Report: Ultra-Orthodox Jews spit on Israeli Christians

From The Telegraph:

Christians in Jerusalem have attacked what they say is the increasingly common phenomenon of ultra-orthodox Jews spitting on them.

The statement followed a brawl between an orthodox Jewish yeshiva (religious school) student and an Armenian archbishop.

They clashed in Jerusalem’s Old City after the student spat at a cross being carried by the clergyman during a procession near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

advertisementArchbishop Nourhan Manougian slapped the student and in the ensuing scuffle, his 17th century ceremonial medallion was broken.

Both were questioned by police and the student is facing charges. He has been banned from the Old City for 75 days. The Armenians say the action was inadequate.

Archbishop Manougian told an Israeli newspaper that Israeli leaders must speak out about the “daily” abuse. “When there is an attack against Jews anywhere, the Israeli government is incensed, so why when our religion and pride are hurt, don’t they take harsher measures?” he asked.

His critique has encouraged other Christian leaders to speak out, including a senior Greek Orthodox clergyman who has disclosed that he was recently approached by an elderly man wearing a skullcap who spat in his face.

Daniel Rossing, the director of a Jerusalem centre for Christian-Jewish dialogue, said there had been an increase in such incidents recently as “part of a general lack of tolerance”.

Article: Surrendering to Radical Islam

From Joseph Klein / FrontPageMag:

Saudi Arabian King Abdullah visited Pope Benedict XVI last week at the Vatican. This was part of the king’s feigned gesture of inter-religious understanding, as he made his way around Europe.

As far as Islamists like King Abdullah are concerned, religious understanding means that the Pope is supposed to apologize for speaking the truth about the violent, intolerant nature of Islamic jihad, while Muslim leaders need not apologize for the actual violence committed every day around the world in their religion’s name.

King Abdullah’s gift to the Pope was a sword. How ironic. He would have done better if he had made a solemn promise to end his country’s religious apartheid and the lessons of hate that are spoon fed every day to Saudi schoolchildren. But the king knows that had he made such an offer and tried to carry it out back home, he and his royal brethren would face beheadings under the vengeful swords wielded by the Wahabi extremists who set and enforce the religious rules in Saudi Arabia.

Indeed, while the king’s gift of a sword can be explained away as the traditional Bedouin custom the Saudis follow when foreign leaders visit their country, the gift also speaks volumes about the Muslim culture of violence. The Saudi flag itself contains a sword right under an Arabic inscription of faith.

As John F. Cullinan, a former senior foreign-policy adviser to the U.S. Catholic bishops, explained, “jihad — in the sense of armed conflict for religious reasons — remains a living element of Islamic thought and life”.

It is no wonder, then, that Pope Benedict’s pleas to King Abdullah on behalf of Christians and other minorities, who are suffering daily persecutions in the Muslim world, fell on deaf ears. Until there is a true reform movement against the prevailing lethal strains of hatred, intolerance and violence that have infected Muslim societies and which the Islamic extremists seek to export world-wide, any inter-religious dialogues are pointless theatrical exercises.

Full article here.

Related Posts:
Article: Religion of Peace?
Article: By The Sword
Article: Islam’s Global War against Christianity
Article: Pope Benedict XVI and Islam: Allah the Irrational
Article: Islam on the Move
Article: Papal transformation – Benedict’s softer touch with Islam
Article: Islam gets concessions; infidels get conquered
Debate: The Question of Dialogue

See also:
WorldNetDaily: Muslims intimidated church into holding Arafat memorial
VDH’s Private Papers: What Would Mohommad Do?
NRO: Conquest vs Concession
NRO: What do Muslims Want?

Debate: A Two-State Solution?

