Religion Los Angeles

Reaching across religious and cultural lines, a Greek Orthodox archbishop, a Roman Catholic cardinal and Protestant and Jewish leaders on Saturday celebrated a revitalized neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles as a showcase of civic cooperation in the midst of diversity. Officially, the gathering was to honor Archbishop Demetrios, head of the Greek Orthodox Church in the United States, on his first official pastoral visit to Southern California.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet on Sunday kicked off a new alliance between Southland Tibetans and Taiwanese, uniting in a common plea for freedom from China's territorial claims over their homelands as he began a weeklong series of public events in Los Angeles. Then, shifting from politics to religion, Tibet's spiritual and temporal leader delivered a Buddhist teaching on transforming the mind toward compassion.

As he spoke, the Rev. Moises Sandoval stood on the last traces of El Senorial Bar on Sunset Boulevard. The tile floors of the demolished bar were about to be covered with asphalt and converted into a parking lot for the Iglesia Evangelica Latina, a rapidly growing 1,000-member church in the Silver Lake district. "Just imagine, this used to be a center of vice for the young men of Silver Lake," Sandoval said in Spanish. "But now we've made it a wholesome place for the benefit of the community."

There are two ways we journalists cover that vast stretch of Los Angeles known as the inner city. One is the horror-story method--gangs, drugs, killings, race hate, hopeless unemployment. The other is a softheaded, politically correct hymn to multiculturalism, usually emphasizing the social importance of small ethnic restaurants.

The services at the Mt. Tabor Missionary Baptist Church last Sunday reminded me how far the Rodney G. King story has strayed. It started out as a civil rights case, a test of whether people in Los Angeles are protected from police brutality. But the investigation of King's beating by L.A. cops was submerged by the small-mindedness of a City Hall fight between Mayor Tom Bradley and Police Chief Daryl F. Gates.

The Rev. Jess Moody, pastor of the nearly completed $15-million Shepherd of the Hills Church in Chatsworth, has told a Southern Baptist news agency that he agreed to be nominated for the presidency of that denomination in a last-ditch effort at reconciliation between victorious fundamentalist leaders and moderates who have drifted away.

The Dodgers added another comeback player to their spring training picture Monday when they signed Edwin Correa, a former Texas Ranger top rookie pitcher, to a minor-league contract. Because of problems resulting from a stress fracture in his right shoulder, Correa has not pitched in more than two years, and, as a Seventh Day Adventist, does not pitch from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday, the period his church regards as the Sabbath.

Gene Scott, the flamboyant TV preacher who lost millions in an attempt to buy the old "Jesus Saves" church in Los Angeles two years ago, has signed a 10-year lease that will bring him back downtown--into the classic United Artists theater. The agreement, with an option to buy, was signed by Scott last week with Bruce Corwin, president of Metropolitan Theaters and president of Miracle on Broadway, a nonprofit corporation seeking to revive a stretch of downtown Los Angeles for business and entertainment activity.

Apparently for the first time in its 68 years, the Hollywood Bowl Easter sunrise service will have a rabbi deliver a sermon. Because Jewish Passover observances begin April 2, the day before Easter, the annual event's producer-director, Norma Foster, said Rabbi Leonard Beerman was invited to be one of the two main speakers along with a Korean Christian pastor.

They say their confessions before Mass in a space as big as a bathroom with a bamboo screen separating priest from sinner. They worship inside a Pico-Union warehouse that they have transformed with their candles, flowers and spirit into a soulful holy place. The statues that were damaged in the fire last year are being refurbished and returning to the congregation in the warehouse, like old friends recovering from smoke inhalation. What happens to a community after a fire destroys its church?