"Crystal Cathedral" to become an actual Catholic Cathedral?

[ElToro]

To the OP you just never -]seize/-] cease to amaze me. BTW did you mean that you want them to get rid of the organ?

Noooooooo, I would not get rid of that pipe organ! It wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that pipe organ might become the single finest pipe organ in ANY Catholic edifice in the WORLD if the sale were to go through. Think about that for a moment. Los Angeles has a WORLD CLASS Hobson pipe organ and it’s not in the same league as this one.

I wouldn’t even attempt to move it. I do lament its location within the structure however and I would certainly relocated the keyboard console.

 

[ElToro]

Is it me or does anyone else think that 50 mil could be used on Catholic schools? Saving old churches? Maybe paying for retirement for priest? I don’t know just seems the money could be better spent, but then again who can deny a jumbo-tron and a glass building? Now all we need is a concession stand.

No matter what it might be, someone always asks the question you are asking – mainly because they do not like what is being purchased. Sorry but no sale.

I really can’t think of anything more important than a structure that allows Catholics to come together to celebrate the sacraments. What could be more important than being present at calvary and adoring God? That includes each and everything you mentioned.

 

[ElToro]

The current cathedral, Holy Family, wasn’t designed to serve in that function. It originally was a parish church which was “promoted” when the Diocese of Orange was formed in 1976. I have not been there, so can’t say for sure, bu I’ve read that it is considered to inadequate both in size and in facilities. The cost of building a new cathedral, from scratch is estimated to be around $100 million so buying the Crystal Cathedral would actually free up money for other uses.

The history of explosive growth in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles (of which OC was a part) is remarkable.

The highly gifted (and famously abrasive) Msgr. Benjamin Hawkes ran finance and operations under Cardinals McIntyre and Manning in LA for many years. I think the largest number of parishes opened in a single year was 18. Eighteen! Imagine doing that today and in the Archdiocese of LA there still is that kind of demand – it just no longer gets filled (with priests and buildings) is all. They just keep adding Masses to existing parishes for the most part.

Msgr. Hawkes had it down to a science. Once a need for a new parish was verified, the archdiocese would buy the land, build a multi-use auditorium-like stucture and 4-8 classrooms and a parking lot. This would be a “gift” to the new parish. It would be up to the parish to raise the funds for what we think of as a formal “church” where the multi-use auditorium would then be used as a parish hall. Drive around the old bounds of the archdiocese. Some parishes build magnificent churches (often with plans provided by the archdiocese) while other parishes still have 5-6 Masses each Sunday in the same old multi-purporse rooms that have now been outfitted as churches. That’s how OC’s “cathedral” came about.

There is one such parish near me. Just about the time the parish would have thought about raising money to begin building their church on their huge lot (it was about 10 years old at the time), a new pastor came on board. The parish has remained stagmant for 35 years under this one pastor. He retires next year and the parish is now going to become a mission under my own parish as he really drove it into the ground.

One day though, I expect a beautiful church to be built on that property…

 

[archangel04]

No matter what it might be, someone always asks the question you are asking – mainly because they do not like what is being purchased. Sorry but no sale.

I really can’t think of anything more important than a structure that allows Catholics to come together to celebrate the sacraments. What could be more important than being present at calvary and adoring God? That includes each and everything you mentioned.

Intersting but those are the same questions and arguments people who dislike bringing more beuty to a parish like a stone altar, stained glass with actual images, and a nice tabernacle, use all the time. So I figure why not apply it here, it goes both ways, no?

 

[EasterJoy]

Is it me or does anyone else think that 50 mil could be used on Catholic schools? Saving old churches? Maybe paying for retirement for priest? I don’t know just seems the money could be better spent, but then again who can deny a jumbo-tron and a glass building? Now all we need is a concession stand.

Well, yes…that would be the $50 million they’re going to save by obtaining a church that seats over 2,500 without building from scratch: $50 million for the Crystal Cathedral vs. at least $100 million for the previously-proposed new cathedral of a similar size.

The question then becomes “why isn’t the current cathedral good enough?” Well, because the population of the diocese is such that a church that holds 850 is too small for the principal liturgies that the bishop presides over. If you get to the point where you have to celebrate ordinations in a some secular sports arena instead of in the actual cathedral, if the cathedral parish has grown by leaps and bounds since the time five years ago when it was already bursting at the seams, then yes, a new building is in order.

 

[ElToro]

Intersting but those are the same questions and arguments people who dislike bringing more beuty to a parish like a stone altar, stained glass with actual images, and a nice tabernacle, use all the time. So I figure why not apply it here, it goes both ways, no?

It would of course depend on the setting/building but “a parish like a stone altar, stained glass with actual images, and a nice tabernacle” don’t always equate to added “beauty.”

Actually it doesn’t go “both ways.” We are talking about money that has been raised to build a cathedral. That money was not raised at the expense of feeding the homeless or doing the things you mentioned. The things you mentioned also aren’t more important than the things I mentioned.

 

[ElToro]

Well, yes…that would be the $50 million they’re going to save by obtaining a church that seats over 2,500 without building from scratch: $50 million for the Crystal Cathedral vs. at least $100 million for the previously-proposed new cathedral of a similar size.

The question then becomes “why isn’t the current cathedral good enough?” Well, because the population of the diocese is such that a church that holds 850 is too small for the principal liturgies that the bishop presides over. If you get to the point where you have to celebrate ordinations in a some secular sports arena instead of in the actual cathedral, if the cathedral parish has grown by leaps and bounds since the time five years ago when it was already bursting at the seams, then yes, a new building is in order.

The actual answer is that a cathedral was never constucted for the new OC Diocese. As someone else pointed out an inadequte parish church was simply given the title.

Talk to old Catholic sages who have been around forever in LA and they’ll probably say that the common wisdom suggested there was going to be a Diocese of San Fernando (from Santa Maria to the south end of the San Fernando Valley) before the Diocese of OC and that’s why St. Francis de Sales Parish exists in Sherman Oaks.