$190m Oakland Cathedral Most Expensive Ever

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According to the Oakland Tribune, the city’s rising Cathedral of Christ the Light complex is “the most expensive in American history.” The complex, which includes the nuclear reactor-like church itself, chapels, a plaza, a mausoleum, a conference center, diocesan offices, “gathering places,” and Bishop Allen Vigneron’s residence, is currently running about $190 million – $10 million more than the Los Angeles archdiocese’s Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, which opened in 2002.
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Link to article.

Hmm… about all I can say for it is that 1) I haven’t seen it, and 2) it is not quite as monstrous as the Taj Mahoney.

Actually, I have heard from people close to the project that it has the siren-like ability to win its critics over once they’ve experienced the aura of its “light”-ness, or whathaveyou, so I suppose I’ll reserve judgment until I’ve seen the completed structure. Still, though, you could build a LOT of cathedral for $190 million, if you don’t have to pay for avant-garde architecture. Not only that, but whose going to clean all that glass? :o

Bishop Vigneron (well regarded on these forums, FWIW) admirably musters his best theological defense of the structure here.

As I understand it, Vigneron only arrived in Oakland in 2003, so it looks like he’s inherited the project and is trying to make the most of it.

Cathedral website.
 
Hmm, saying that it’s an improvement on LA’s Cathedral isn’t saying much at all :nope:

And I presume acres of glass would be no more difficult to clean than the acres of marble, stone, concrete, or whatever else could have been in its place … 🤷
 
What is so wrong about the LA Cathedral? It’s quite a liturgical space in my opinion.
 
$190 million for a Protestant looking space, during a time of great pain and turmoil in the Church?
 
Well, I hope they don’t get earthquakes there. Otherwise that…that…cathedral…:confused:…will fall apart.

I hope they have insurance.
 
Tom317 said:
$190 million for a Protestant looking space, during a time of great pain and turmoil in the Church?
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I’ve read the theology…what is protestant about the space?

Is it only a church if it is made of stone and lets no light in from the outside?
 
frommi said:
I’ve read the theology…what is protestant about the space?

Is it only a church if it is made of stone and lets no light in from the outside?
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It is Protestant in look and appearance. I realize they try to explain its theological foundations, yet the pictures reveal a cold space without any reflection of the sacred. Light from the outside is a good thing, yet there are fundamentals of the faith that should be utterly obvious to any Catholic walking into the space, they should have to “figure out” what certain spaces mean or teach.
 
frommi said:
I’ve read the theology…what is protestant about the space?

Is it only a church if it is made of stone and lets no light in from the outside?
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The mere fact that they are spending $190 million is disgusting in this day. The Church has so many parishes closing, schools in trouble, poor people who need help, and they are tossing a 1/5+ of a billion on an ugly Protestant-looking facility (it is hard to for me to call it anything but a facility). Plus, there is no way $190mil will be the end number, it will rise as with all projects.

IMO, this project is simply a reflection of what is wrong in the United States Catholic Churches, they are reflecting the culture, not leading the culture.
 
frommi said:
OK…can you be a little more specific without resorting to oddball catchphrasing here?
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I am of course referring to this irredeemably hideous statue which I believe stands over the main doors of Our Lady of the Angels … and supposedly represents Our Lady herself. I can only imagine what SHE thinks of something so ugly.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
LilyM said:
I am of course referring to this irredeemably hideous statue which I believe stands over the main doors of Our Lady of the Angels … and supposedly represents Our Lady herself. I can only imagine what SHE thinks of something so ugly.
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Sooo…basically…if artwork is going to depict Mary…it has to do so only under the terms of the artists who put her in an all blue veil with white skin?

We don’t have any pictures of Mary…so it seems to me that, in theory, she could be quite happy with the depiction…if it actually looks like her.
 
frommi said:
Sooo…basically…if artwork is going to depict Mary…it has to do so only under the terms of the artists who put her in an all blue veil with white skin?

We don’t have any pictures of Mary…so it seems to me that, in theory, she could be quite happy with the depiction…if it actually looks like her.
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I’ve never really had a problem with the bronze doors on the cathedral, but rather with the statue above them – if someone didn’t tell me that it was the Virgin, I would have no idea – it looks like a man.
 
Tom317 said:
It is Protestant in look and appearance. I realize they try to explain its theological foundations, yet the pictures reveal a cold space without any reflection of the sacred. Light from the outside is a good thing, yet there are fundamentals of the faith that should be utterly obvious to any Catholic walking into the space, they should have to “figure out” what certain spaces mean or teach.
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I don’t get it…how do you obviously represent the fundementals of the faith through architecture?

Do you want a woman getting an color ultrasound at the entrance to show us that life begins at conception?
 
frommi said:
I don’t get it…how do you obviously represent the fundementals of the faith through architecture?

Do you want a woman getting an color ultrasound at the entrance to show us that life begins at conception?
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Through stained glass depictions, statues that actually depict saints and holy events, tabernacles that look as if they should house or Lord, altars that look like a place to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in other words a Catholic Church should contain the elements of the Catholic family and of the Catholic faith in a way that is obvious and not at all hard to discern. Walking into a Catholic Church should be a learning experience and the entire structure should oooze sacredness.
 
Tom317 said:
Through stained glass depictions, statues that actually depict saints and holy events, tabernacles that look as if they should house or Lord, altars that look like a place to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in other words a Catholic Church should contain the elements of the Catholic family and of the Catholic faith in a way that is obvious and not at all hard to discern. Walking into a Catholic Church should be a learning experience and the entire structure should oooze sacredness.
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So…being surrounded by God’s creation in a space that will be consecrated to worship him somehow doesn’t cut it unless we have a statue of the Sacred Heart poorly placed somewhere in the middle of the sanctuary?
 
frommi said:
So…being surrounded by God’s creation in a space that will be consecrated to worship him somehow doesn’t cut it unless we have a statue of the Sacred Heart poorly placed somewhere in the middle of the sanctuary?
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It cuts it.
 
frommi said:
So…being surrounded by God’s creation in a space that will be consecrated to worship him somehow doesn’t cut it unless we have a statue of the Sacred Heart poorly placed somewhere in the middle of the sanctuary?
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Let me try to put this another way.

Just getting by is NOT what we are supposed to be going after. Sure, that Cathedral will be consecrated, Masses wil be said, all the usual things will happen there; however, it could have been done so much better in terms of the faith, in terms of lifting souls to Christ, in terms of a teaching experience for every eprson walking through the doors.

All one needs to do is to think about that Cathedral and St. Peter’s in Rome. Which “building” gives most people a larger feeling of the sacred? Which structure teaches and points us to God without needing a facility manual to learn what a given “light spire” might mean?

Being Catholic is to be part of a family–the family of God! Catholic structures have displayed that sense of family for most of its history…until recently, when we have seen so many ungly, cold, unfeeling structures that seem to be built to glorify people, not God.
 
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