ARTICLES
July/August 1997 ARTICLESLETTERS
Contents © 1997
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
St. Vibiana's Mall
YOUR LETTERS ARE INVITED
One of the many issues confronting Roger Cardinal Mahony has been the Los Angeles Conservancy's thus-far-successful attempts to prevent His Eminence's demolition of historic St. Vibiana's cathedral. His Eminence recently received another setback in his scheme, according to an article in the Metro section of the Los Angeles Times for Tuesday, June 17, 1997. Entitled "Bid to Save Cathedral Intensifies," the piece revealed both that the National Historic Preservation Society listed St. Vibiana's among its eleven "most threatened" historical locales, and the results of the Conservancy's study on alternative uses for the cathedral which would not require its demolition.
Ranging in total cost from $7.6 million for a senior housing center, to $88.4 million for an INS office (in which the structure would be retained as a "ceremonial lobby"), other among the nine suggested uses were a Japanese Trade Mission, Latino Cultural Center (Catholicism having played a large part until recent years in that culture), and as a banqueting and wedding center for a hotel (the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, New Mexico, for example, having sold the famous Loretto Chapel with its miraculous staircase to a hotel in a similar deal). The Conservancy declared that $3 million was a fair price for the current property. Archdiocesan spokesperson Fr. Gregory Coiro replied that it was "self-serving" of the Conservancy to release the figures, and that the quoted price was far too low. According to the Times article, "knowledgeable sources" maintain that the archdiocese will let St. Vibiana's go for about $6 million.
Several other important questions were revealed by the article. The Conservancy's experts maintain that regardless of which plan is followed, seismic retrofitting of the cathedral will only cost $4.76 million, in contrast to the Cardinal's contention that this would cost $10 million. This has led some observers to question why the archdiocese could not retain both an old and new cathedral, as such archdioceses as New York, St. Louis, Toledo, Baltimore, and many others have done. The other concern is that the cardinal originally announced that the $40 million (now $50 million) required to build the new structure was to come solely from monetary donations given expressly for this purpose. The revelation in the Times article that the money realized from the sale of St. Vibiana's will be used to pay for the new cathedral puts into question for many whether the finances for the project are actually as settled as His Eminence has declared.
We invite Mission readers to send in letters in response to the question: "Should St. Vibiana's be a banquet hall? What should the archdiocese do?" Please keep all letters short (about 100 words), and mail them to the Mission address; or e-mail them to: . Letters will appear in the September issue.