From “Vatican favors Palestinian homeland,” Rosemary Radford Ruether, National Catholic Reporter, July 27, 2001:

In 1975 Pope Paul VI stated, “we are conscious of the still very recent tragedies which led the Jewish people to search for safe protection in a state of its own, sovereign and independent,” but for this very reason “we would like to ask the sons of this people to recognize the rights and legitimate aspirations of another people who have also suffered for a long time, the Palestinian people.” Recognition of the state of Israel was withheld by the Vatican in part because it saw the legitimacy of the state of Israel as resting on the 1946 U.N. partition plan that also granted to the Palestinians a state of their own on the remaining territory of historic Palestine. The Vatican declined to recognize the state of Israel until a Palestinian state was also recognized.

In 1993, with the Oslo accords that seemed to lay the basis for the recognition of a Palestinian state within the territories seized by Israel in 1967, the Vatican formally granted diplomatic recognition to the state of Israel. It appeared for a time as if the Holy See had abandoned its concern for the equal rights of Palestinians. What remained largely unreported in the U.S. press at that time was that, in October 1994, the Holy See also recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization as the political representative of the Palestinian people, at a time when the PLO was still headquartered in Tunisia.

This diplomatic recognition of the Palestinian people was formalized on Feb. 15, 2000, when the Holy See entered into a “Basic Agreement” with the PLO on behalf of the Palestinian Authority parallel to the Vatican’s Basic Agreement with Israel. Both agreements stipulate that the ministerial work of the church and its property will be respected by the two “authorities,” Israel and the PLO. In addition, the agreement with the PLO has a special section on Jerusalem that calls for religious freedom and equality before the law of the members of the three religious communities, Jews, Christians and Muslims, and their equal access to their holy places in Jerusalem….

From “Palestinians Are Winning,” Patrick J. Buchanan, The American Cause, April 2 2002:

Israel is not at war with terror. Israel is at war with Palestine.

The terrorism of the suicide bombers of the intifada – ugly and awful as its manifestations are in Netanya, Haifa, and Jerusalem – is but a tactic in a guerrilla war of national liberation being waged by the Palestinian people against Israeli occupation. It is a tactic with a venerable pedigree in the 20th century, where it was used repeatedly and successfully against the Western empires.

(…)

Is there no way out?

The only hope lies in a Palestinian state. A small state of their own would give Palestinians a huge stake in peace and in preventing acts of terror against Israel – i.e., national survival. Syria does not allow acts of terror on the Golan Heights, because Assad knows he has a nation to lose in any war with Israel. And, after independence, the IRA, the Irgun, the Mau Mau and the ANC terminated the terror.

But time may be passing us by. For the Israeli repression has radicalized the Palestinians, and through Al Jazeera’s nightly clips of Arabs cut down by Israeli Jews using American weapons, it has radicalized the Arab world. Arabs and Muslims are concluding that the tactics used to drive Israel out of Lebanon and bring her to Oslo may be the tactics that can drive the Israelis out of the Middle East altogether.

From “Vatican Official Calls on World Community to Avert U.S.-Iraqi War,” USCCB, December 23, 2002:

Archbishop Tauran said he was well aware that fighting terrorism was on the minds of many countries these days. He said the best strategy for countering terrorism was to rediscover the “sense of sacredness” of human life and human dignity and remove some of the biggest causes of terrorism — including unresolved conflicts and social tensions around the globe.

He called the Israeli-Palestinian war “the mother of all conflicts.” He described it as a crescendo of terrorism on one side and punitive military forays on the other.

Although many Israeli officials have denounced Yasser Arafat for allegedly tolerating terrorism by Palestinian groups, Archbishop Tauran said the Vatican would consider Arafat a legitimate leader as long as Palestinians considered him their representative.

The archbishop said he was concerned that some people are now rejecting the idea of a Palestinian state as part of the negotiating framework.

“The peace process — which is practically dead — had as its objective the coexistence of a Palestinian state and an Israeli state, as foreseen by the 1948 (U.N.) resolution,” he said.

“If this is not the objective, what use is the peace process?” he said.

From “Vatican to U.N. on Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” ZENIT, November 3, 2006:

(Address by Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Holy See’s permanent observer to the United Nations)

The centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the persistent instability in the Middle East cannot be ignored. This is why my delegation remains convinced of the two state solution as the basis for the resolution of the crisis, which would permit Israelis to live in security in their own land and Palestinians to live safely in a viable state of their own.

