Angelus News | August 2-9, 2019 | Vol. 4 No. 27

The monochrome sanctuary and Hazel White organ during the dedication Mass July 17.
COURTESY DIOCESE OF ORANGE
the interior has the look and feel of an
airline terminal, it took me a minute
to realize we were in the actual
cathedral.
All pale marble and limestone, the
monochrome sanctuary’s dominant
feature consists of 11,000 silver-white
quatrefoils — triangular metal “sails,”
that cost $6 million and completely
line the geometrically precise walls
and ceiling. Even the renowned Hazel
White organ, with its 16,000 pipes,
has been painted white.
Donning a cherry-red ball gown,
“America’s Got Talent” star Jackie
Evancho kicked off the concert, the
first ever in this sacred space, with
“Some Enchanted Evening.”
Needless to say, it took a while to get
my bearings. Finally I realized, oh
THERE are the vaunted baldacchino,
the bishop’s chair, and the “crux gemmata”
(“jewelled cross”) inlaid with
precious jewels.
Originally designed by Philip Johnson
of the “Chippendale Dresser”
AT&T Building fame, the cathedral
received its makeover from Scott
Johnson of the LA firm Johnson Fain.
There are some lovely touches: the
20-foot bronze entry doors; the bas-relief
Stations of the Cross, also bronze,
by Bolivian artist Pablo Eduardo (with
more work by him to come). The 34-
acre campus houses six other buildings,
including one each by Richard
Neutra and Richard Meier.
The cathedral alone, along with the
adjacent 236-foot mirrored spire, really
deserves a separate trip and several
hours.
And to be fair, as airline terminals
go, this one is transcendent. Since the
cost of tearing down the building and
new construction would have been
prohibitive, the diocese had to work
with what it had. Our own Auxiliary
Bishop Robert Barron imagines the
new cathedral as “a vibrant center of
evangelization.”
But the attempt to turn a Protestant
televangelist megachurch designed
by a maverick postmodernist into a
Catholic cathedral was bound to generate
a certain amount of blowback.
Los Angeles Times architecture critic
Christopher Hawthorne, for example,
describes the renovation as having
“far more in common with the nearby
Mattherhorn at Disneyland, the
Biosphere in Arizona or the domes
of Buckminster Fuller than with any
cathedral in Europe.”
I guess it all depends on perspective.
In my mind, a church should be
hushed, with a gloomy corner or two,
and the merciful twilight of a convalescent
home. A church needs imagery,
however high or low, that speaks
of consecrated time and space; of a
world beyond this one; of sin, redemption,
eternity, and sacrificial love.
With all that, the Catholic novelist
Flannery O’Connor observed that the
Mass involves the same act if it’s said
out of a suitcase in a boiler room or at
St. Peter’s in Rome. That’s what will
bring the cathedral alive: Mass, and us
rank-and-file members of the faithful.
As St. Ambrose observed, “The
Church is beautiful in her saints.”
A saint would remember, as I should
more often, that people who live in
glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. A
saint would kneel before the altar, any
altar, and ask, along with Elizabeth,
“Who am I, that the mother of our
Lord should come to me?”
Dinner was splendid. The staff,
our host, and our table companions
couldn’t have been warmer or more
fun. Jamie and I were both honored
to have been invited and thoroughly
enjoyed the evening.
Plus now that I have a fancy dress,
I’m all set for the next bash.
Heather King is a blogger, speaker and the author of several books.
August 2-9, 2019 • ANGELUS • 33