Finding Solace in the Cathedral

Bill Wolfe’s railing against the money spent on the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, when it could have been spent on the poor, parallels the Gospels, including Matthew 26:6-13 (Letters, Sept. 29).

In the Gospels, a woman uses expensive oils to wash and consecrate the feet of Jesus. This act outraged the Apostles, saying that the money spent for the oils should have been spent on the poor. Jesus replied that the poor will always be with us, but there are times when men and women need to spend money to consecrate God in our humanly ways.

Since the cathedral is a house of God dedicated to the woman who gave birth to Jesus and while, unfortunately, the poor are still with us 2,000 years after Jesus, I do not believe it is immoral to have spent money for the cathedral.

Efforts to eradicate poverty and feed the hungry must always be a pressing priority of the church, and the church, while imperfect in an imperfect world, has not, I believe, abandoned efforts to feed the hungry. But if everyone has a big house, as Wolfe suggests, it only benefits the owners and their private guests. But if men and women use their God-given talents of architecture, art, science, construction, finance and so forth to build a house of worship dedicated to God and consecrate it to Jesus as the woman did with her oils, then we have striven to give praise to God with our meager abilities.

The cathedral, unlike a private house, is open to all, and rich and poor can enter and present themselves to God whenever they so choose, and indeed in it seek spiritual nourishment.

MATTHEW HETZ

Los Angeles