Archdiocese’s Gutenberg Bible Sale May Set Mark

The vast collection of rare books and artwork being sold at auction by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles contains “the largest single assemblage of books in terms of value and volume ever to have come on the market,” an executive for Christie’s, the New York auction firm hired to handle the sales, said Monday.

The 15,000 volumes in the collection include a copy of the rare 15th-Century Gutenberg Bible, which the auction company expects will fetch more than the $2.2-million price of the last Gutenberg sold at auction nine years ago. That sale set a still-standing record price for a book.

The archdiocese, facing a severe shortage of priests, will auction most of the huge Carrie Estelle Doheny collection--valued at more than $20 million--to boost seminary education. Eight sales, beginning Oct. 23 in New York, will extend over two years, Archbishop Roger Mahony said at a press conference Monday.

The collection was bequeathed to St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo in 1940 by Doheny, widow of Edward Laurence Doheny, a wealthy oil magnate and early California land developer. In addition to the rare books and manuscripts, the collection contains Western paintings, paintings from the French Barbizon School, antique glass paperweights, tapestries, furnishings and autographed letters.

Mahony said the revenues from the auctions will be used to set up a foundation to subsidize the recruitment and training of new priests through the archdiocese’s seminary system. The archdiocese’s total of 1,400 priests is 300 to 400 fewer than the number needed, Mahony said.

He added that the archdiocese is spending $3 million annually to subsidize the archdiocese’s three seminaries: Our Lady Queen of Angels High School Seminary in San Fernando and St. John’s college and theology seminaries in Camarillo. The subsidy is expected to double by the early 1990s.

Seminary training leading to ordination in the priesthood requires eight years of study beyond high school at a cost of about $20,000 per seminarian, Mahony said.

The Doheny collection has long been a reference resource for students and scholars, but only 50 to 60 people use it each year, Mahony said.

He said the annual $100,000 cost of maintaining the collection could rise to $300,000 if the works were fully utilized, adding that the archdiocese can no longer obtain insurance on the collection’s full value.

The archbishop said “a significant portion” of the collection’s religious and historical items will be kept for display and use by the archdiocese.

The Gutenberg Bible--the first known book printed from movable type--was produced by Johann Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany. Only 47 known copies are still in existence.