HOT TOPICS: Cardinal Mahony’s controversial Cathedral  The Poor Church of the Rich and the Rich Church of the Poor   Where Have All the Real Saints Gone?   The Poor Church of the Rich and the Rich Church of the Poor Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D. Published in The Remnant, March 15, 2000; Daily Catholic website, April 26, 2001 A draft of the new Los Angeles cathedral. Cost is estimated at around $200 million. It fell to the fourth Archbishop of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahony, to realize Southern California’s goal of some ninety years to build a new Cathedral. Since Pius X gave his permission in 1904 for the Spanish-style Cathedral of St. Vibiana’s to be replaced, various sites were chosen and attempts made to begin the project. Therefore, when plans were unveiled last year for the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles, there was the normal expected applause from the normal in-tune-with-the-times civil leaders and diocesan sycophants. After all, this would be one of the largest cathedrals in the United States, only slightly smaller than New York’s St. Patricks, and would be designed by a Pulitzer Prize wining architect imported from Spain. After all, it would have space for 3,000 “congregants” and a 3-acre plaza, a conference center, a residence for the Cardinal, and a 600-car underground garage. After all, with a price tag of close to $200 million, making it the nation’s most expensive Catholic cathedral, it would surely be a great work of art, the best money could buy. But the simple soul imbued with the Catholic spirit needs only a quick look at the plans for the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels to see the truth of the matter. Like the innocent boy in the fairy tale who watched the pompous cortege parading in the streets around its king bedecked in new expensive royal robes, he calls out: “But the Emperor has no clothes.” It is a naked cathedral, devoid of sacrality and the Catholic spirit. In short, it is a pagan edifice. A building or work of art is not Catholic by the simple fact of bearing the name on a placard outside. The soul that breathes in the work of art must be Catholic, illuminating all that it touches. The spirit that inspired the exterior of this gigantic concrete building can justly be called extravagant, but certainly not Catholic. There is no unity, no harmony, no coherence. It looks as if a California earthquake had already struck the area, distorting the building and throwing its blocks in all directions. The interior: A convention hall or a place of worship? Cost is estimated at around $200 million. The most striking factor about the interior of the new “Cathedral of Lights” is its total failure to achieve its ultimate aim. A cathedral is above and beyond all else superbly attuned to the worship of God. It provides a climate of meditation and calm, and offers a place for man to fall on his knees, the noblest position of worship for a human being. Mahony’s barren cathedral completely lacks the atmosphere of recollection necessary for prayer. There are benches, but no kneelers. The table at the front is the only sign that this might be the place for a Mass to be said, but even then it might just as well be a pamphlet table for some immense new convention hall. The light entering the alabaster windows breaks into an interior with a single undefined earth tone with tinges of yellow and orange, producing a depressing impression of a desert. There are no visible side altars sheltering the Crucifix, Our Lady, the angels and the saints, and no religious symbols to be seen anywhere. (A curious detail: the very name cathedral signifies the church that has the Bishop’s cathedra, or chair, the symbol of his power to govern, teach and sanctify. Yet there is no noticeable cathedra for this strange “cathedral.”) Another egalitarian feature: there is no clear division between the supposed presbytery (the area with the “altar”) and the part that is occupied by the faithful. Even the organ is not ordered by a monarchic principle. The pipes that normally rise heavenward in a kind of gothic arch have been rearranged to form what looks like a broken Y. It is a fundamentally inconsistent building in view of the traditional rules that have governed the construction of a church: an area exclusively for the faithful, an area for the clergy to carry out the sacred rites, and the “Sancta Sanctorum” – the Tabernacle – the place for Our Lord in the Eucharist. In short, from the outside, it is a monstrous edifice, and from the inside, a pagan one. It is a cathedral clearly intended to portray a desacralized and poor church. Alas! Such an incredible sum of money to produce such a monument of incoherence and miserablism. This is the price of some of the false ideals of the Conciliar Church. This is a building designed to welcome the pan-religionist and relativist man of the 21st century, but not God. One can not even find the Tabernacle, which used to crown the main altar and dominate the sanctuary of every Catholic church. Near the end of the Gospel of John, Mary Magdalene discovers the empty tomb of Christ, runs to the disciples and says to them “They have taken away the Lord, and we know not where they have laid him!” Searching for the unrecognizable and abandoned Tabernacle in the new cathedral, the faithful of Cardinal Mahony’s diocese must feel much the same way. * San Antonio de Padua Mission, an authentic representation of the Catholic spirit. What a world of difference between the disjointed Los Angeles Cathedral and this simple but noble San Antonio de Padua Mission Church in Monterey County, California. This mission church, the third one founded