Today, the main fountain will be filled with water, and the baptismal font will be finished. Today, workers have learned that not all of the angel-etched glass panels will be ready for the back of the courtyard in time, that plain glass will have to do for the opening. Today, after an odd, wintry week, the sun, which architect Jose Rafael Moneo used in the design and building as if it were stone or mortar, wells over the horizon, stretching fledgling shadows under the newly planted liquidambar and olive trees.
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Mahony Shares His Delight at a Dream Made Manifest
Religion: Touring the vast new cathedral, the cardinal lovingly describes each feature of an edifice that has consumed him for years.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday August 30, 2002 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 106 words Type of Material: Correction
Cathedral doors--A graphic Wednesday in Section A and the "Surroundings" story Thursday in the California section gave inconsistent and incorrect information about the weight of the main doors at the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. The Great Bronze Doors comprise the doors themselves, which weigh about 7 tons apiece, plus the crowning tympanum structure and statue of Mary. The combined weight of the entire piece is about 25 tons. In addition, the story Wednesday that the graphic accompanied gave misleading information about the dimensions of the nave's series of tapestries. They are 20 feet tall.
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Crossing the growing brightness of the plaza that aprons the cathedral, Mahony, in clerical black, is a sudden, striding silhouette.
"The main themes of the cathedral are light and journey," he says, describing the symbols on the main entrance--25-ton bronze front doors designed by sculptor Robert Graham that depict images of the Blessed Mother and God. "I don't know what the docents are going to do," Mahony says, interrupting himself. "I mean, you could spend three hours just on the doors."
The cardinal has had final say on every decision regarding the cathedral, down to the wattage of the lightbulbs in the freight elevator. His taste and influence are as much a foundation of this building as the earthquake-savvy base isolators that hold it up.
He had conversations with Graham about the doors, he says, but the artist chose the images and symbols. The only thing Mahony insisted on was an actual statue of Our Lady, which Graham originally had not been interested in doing.
"I told him the cathedral was named after Our Lady of the Angels," Mahony said, "and our city was named after Our Lady of the Angels, so at some point along the way people would expect to see Our Lady of the Angels." He quotes himself lightly, good-humoredly.
And there she is just above the door, the Blessed Mother as a young woman neither delicate nor sorrowing, who extends her bare arms not so much to comfort as to encourage. "Come with me," those arms and calm, resolute face seem to say.
The cardinal obeys.
He steps over the men who are still working and into a shrill din of grinding metal and rock.
"Oh, it's not so bad today," he says, moving outside the perimeter of the shriek. Living in the new rectory since March, he has been in the cathedral almost daily, often in hard hat, the pale dust from the floor creeping up the cuffs of his pants. Now, he simply steps over the tools, around the men and through the noise. Raising his voice just enough, he speaks fondly of the Spanish limestone floors.
