I was going to comment at length on the new Cathedral in L.A. but I think these bloggers and pundits have it covered. I do have a few original thoughts, though. Please, gentle readers, have a gander at this whole post before you go bonkers with these links.
Mark Sullivan makes it very clear what he thinks. The photos are not to be missed. Cue dancing nuns – activate smoke, err, incense machine. . .
What strikes one from the pictures is the starkness of the place, which is, of course, part and parcel of the modern sensibility. Why? Because we are, even as Church, deeply uncertain about everything and reluctant to hang our hat on the hook called “Truth.” This fear ties our hands. We are afraid to impose, afraid to offend, afraid to ascertain anything as true and worth communicating to others, present and future. So we are left with starkness, broken only by artwork that expresses our ethnic and cultural diversity. We don’t know who God is, and even if we do, we are afraid to tell the world anything interesting or compelling about Him, so we build a Church that expresses exactly that.
How profound and true! Jesus said, “For if they do these things when the wood is
green, what is going to happen when it’s dry?” This is what we do when the wood is dry. Don’t miss the comments on Amy’s site.
George Neumayr from The American Prowler. Ouch. Here’s a snippet but do read the whole thing.
Eli Broad, a non-Catholic developer and Democratic Party godfather who helped finance the cathedral , calls it “architecture for the ages.” Many Catholics, when they look up at the tapestries on the walls depicting people in sneakers and birkenstocks, will wonder if it can last even a generation as a Catholic building.
Tapestries with people wearing sneakers and birkenstocks? How transcendant! So new it’s old!
Dom Bettinelli has several posts including this one that says the inside of the Cathedral looks like something out of the movie Stargate.
Gerard Serafin has tons of pictures here and here.
I will add only one thing – since the dedication Our Lord is residing there in body, blood, soul and divinity. Let’s not forget that.