Vatican Honors Mahony’s Temple of Doom

by Christopher A. Ferrara

        One of the peculiar characteristics of the neo-Catholic mind is its refusal to see that the current chaos and collapse of faith and discipline in the Catholic Church have resulted not merely from a few local "abuses" but from major changes in the Church that have the explicit approval of the Vatican itself. I am not speaking here of changes in doctrine as such, for the Church could never formally repudiate Her own teaching. Rather, I mean changes in the Church’s "orientation" toward the world and other religions, in Her liturgy, in the rule of life in seminaries and convents, and a host of other prudential matters in which the human element of the Church is subject to the possibility of error.

        The neo-Catholic commentators who go on pretending that the Vatican has nothing to do with the post-conciliar "springtime," which is really darkest winter, now have another piece of evidence to explain away: the Vatican has honored and praised Cardinal Mahony’s ghastly new "cathedral," which His Phoniness dares to call the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. As reported by Catholic News Service on July 17, 2003, "The Vatican has recognized Los Angeles' new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels as one of the largest and most significant Christian churches in the world. Less than a year after the $200 million cathedral's Sept. 2 dedication, officials at St. Peter's Basilica have added the cathedral's name to 29 others along St. Peter's central aisle. The churches' names are laid out in the marble floor of the world's largest church according to their relative interior length…"

        That’s right: less than a year after Mahony’s temple of doom was completed, the Vatican has written in stone on the very floor of St. Peter’s Basilica its praise for the "historical and cultural importance" of a "cathedral" that even neo-Catholic newspapers like the Wanderer have denounced as an outrage. And this is not just some routine recognition of the structure on account of its sheer size. As CNS points out (based on the statements of an unnamed Vatican official): "While church size is one of the factors that basilica officials consider — requests must be for churches that are at least 330 feet long — the approval process focuses primarily on the structure's historical and cultural importance and on the significance of the local church community it serves."

        Oh yes, they really thought it over very carefully at the Vatican before they decided to bestow the honor on that ugly heap of concrete. They knew exactly what they were doing. And they knew quite well that in so doing they were also honoring a prelate whose reign has been marked by the total devastation of traditional Roman Catholicism in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Indeed, the whole world knows that at this very moment Mahony the Phony is stonewalling a police investigation into the vast nest of homosexual predators he has been protecting for years.

        Now I have seen Mahony’s monstrosity of a "cathedral" with my own two eyes. If one were to remove the portable wood block cross (painted white) from the so-called "nave" of this so-called "cathedral," one would have absolutely no idea that the place has anything to do with divine worship. Its design — without an altar, stained glass or sacred images — is indistinguishable from an ultramodern concert hall or large auditorium. The massive table Mahony installed in the middle of the "nave" instead of a proper altar is a real tourist magnet: people cannot resist running their hands over it or posing for photographs while leaning upon it. The "baptismal font" so closely resembles a wishing well that a sign is posted warning tourists not to throw coins into it. And, in a "cathedral" purportedly dedicated to Our Lady, the only shrine to Her is found outside in a public courtyard, consigned to a niche in the wall. Even more outrageous, Our Lord Himself, in the Blessed Sacrament, is consigned to a side room near an exit sign, where they have placed Him in something that looks like a badly dented, upright metal coffin.

        As I walked through the "cathedral" I overheard a tour guide proudly explain that there is not a single right angle in the entire structure. That is, the design is deliberately out-of-kilter. Like the devil himself, the designers of this "cathedral" abhor the order and precision of the rectilinear shape. Mahony’s twisted "cathedral" is the perfect metaphor for the state of the post-conciliar Church.

        What will the Wanderer and other organs of neo-Catholic opinion say now that the Vatican itself has bestowed a singular honor on Mahony’s grotesque monument to himself? As usual, they will observe a studious silence concerning the Vatican’s approval of atrocities they are quite ready to condemn at the local level.

        Here is yet another object lesson that the current crisis in the Church emanates from the top down. Yet the same neo-Catholic establishment that assures us that Fatima is finished, continues to pretend that Rome has nothing to do with the post-conciliar debacle. Even when the Vatican puts its approval of the debacle in stone, on the very floor of St. Peter’s basilica, the neo-Catholics continue to deny reality. And so it goes, some forty years into the "springtime of Vatican II."