(…)

In the hope that the many problems of the region will finally be resolved by negotiation and dialogue, my delegation further underlines that a lasting solution must include the status of the holy city of Jerusalem. In light too of the numerous incidents of violence and challenges to free movement posed by the security wall, the Holy See renews its support for “internationally guaranteed provisions to ensure the freedom of religion and of conscience of its inhabitants, as well as permanent, free and unhindered access to the Holy Places by the faithful of all religions and nationalities”

Finally, we repeat our call to the international community to facilitate significant negotiations between the conflicting parties. Only with a just and lasting peace — not imposed, but secured through negotiation and reasonable compromise — will the legitimate aspirations of all the peoples of the Holy Land be fulfilled.

From “Vatican endorses two-state solution in Holy Land,” Asia News, November 10, 2007:

Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the apostolic nuncio heading the Holy See’s Permanent Observer mission to the United Nations, endorsed a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a Thursday address to the UN refugee agency.

“My delegation remains convinced that the two-state solution has the best chance to settle the crisis,” he said.

(…)

Archbishop Migliore underlined the importance of the Holy City of Jerusalem to a two-state solution. Quoting a UN General Assembly Resolution of April 25, 1997, he declared that the Holy See renews its support for “internationally guaranteed provisions to ensure the City of Jerusalem the freedom of religion and of conscience of its inhabitants, as well as permanent, free and unhindered access to the Holy Places by the faithful of all religions and nationalities.”

* * * * * * * * *

From “The Threat Inherent In A Palestinian State,” Don Feder, Insight Magazine, May 13, 2003:

….a Palestinian state would still be the grave of Israel.

To understand why, consider what’s been going on in the Palestinian Authority since the Iraq war started. Demonstrators have crowded the streets chanting, “Death to America. Death to Bush.” An official of Arafat’s PLO told Al-Jazerra TV, “Iraq’s battle is Palestine’s battle.”

Fiery sermons are regularly broadcast on Palestinian television, including one by Sheikh Ibrahim Mudayris expressing the hope that “Americans will drown in their own blood.” The PA renamed a city square in Jenin to honor the suicide bomber who murdered four American soldiers on March 27th.

Hamas (a member of Arafat’s PLO) enlisted terrorists to fight U.S. forces in Iraq. And Arafat sent Saddam his “warmest greetings” and “deepest prayers to Allah, may He … strengthen our brotherly ties, cooperation and solidarity.” In the past, those brotherly ties have included Arafat’s active support for Iraq in the Persian Gulf War and Saddam paying $25,000-bounties to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

This is the face of a future Palestinian state – not the diplomatic delusions of a peaceful and democratic Palestine living in harmony with Israel – but fundamentalism, irredentism and terrorism.

From “The Nightmare of Hamastan,” Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen, FrontPageMagazine.com, November 31, 2005:

Hamas views the future Islamist Palestinian state as an extension of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, where all aspects of life would be controlled by radical Islamist laws. This state will also maintain close connections with other Arab Islamist states and movements, and will use terrorism to obliterate the Israeli state. In response to a question concerning the nature of Palestine under Hamas rule, from a Newsweek reporter on August 30, 2005, Zahar responded, “It should be Hamastan.”

From “High Priestess of the Palestinian State,” Don Feder, FrontPageMagazine.com, October 23, 2006:

In recent opinion polls, 61 percent of Palestinians supported suicide bombings and terrorism, 56 percent favored rocket attacks on civilian targets, 75 percent endorsed the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers (which sparked a mini-war on Israel’s northern border in July and August), and 97 percent were pro-Hezbollah.

Palestinian tastes run to Protocols-of-Elders-of-Zion-type anti-Semitism, “honor killing” of women suspected of adultery, the brutal murder of Israeli civilians, and the sectarian-cleansing of Nazareth and Bethlehem, once overwhelmingly Christian cities.