by Fr. Serra in 1771, has been completely restored, with little that different from the mission days. The church is well known for its simple but charming campanario, or bell holder, located directly in front, the bells hanging in the wall over the arches. How different from the extravagent and unrecognizable bell tower of the new Los Angeles cathedral! This mission church was certainly not expensive, but it was nonetheless beautiful, and endures today as an authentic representation of a region and a people. The interior of San Juan Bautista mission (built in 1797) is the largest of the California mission churches, the only one with three iseles. It is neither lavish nor splendorous. But its noble simplicity and ordered beauty reflect well the exalted function for which it was built: worship. A sacral spirit invites those who enter to repose, meditation, prayer, and above all, to adore Our Lord in the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass and in the Eucharist. The characteristic mission frontispiece forming the main altar shelters images of Our Lady and the saints. Over the altar and Tabernacle, the crucified Christ reminds us of the Man of Sorrows who took upon Himself the sins of all and inspires contrition. San Juan Bautista Mission, 1797 In simplicity, a majesty turned toward God. The Missions San Antonio de Padua and San Juan Baptista, like all the California Mission Churches, were forced to a certain simplicity given the situation of Spain’s dwindling resources and commitments to projects in the New World. Nonetheless, it is clear that they are imbued with the wealth and munificence of the Catholic spirit, which marks even the most simple of her edifices. The new Los Angeles Cathedral has a price tag of almost $170 million, but it is a pathetically poor church, a church stripped of her rich and glorious liturgy, symbols and heritage, a church that speaks the impoverished common language of a secularized world. The small two-centuries-old Mission Churches obviously cost much less to construct, but they are remarkably rich Churches, replete with Catholic symbols and spirit, that continues to this day to speak the sublime language of spiritual serenity and sacrality. * * *   Where Have All the Real Saints Gone? Marian Therese Horvat, Ph.D. Published in The Remnant, March 31, 2000. Since Vatican II, progressivists have been trying to replace the idea of a hierarchical and sacral Church with the notion of the “people of God.” Even though the expression “people of God” can in fact be legitimately applied to the Catholic Church, there is an egalitarian tendency today to use this term to present the structure of the Church predominantly as a people - and no longer as a hierarchy. The Church as the people of God is the ecclesiological concept that Christ is “really present” only in the communities of the faithful. “We are on a journey, on a pilgrimage, individually and as the People of God, away from darkness and sin to the saving light of Christ. Our cathedral design captures well that principle of spiritual journey,” said Cardinal Roger Mahony about the new Los Angeles Cathedral. Artist John Navas with his tapestry of the “people of God,” a parade of vulgarity. This is expressed in a tapestry that will line the cathedral wall, where the “people of God” also become a “communion of saints,” which also takes on a new meaning. Father Richard Vosko, public art consultant hired by Cardinal Mahony for his extravagant cathedral, give today’s common explanation that the communion of saints is present “whenever a church gathers to bless and thank God in the eucharistic liturgy .… After all, what is the church if not an assembly of saints. The Communion of Saints is the church” ("Tapestries of Faith,” The Tidings, 11/12/1999, pp. 14-15). The “people of God as the communion of saints” is the theme of the immense tapestry work planned for the “poor” new Los Angeles cathedral. But the 133 “saints” who will appear on the tapestry are not traditional canonized saints, raised to the altar because of their heroic practice of virtue. They are the “everyday saints,” as the artist John Nava calls them, people of various ages and colors, lined up without distinction along with a few canonized saints like St. Peter and, of course, Mary Magdalen. The flesh-toned figures draped in white togas all line an otherwise flat and undecorated wall. These figures will embody “the essence of the optimistic and life-affirming view of humans,” Nava said (ibid.). And so now, this expensive, modern cathedral will replace the traditional altars of the saints with this grand tapestry of the assembly of human persons, the everyday man. “We who are the church are also all saints,” the tapestry seems to announce, echoing the Protestant heresy on the very walls of a supposedly Catholic cathedral. A final false note. The 700 yards of fresco-like tapestries will not be “real” tapestries. The depictions will be transferred via computer code in a color-by-number way onto thread that will be woven on giant looms to produce the “tapestries.” The computer-created images will allow the work to be finished in two years instead of the decade it would take if the tapestries were woven by hand. Thus, we now have false tapestries of false saints for a false cathedral. Not surprisingly, the price tag for this modern travesty is not small: the cathedral is estimated to cost the Los Angeles people of God close to $170 million. For those of us who cherish memories of making little visits to side altars, setting requests at the foot of a favorite saint, making novenas and burning candles, this tapestry of “saints” is one of the most distasteful aspects of the new cathedral. Yes, the