nearly 53% of the
area's 26,811 residents earn less than $15,000 a year. Another 15% earn less
than $25,000 annually. The population reflects Southern California's ethnic
diversity, with Hispanics accounting for 32% of the downtown population, and
white non-Hispanics 18%. Another 22% are Asian, and 24% are black
non-Hispanics, according to an analysis of the 2000 U.S. Census."
Its [location] is making the statement that it's an urban cathedral," Harte
says. "The challenge will be, is it going to be a cathedral of power or a
cathedral of the people?"
Clearly, powerful people and corporations contributed the bulk of the
millions raised to build the church. Among the biggest contributors have
been Sir Daniel Donohue, head of the Dan Murphy Foundation,which contributed
the first $25 million, while the Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Foundation and
Rupert Murdoch's family foundation each gave $10 million. Other contributors
include Betsy Bloomingdale, Roy and Patty Disney, former Mayor Richard
Riordan, former Dodgers owner Peter O'Malley, Bob and Dolores Hope, the late
Lew Wasserman, chairman of Universal Studios, and the Times-Mirror
Foundation, which gave $500,000. By contrast, $1.5 million has been raised
so far from more than 5,200 individual donors who paid anywhere from $50 to
$5,000 to purchase 15,000 paving stones for the cathedral's floor. Many of
the contributors are everyday Catholics who want to be a part of history.
For a cathedral that is determined to be a house of prayer for all people,
money can be a sensitive issue. "One of the key questions will be their
relationship to the corporate community," says the Getty's Rountree, who was
one of the jurors on a panel that recommended José Rafael Moneo as the
cathedral's architect. "There is a lot of desire among the business
community to use and be seen at exciting new places like the Getty Center
and Disney Hall. Given some of the criticism about the cathedral and the
money that's been spent, I would think [the church] would want to think very
carefully about that."
Rountree adds that Mahony is well aware of the challenge. Anticipating that
the Getty Center could be seen as elitist, Rountree says the center launched
a marketing campaign focused on welcoming families, schools and community
groups. More than two years ago Mahony confidants asked Rountree's advice on
how the archdiocese could best manage a very public and very civic place.
Jeff Dietrich of the Catholic Worker, which runs a downtown soup kitchen and
works with the homeless, has criticized the cathedral project from the
beginning. He remains skeptical, despite the inauguration of Cathedral
Charities, a nascent program to help the homeless, work with youth and visit
jail inmates."
I just don't think this is going to be the centerpiece of the cathedral,"
Dietrich says. "I think the grand meeting place and the parking lot that
costs $15 is going to be the centerpiece, as well as the crypts in the
bottom of the cathedral. These clearly have much more focus than the social
justice aspects of the cathedral."
Sister Patricia Geoghegan, who has been named director of Cathedral
Charities, rejects that charge. "I appreciate the good the Catholic Worker
does, but I don't think they have that part of it right," says Geoghegan,
whose most recent assignment was working on nutrition programs for poor
children in Haiti. She has already lined up volunteers who are providing a
modest 75 lunches twice weekly for poor immigrants and the homeless who live
beneath bridges and overpasses. The meals are distributed by a nonprofit
organization known as Jovenes Inc., run by Father Richard Estrada, a
founding director. She also is lining up volunteers to visit prisons and
jails.
The effort pales in comparison to the extensive programs undertaken by more
established churches and groups, but it's a start. Geoghegan admits she has
virtually no budget and the bulk of the effort depends on volunteer help.
But no ministry, including the cathedral's music ministry, has its budget
yet. Earlier this year, the archdiocese was forced to trim its budget by $4
million and cut back staff because of the falling stock market, in which
Mahony says the archdiocese has long invested. Mahony "has a long history of
social work and caring for the poor," Geoghegan says. "The motivation is
purely the long-term motivation of the Catholic Church-to reach out to the
forgotten people."
The archdiocese's public relations acumen is already being tested by
controversy over the expected price of 1,300 crypts and 5,000 niches for
cremated remains in the cathedral undercroft. There is no price list yet,
but one knowledgeable church official said a $50,000 starting price for
crypts would not be unreasonable.
Recently, an archdiocesan spokesman bristled at a Times story that quoted an
unnamed theologian as calling the expensive crypts "the ecclesiastical
equivalent of a sky box." The fees will be placed in an endowment fund to
help meet the cathedral's operating costs. At this point, the archdiocese
won't even venture an estimate for the cathedral's annual operations budget,
and pleads that it will take a year of operations before anything is known.
It costs $3.5 million annually to maintain St. Patrick's Cathedral in New
York. Nationally, the average cathedral budget is $550,000.
The archdiocese continues to struggle with the protracted scandal over the
sexual abuse of minors by priests and bishops, and that is likely to cast a
shadow over the dedication of the cathedral, the most visible symbol of
Mahony's reign as archbishop of Los Angeles. The crisis so far has seen
investigations of 70 present or former Los Angeles priests, and while that
may be only a footnote in the history of a cathedral built to stand 300 to
500 years, how Mahony continues to respond will shape Southern California's
perception of him and the cathedral. "The man and the place are inextricably
connected," Haldeman says.