In the aftermath of Pope Benedict XVI’s speech at a Bavarian university, which included a quote by a 14th century Byzantine emperor, the state-run television station of the Palestinian Authority described the pontiff as “arrogant,” “stupid,” and “criminal.” The pope will be judged by Allah on the day “when eyes stare in terror,” the jihad network predicted.

Hey, the Palestinians need a symbol for their state, right – like Uncle Sam for the U.S. or John Bull for the Brits? How about the mother of a suicide bomber decked out in fashionable black robes describing her pride and pleasure that her martyr son did Allah’s will by detonating himself along with as many innocents as possible?

From “A Christian-Free Holy Land,” Justus Reid Weiner, JCPA.org, December 8, 2006:

The growing strength of Islamic fundamentalism within the Palestinian national movement poses problems for Christians, who fear they will be deemed opponents of Islam and thereby risk becoming targets for Muslim extremists. This is exacerbated by the fact that Hamas holds substantial power and seeks to impose its radical Islamist identity on the entire population within the PA-controlled territories.

From “Jerusalem in Peril,” Michael Anbar, FrontPageMagazine.com, September 10,2007:

It is well known… that previous leftist Israeli governments, including those under PMs Rabin, Peres and Barak entertained the idea of conceding the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem to “Palestinian” Arab sovereignty, allowing the incipient “Palestinian State” to establish their capital in the Arab sector of a divided Jerusalem. Israeli advocates of a divided Jerusalem believe that this would achieve the desired peace with the Arabs, since Jerusalem is a great importance to them.

However, peace between Israel and Muslim Arabs is extremely unlikely in view of the Islamic premise that prohibits peace (not a ceasefire or truce) between Muslims and non-Muslim. As Islam is becoming more radicalized by the day, this religious Islamic prohibition of peace with non-Muslims has become dominant in the Islamic world. Moreover, because the Land of Israel was occupied by Muslims in the 7th century, religious Muslims believe that it belongs to Muslims for perpetuity. The Land of Israel, they call “Palestine”, is considered by Muslims as stolen property that must be regained as soon as there is a chance to do so. Therefore, according to religious Muslims, even a truce with the Jewish state must be of the shortest duration possible. Consequently, the establishment of a new Arab state west of the River Jordan, which will very likely be a religion-driven Islamic state, must maintain an incipient or real war with the Jewish state.

(…)

To defeat the Jewish state, if Jerusalem was divided, the Arabs would not have to shell Ben-Gurion Airport or launch missiles into the center of Tel-Aviv. Capturing Jerusalem would be sufficient.

The worldwide political consequences would evidently be hardly imaginable. Since this scenario is so likely to occur, the division of Jerusalem, surrendering parts of it to Arab rule is truly asinine.

Keeping Israeli security forces in the Arab parts of the city to prevent such an outcome would not change the situation from what it is today. It would be “occupation” again, not peace. Using international forces to defend Jewish Jerusalem would be as effective as their current presence in South Lebanon.

Furthermore, even before they capture Jewish Jerusalem, and possibly the rest of Israel, the Arabs will systematically destroy all archeological evidence for Jewish or Christian historical claims to the city, as they are doing already today on the Temple Mount. They will also destroy synagogues and churches or convert them into mosques as did recently in the Gaza Strip and in Samaria, in line with what Muslims have been doing throughout history.

It might be enough for them to destroy all Jewish and Christian testimonials from the old city of Jerusalem to signal to the Islamic world that Judeo-Christian civilization is being wiped out by Islam.

Finally, once Jerusalem is captured, the Arabs will rid the Middle East from all non-Muslims. They will follow the script of their war with the crusaders, when they methodically conquered all remaining Christian enclaves in Palestine and Lebanon after the conquest of Jerusalem.