next generation of “feel-good” Catholics may feel very comfortable looking at the walls and finding young people who look just like themselves, but it will be impossible to develop devotions and supernatural relationship with this conglomerate of everyday people. Where will they find their patron saints, the personal links to heaven that draw it just a little closer to earth, the ideal models that nourish and cultivate heroism and sanctity? * The history of Christian Civilization used to be presented in the cathedrals by the lives of saints. The windows, statues and walls of the churches proclaimed that since the coming of Christ, the truly great men and women are the saints. Further, they were not heroes without any links to us; they were our intercessors and patrons. When a child was baptized, he normally received the name of a saint, who became his patron and model. Thereafter, he did not celebrate his birthday, but his saint’s day. When he grew up and entered a trade and guild, a new saint welcomed him. If he were a tanner, he had St. Bartholomew (who was flayed alive); for shoemakers there was St. Crispin, for beggars St. Alexis, for goldsmiths St. Eloy. At times the medieval imagination would stretch itself to embrace some favorite saint in charming ways: For example, the carpenters, whose work included making the tabernacles in which the ciboriums were placed, chose St. Anne as patron, on the grounds that she had made the first of tabernacles, the Blessed Virgin Mary who bore within her the Son of God. Mary Magdalen, who had poured a jar of precious perfume over Our Lord’s feet, was patroness of perfume-sellers. St. Julian, who had not refused to receive lepers, became the patron of innkeepers. Kings had St. Louis IX and his cousin St. Ferdinand III, popes had St. Gregory VII and St. Leo the Great, and knights turned to St. George. Even the lawyers were able to find a model ideal, although the hymn sung in St. Ives’ honor reveals a good humored surprise that would surely be echoed today: Advocatus et non latro, res miranda populo (A lawyer and not a thief, A truly marvelous thing!) The list could go on and on. Each region, each profession, every trade was represented by a saint deemed worthy to sit at the right hand of God. People were moved to admire and emulate the virtues, prayer life, exploits, and sacrifices not of the everyday man, but of men who were superior to the man of the street. The artists and sculptors who sought to represent them tried to show the different virtues on each face, to depict a soul, not a cold abstraction. It is no wonder that the figures of the saints fill so large a place in the traditional Catholic churches, why so many windows and side altars are dedicated to them. The people never tired of seeing their protectors and supernatural friends, for they felt on more familiar terms with them than with many of their own family and earthly friends. How many of our own pre-Vatican II churches were representative of this same spirit of intimacy and veneration. St. Louis, King of France, in the Cathedral of St. Louis, MO Consider, for example, this magnificent statue of St. Louis IX in the Cathedral of St. Louis in Missouri. St. Louis the King of France is first and foremost the great defender of the Church and the Catholic Faith. A magnificent model ideal for boys and young men who dream of wielding swords and fighting the enemies of Holy Mother Church in the Crusades. However, here he bears the Crown of Thorns, more precious to him than his own earthly crown since it was the crown worn by the King of Kings, the Savior of Mankind. All his life, St. Louis had a special devotion to the Crown of Thorns and Passion of Our Lord. He built the magnificent Saint Chapelle in Paris to house three Thorns from the Crown Our Lord wore in the Passion. He knew well that the obligations of leadership were to be understood as sacrifice: to rule meant that he was obliged to carry the weight of the kingship and to always sacrifice his own personal tastes to represent the needs and desires of his subjects. Today we have lost the idea of this elevated conception of sacrifice. Many of our age assume that a man should place wealth and power at his own service and pleasure. This is completely different from the notion born from Christian Civilization in the Age of Faith. Obviously, a man like Saint Louis was able to order the highest lords of France, but simultaneously he chose to serve the most humble of men, which he used to do once a year, when he personally used to serve at a table of the poor of Paris. This very Catholic tradition was called the Feast of Deposuit, in a reference to the Magnificat of Our Lady, when She sang: Deposuit potentes de sede et exaltavit humiles (He hath put down the mighty from their seat and exalted the humble). To rule was to serve, to embrace the Cross, and this model-ideal ever after remained for all earthly rulers. * Cardinal Mahony announced that his goal is to make a cathedral “that will last for 500 years.” I would suggest that he look to models from the past, the great magnificent cathedrals of Europe that have attracted and charmed Catholic souls for centuries. And, instead of a tapestry of everyday people, why not representations of the real saints whose lives still have meaning and can inspire the everyday man? These are not “dead” images of a superstitious past that need to be buried as the Church continues on her path of evolution in history, as progressivist theologians have proposed. No, indeed, for as the saying goes, there is more true life in the saints than in any other men.   Hot Topics Main Page  |  Home Page  |  Contact Us ©2002 Tradition In Action, Inc. All Rights Reserved