During an interview for this story, Mahony held up the cathedral as "a new
beginning." Later he elaborated on his remarks with an extended,
single-spaced e-mail-a sign of how seriously Mahony takes the scandal's
potential impact on his cathedral."
The claim that a church or cathedral has valid meaning only when it is built
and used by saints leaves most of us standing on the outside looking in," he
wrote. He turned the issue again to the issue of welcoming, the watchword of
the cathedral's marketing. "While saints and blessed are always welcome,
those who have failed and those who have sinned are particularly welcome.
The cathedral will achieve its greatest role precisely when, like Jes! us,
its arms/doors swing open wide for those most in need of God's mercy and
healing. What other public, civic or cultural facility in our community
offers forgiveness, healing and renewal?"
On Sept. 14, Mahony plans a solemn day of atonement at the cathedral for the
sexual abuse of minors. The nation's Catholic bishops, chastened by the
scandal, have committed themselves to such observances in their dioceses.
But the fact remains that by holding the Los Angeles ceremony in the new
cathedral, Mahony will be trying to position it not as a symbol of abuse but
as a champion for renewal. That, he insists, is what the new cathedral is
all about.
If architecture is idea made tactile, Our Lady of the Angels virtually
shouts the message that it is an ecclesiastical United Nations and a place
of welcome to all. Its bronze doors, designed by artist Robert Graham, are
emblazoned with icons of Mary and symbols of human virtues expressed through
the artistry of various cultures. There are Japanese signs of heaven, a
Hebrew depiction of the hand of God, a tai chi symbol for harmony, a dog to
symbolize loyalty, a peacock to symbolize resurrection, a Celtic evangelist,
a Croatian cross, a Samoan kava bowl. A winding grapevine, symbolizing the
church, curls around the symbols to bring unity to the whole.
Appropriate for a cathedral named after Mary, the doors' upper panels honor
various cultural representations of the mother of Jesus. There is Mexico's
Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Peruvian Virgin of Pomata, the Colombian Virgin
of Chiquinquira, Spain's Virgin of Montserrat and Our Lady of Loreto, to
name a few. Our Lady of the Angels is also Our Lady of Diversity writ large.
Crowning the doors is a life-size statue of Mary with outstretched arms.
Like Southern California, Graham's Mary breaks the conventional mold. No
veil covers her head. She is not wrapped in the swaddling clothes of
biblical times, but a full-length dress with billowing sleeves, suggestive
of Filipina attire. She could even pass as a personal trainer from the
Westside. She is youthful, with a feminine sinuousness and understated
athleticism. Her ethnicity? Latina? African American? Caucasian? She is a
woman for all people.
Inside the great nave, which is a foot longer than St. Patrick's Cathedral
in New York, rich tapestries depicting "the communion of saints" hang from
the adobe-colored walls. The faces of the saints recall everyday people seen
on the streets and byways of Southern California, along with familiar
historical renditions of exemplars such as St. Francis, with his circular
monk's haircut. In the ordinary faces of saints-children and youth, women
and men-the church hopes visitors will see intimations of themselves, and
their own potential to lead holier, fuller lives.
In the 2.5-acre plaza, a grand staircase beckons visitors from the sidewalks
below to an urban oasis of calm and beauty amid the hustle and bustle of Los
Angeles. There is a grove of olive trees and palms reminiscent of the Holy
Land. Even the fountains and waterfalls pay homage to Southern California's
diversity. One fountain in particular is a dramatic statement of solidarity
with Jews, a course the Roman Catholic Church set upon during Vatican II in
the mid-1960s and energetically pursued by Pope John Paul II, who in March
2000 visited the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. The $2.5-million fountain,
financed by a gift from an as yet anonymous Jewish couple from New York, is
inscribed in both Hebrew and English with words from ancient Jewish sages.
("Three pillars uphold the world; divine teaching, ethical service, and
loving kindness.") It is finished in Jerusalem stone shipped from Israel to
Los Angeles, which has the second-largest Jewish population in the nation.
Another fountain is engraved with Jesus' description of "living water."
There is a shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico."
The symbolic soul of the city is here," Cathedral Pastor Kolstelnik says.
"The cathedral stands as a sacred space. It is rising up as the opportunity
for people to get! most deeply in touch with themselves, most deeply in
touch with God." And perhaps with the city as well.
For the Catholic faithful, sharing the liturgy with their bishop in a
cathedral is a powerful sign of unity. There on the cathedra-the bishop's
throne-sits a successor of the apostles. To have a bishop place his hand on
your head in blessing is to be touched by a hand that was touched by a hand
that was touched by hands going back in time to the Apostle Peter, who was
touched by the hand of Christ. Powerful stuff, that.
A cathedral can be a unifier in the public square as well. In a city that
has seen its dark side in the riotous fires of injustice and hate, as well
as its good in everyday kindnesses and uncommon heroism, a cathedral can
stand as a beacon of universal values in the secular city. It can move and
motivate us to fulfill the promise of our most authentic humanity and common
good. It can encourage those things that are noble and just, and remind all
of the self-evident answer to the biblical question, "Who is my neighbor?"
But will it?
--
"A democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding on what to have for
lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the results of the
decision."
Benjamin Franklin