See also:
Reuters: Vatican praises Arafat for Palestinian vision
Asia News: Arafat and Catholic Church, a relationship that never came to fruition
Jewish Press: The Palestinians Have a State
CNS News: Two-State Solution to Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Not Viable, Experts Say
Daniel Pipes: Annapolis Blues
FrontPageMag: Genesis of an Anti-Semitic State
FrontPageMag: The Peace Process: Helping Hamas
Jihad Watch: A problem that cannot be solved, only managed

Report: Catholic Identity in Danger from Secularized Culture: Archbishop Raymond Burke

From LifeSite:

Catholic identity is in danger of being lost in the current “completely secularized” culture says Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis Missouri. Burke is known as one of the most faithful defenders of the unborn among the US Catholic hierarchy. He told a Fox news reporter that although “some people don’t accept everything the church teaches,” he has to keep teaching the truths of the faith.

He urged faithful Catholics to keep teaching because their Catholic identity is in danger of being lost.

“Why? Because we live in a culture that’s completely secularized.” He reiterated the warnings made by Pope Benedict XVI against relativism, the belief that all religious faiths, all moral codes and all lifestyles are equally valid.

Burke warned against “a kind of relativism, a kind of hedonism, materialism and so forth, these kinds of tendencies of our culture, for us we have to resist them.”

Full report here.

Report: Rome condemns Queen Elizabeth again – this time over film of her reign

From The Times Online:

A Vatican-backed historian has attacked the film Elizabeth: The Golden Age as a “distorted anti-papal travesty” that risks dividing the West just when it should be rediscovering its “common Christian roots” in the face of Islam.

(…)

Professor Cardini, who holds the chair of medieval history at Florence University and formerly taught at the Lateran University in Rome, a Vatican body, said that its aim was to “secularise and de-Christianise” Europe.

(…)

Professor Cardini said “a film which so profoundly and perversely falsifies history cannot be judged a good film”. It had potentially offered “a contribution to the understanding of a moment of vital importance.” Instead, the Virgin Queen was portrayed as “an able politician and courageous sovereign” while King Philip II of Spain was shown as a “ferocious, fanatical Catholic, swinging his rosary like a weapon and roaming the Escorial Palace like a madman, full of impotent fury, dreaming of subjugating the world to the Catholic faith”.

The defeat of Spain’s “invincible armada” in 1588 was caused by a storm but was presented in the film as a “shining victory for free thought against the forces of darkness in the form of the Inquisition”, Professor Cardini said. He said while Philip II and the Pope had gone to the aid of the Venetian Republic when it was threatened by the Muslim Turks, Elizabeth I was more interested in destabilising France, “where Catholics and Protestant Huguenots were lining up against each other”, supporting pirate raids in the Atlantic against Spanish convoys, and “wiping out any residual liberty of the Anglican Church in England by subjecting it to the Crown through the Thirty Nine Articles of 1563”.

The Queen had also “exterminated the Catholics of Scotland and Ireland”, and had Mary Queen of Scots, her own cousin, executed in 1587 “after an illegal trial”. He said that the film was reminiscent of 19th-century anti-clericalism. “Why put out this perverse anti-Catholic propaganda today, just at the moment when we are trying desperately to revive our Western identity in the face of the Islamic threat, presumed or real?”

Full report here.

Report: Quebec’s loss of faith seen triggering social problems

From Catholic World News:

Quebec, Oct. 31, 2007 (CWNews.com) – The people of Quebec “really need to rediscover their religious identity,” Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Quebec City told a public commission on October 30.

Speaking at hearings on the challenges that immigration has posed to Quebec French-speaking culture, Cardinal Ouellet said that the problem of cultural identity can be traced back to “the malaise of the Catholic majority, which needs to find a religious reference point.”

The cardinal said that the secularizing trends of the past generation have deprived Quebec of its cultural heritage, leading to a general breakdown in traditional society. Cardinal Ouellet pointed to the rise in divorce, the drop in births, and the frequency of abortion and suicide as indications of this social breakdown.

“Quebec is ripe for a profound new evangelization,” the cardinal concluded.

Report: Dominican Catholics rally against legal abortion

From Catholic World News:

Santo Domingo, Oct. 31, 2007 (FIDES/CWNews.com) – Hundreds of Catholics braved pouring rain to take part in a pro-life march organized by the Catholic Church in the Dominican Republic as part of a Campaign against a proposal to de-criminalize abortion, the Fides news service reports.

The participants, representing about 204 parishes and more than 100 schools, were led by Cardinal Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez of Santo Domingo and auxiliary Bishop Pablo Cedano. The marchers walked through the city centre to the National Congress where the cardinal presided at Mass. Many of those present were children, adolescents and young people.

Article: Nagasaki, the City of the Atomic Bomb – And of the Christian Martyrs

From Chiesa:

In effect, among the victims of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki, two thirds of the small but vibrant Japanese Catholic community disappeared in a single day. It was a community that was nearly wiped out twice in three centuries.

In 1945, this was done through an act of war that was mysteriously focused on this city. Three centuries before, it was by a terrible persecution very similar to that of the Roman empire against the first Christians, with Nagasaki and its “hill of martyrs” again the epicenter.

And yet, the Japanese Catholic community was able to recover from both of these tragedies. After the persecution in the seventeenth century, Christians kept their faith alive by passing it on from parents to children for two centuries, in the absence of bishops, priests, and sacraments. It is recounted that on Good Friday of 1865, ten thousand of these “kakure kirisitan,” hidden Christians, streamed from the villages and presented themselves in Nagasaki to the stunned missionaries who had just recently regained access to Japan.

And again after the second slaughter in Nagasaki, in 1945, the Catholic Church was reborn in Japan. The most recent official data, from 2004, estimate that there are a little more than half a million Japanese Catholics. They are few in relation to a population of 126 million. But they are respected and influential, thanks in part to their solid network of schools and universities.

Moreover, if to the native Japanese are added the immigrants from other Asian countries, the number of Catholics doubles. A 2005 report from the commission for migrants of the bishops’ conference calculates that the total number of Catholics recently passed one million, for the first time in the history of Japan.

This background sheds new light on a decree authorized by Benedict XVI on June 1, 2007: the beatification of 188 martyrs from Japan, who join the 42 saints and 395 blesseds – all martyrs – already raised to the altars by previous popes.

The beatification – the first one ever held in Japan – will be celebrated on November 24, 2008, in Nagasaki, by the prefect of the congregation for the causes of saints, cardinal José Saraiva Martins, as the special envoy of Benedict XVI.

The 188 Japanese martyrs who will be beatified next year are classified in the documents of the canonical proceedings as “Father Kibe and his 187 companions.” They were killed on account of their faith between 1603 and 1639….

Full article here.

Report: Italian premier revives old Canterbury-to-Rome pilgrimage route

From Catholic World News:

Rome, Oct. 30, 2007 (CWNews.com) – Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi held a ceremony on October 29 to unveil the first in a series of over 1,500 signs that are being posted to revive the ancient pilgrimage route from Canterbury to Rome, the Via Francigena.

Prodi told Italian reporters that the attention being paid to the pilgrimage route can help with “the rediscovery of our identity.” The Italian premier said that conceived the idea of reviving the Via Francigena some years ago, when he made his own pilgrimage to Santiago di Compostela in Spain.

The Via Francigena, which dates back to the 10th century, stretches from England across France and the Alps into Italy. Traveling on foot, pilgrims would take about 100 days to reach Rome.

Prodi met with reporters in the town of Monteriggioni, where one of 1,544 signs on the ancient route has been posted outside an medieval castle that once hosted pilgrims as they approached Rome.

Related Posts:
Search “Pilgrimage”

Theme: St. Vibiana Dishonored

Her parents, Flavian and Dafrosa, were martyred in the persecution of Julian the Apostate, and Vivian [Vibiana] and her sister Demetria were turned over to a woman named Rufina who tried to force her into prostitution. Upon her continued refusal, Vivian was imprisoned in a mad house, then flogged to death.

- From Catholic Forum

* * *

St. Vibiana’s in 1885 – source

From The True Story of Ramona, Its Facts and Fictions, Inspirations and Purpose, Chapter XIV: Dona Mariana de Coronel, University of Arizona Library.:

Bishop Amat was much affected by what he had seen. He begged that the skeleton of Vibiana be given to him, promising that if it were placed in his charge he would bring it to America and build a great cathedral, which would be named for the Saint and dedicated to her memory.

Returning here he at once began the work. Large contributions were offered to him, but all these were refused. He wanted the church built with the offerings of the common people. And so it came about. The money poured in from all quarters, and soon he had enough in the treasury to warrant the building of the Cathedral of Saint Vibiana.

In the upper part of the altar is a crypt in which are deposited the remains of the Saint, in the little brass-bound casket in which they were brought from Rome. Under the altar are the remains of Bishop Amat.

Would it not seem sacrilege ever to remove them?

(…)

On the exterior of St. Vibiana’s Cathedral are these letters, ‘‘D.O.M.,’’ being the abbreviations for Deo Optimo Maximo, which means, ‘‘To God the Greatest and Best.’’

Altar, 1940 – source

From Wikipedia: Cathedral of St. Vibiana:

The former Cathedral of Saint Vibiana, often called St. Vibiana’s, was the mother church cathedral parish of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles under the pastoral care of the Archbishop of Los Angeles….

The facility was outgrown by the region’s rapidly expanding population, and the Archdiocese decided that it needed a larger main facility; however, preservationists pressured them to not destroy the historic landmark. The situation was complicated further when the 1994 Northridge Earthquake caused extensive damage to the cathedral and its 1,200-seat sanctuary. Deciding that the damage was not worth repairing in such a small structure, the Archdiocese began demolition on the site in 1996, without permits. However, the sudden dismantling of the bell tower on a Saturday morning prompted a frantic save-the-cathedral campaign, and work by the Archdiocese was halted by preservationists who had a temporary restraining order placed on demolition…. A state Court of Appeal rejected the archdiocese’s argument to be allowed to quickly demolish the cathedral…. Finally a compromise was reached: the City of Los Angeles agreed to swap land with the Archdiocese, giving the Church a much larger plot next to the 101 Freeway. The Archdiocese agreed and the land was developed into the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, constructed and consecrated as the new mother church cathedral parish of the Archdiocese…..

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels – source

Interior of Our Lady of the Angels - source

From L.A. Catholic: St. Vibiana rises from the dead :

The Cathedral site was taken over by the city. The city sold the former cathedral building to downtown developer Tom Gilmore in 1999 for $4.6 million; Gilmore has spent a $6 million renovating it and turning it into a performing arts complex, now named “Vibiana”.

The archdiocese approves of the St. Vibiana’s renovation and even loaned the arts center six Art Deco chandeliers that once graced the old cathedral.

“Church law requires that former churches be used for a dignified purpose,” said Tod Tamberg, a spokesman for the archdiocese.

“It’s really a wonderful second life for the former cathedral,” he added.

“Vibiana” – source

From California Catholic Daily: Scantily clad women, two men kissing, and a transvestite.:

From Oct. 11-13, the old cathedral served as a venue for LA’s “Fashion Week.” BOXeight, a nonprofit arts organization, held its contribution to Fashion Week at Vibiana’s Place. The event, “Have Faith in LA,” was a “fashion, music and art collaborative.”

(…)

Among the entertainment groups featured during three-day event was “You Wear It Well,” which calls itself a “traveling presentation of short films and videos that investigate the intersection of fashion and film.” A short clip, “A Shaded View of Fashion,” featured on the group’s web site features scantily clad women, two men kissing, and a transvestite.

Another entertainment group was the Hysterica Dance Company, whose choreography, with barely clad men and women, emphasizes the erotic.

See also:
L.A. Catholic: Creative new uses for St. Vibiana Cathedral
Bishop Accountability: Taj Mahony

Statue of an androgynous-looking “Our Lady of the Angels” at the entrance to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels – source