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Published: December 30, 2007

One, big WOW

A parish renovation unveiled

Notes from a Cultural Madhouse

By Christopher Zehnder

McMullan Hall at St. Malachy’s church in Tehachapi was decked out as for a child’s birthday party on the night of Dec. 18. A profusion of gold and white balloons, interspersed with green, gold, and aquamarine stars, hung gaily from the ceiling and along the walls. Gold tinsel, like dangling curls, drooped pendant overhead. Against the back wall, on either side of a large movie screen, Christmas tree tinsel strands – on one side gold, on the other, red – spelled in capital letters the word “WOW.”

Yes, it was the long expected “WOW Night” – the night on which St. Malachy’s parishioners would see what their “consensus” wrought in the renovation of the parish church. I place the word consensus in inverted commas because, somewhere along the line, during the three months of parish meetings on the proposed renovation of St. Malachy’s, the word somehow fell into disuse. We heard less of “consensus” and more of “diversity.” But more on that anon.

Though expecting something of the sort, I confess being a little taken aback by the festooning in McMullan Hall on that WOW Night. I wondered if we would be given party favors – and was a little disappointed that we were not. Perhaps the organizers feared some of the less reverent would use them during the presentation of the proposed renovation. Glancing at the little program we were given, I was somewhat surprised to see what I thought were the words, CITY SUCKERS. Taking a second glance, however, I saw the words were CITY SLICKERS – the italicized, bold typeface making the “L” (a little rounded at its angle) and the “I” appear as a capital “U.” City Slickers is a local restaurant that provided hors d’oeuvres and drinks for WOW Night.

The evening provided another rare sight – Fr. Davadilla and the priest-in-residence, Fr. Roger LeDuc, decked out in full clerical dress, complete with black suit coats. Less formally dressed, but folksy-unctuous as ever, was architect and liturgical design consultant, Bill Brown. Besides these worthies, the event drew a fairly large number of parishioners and the members of the renovation building committee.

Brown did not speak much that night, but his spirit pervaded the proceedings. The event opened with a prayer and welcome from Fr. Davadilla, who informed us that what we all knew to be a rather extensive renovation was not originally his idea at all. It was the bishop’s. Fresno Bishop John Steinbock had told Davadilla, said the priest, that he needed to build out the church to accommodate Tehachapi’s growing population. “It’s what the bishop wants,” said our pastor – and he added, “whether you like it or not, I have to do what [the bishop] asks me to do.” I myself had not heard of this episcopal intervention before. In fact, last December, Davadilla had told us (at a meeting to get the parish to approve the purchase of a $299,000 house for himself and Fr. LeDuc) that the bishop wanted him to find 15 acres on which to build a new church. St. Malachy’s current “campus” (at only five acres) was just too small, since the diocese requires a minimum of 10 acres for parish complexes. Puzzled, I later asked a gentleman if he had heard Davadilla ever mention that the bishop ordered the renovation. The gentleman replied, no, he hadn’t.

Whatever the case, the burden of Davadilla’s WOW Night comments was basically, “whatever you might think of this renovation, it has to be done.” Following Davadilla’s remarks, we heard a “Welcome” from the building committee chairman. This gentleman reminded us that the renovation was the fruit of the parish’s diversity; everyone of us might not like everything in the renovation, but we had to join together in unity and support it. What’s more, we all need to promote it – to raise the roughly $3.5 million to accomplish it.

Following the chairman’s address was a series of “personal testimonies” from a “youth representative,” an “historian,” the “building committee liaison,” a “parishioner,” and the fundraising (“Leap of Faith”) director, former Tehachapi councilwoman and mayor, Mariana Teel. Though the historian’s talk on the history of St. Malachy’s was charming and quite interesting, I found most of the others cloying. Most of them spoke about what St. Malachy’s has meant to them – which is fine, I don’t object at all to expressions of personal love for a place, which is all rather human, when one gets right down to it. But, to hear several in a row I found a little trying.

The testimonials, however, were pure Bill Brown. They injected the required sentiment, softening us up for the evening’s piece de résistance, the “Virtual Reality Walk Through The Proposed Building Project.” This, of course, was offered by Bill Brown himself. Our “Brother Bill Brown,” as Davadilla had often called him, was very solemn, appearing to force back the tender sentiments that were welling up within him. He said little, but proceeded directly to the two-minute, 18-second virtual tour, displayed on the great screen flanked by the tinsel WOWs.

To the tender strains of Pachelbel’s Canon, we walked through the virtual St. Malachy’s of the future. It was no surprise to those of us who had attended previous meetings. Having passed through the new “gathering space,” an immersion baptismal font greeted us as we entered the “worship space.” Stepping lightly down the center aisle, we discovered that the current, traditional sanctuary, separated from the nave by altar rails, was gone. Instead, we saw, placed at the intersection of the nave and two new transepts, a raised platform where there was a new altar, ambo, and two, great thrones. Seating surrounded the platform on nearly all sides, and included, halfway between liturgical east and south, a raised space for the choir. Directly on an axis with the altar and the baptismal font, against the eastern wall, was the tabernacle, sitting lonely, obscured by the altar and the two thrones. Above the tabernacle was the current stained glass window showing the risen Christ. On either side of the window hung the $13,000 banners Davadilla had commissioned when he came to St. Malachy’s a few years ago.

Renovation plans include, as well, a Blessed Sacrament chapel, directly behind the east wall, and communicating with the main church by a small opening. Behind the chapel are two “Reconciliation rooms.” Another feature of the renovation is a steeple, rising directly over the new altar, allowing light to stream down on it.

Seeing the proposed renovation, one understands why all talk of consensus was dropped somewhere along the course of the planning process. Perusing summaries of parish surveys provided by “Bill Brown AIA Professional Corporation,” one notes that parishioners had not requested the main features of the renovation. Indeed, except for one obscure reference requesting “separation of altar and tabernacle,” the responses directed to the placement of altar, altar rail, and tabernacle indicated the desire to keep these features as they currently are. Neither the confidential “love letters” to Bill Brown, nor the responses garnered from an August parish meeting and parishioner comment cards, asked for anything like the proposed renovation. Whence, then, does it come?

It does not take a sleuth to figure this out. The proposed St. Malachy renovation is vintage Bill Brown – and it would be surprising if those who hired him did not know his proclivities. “Our Brother Bill” is one of the swarm of church renovators who claim the mandate of Vatican II for radical designs that depart from Catholic tradition, who see the community gathered around the supper table as the new emphasis in Catholic worship. Brown and his ilk cite unauthoritative documents such as Environment and Art in Catholic Worship and Built of Living Stones -- committee documents never approved by the full body of the U.S. bishops – using them to convince uninformed Catholics that the Church demands conformance with the renovator’s revolutionary agenda. It’s all a great deception, pushed through with half-truths, by the exercise of raw clerical power and the manipulation of sentiment.

Like similar projects, the St. Malachy renovation was a done deal, right from the beginning. Time and again during the previous parish meetings with him, Brown told us that his conception for the church was in accord with “Church documents” – though I never heard him cite which documents. (In minutes of the building committee Brown admitted he was following Environment and Art and Built of Living Stones.) With such documents as guides, the St. Malachy’s renovation was the foregone conclusion to a well-orchestrated process.

Whether the St. Malachy’s project will go forward is uncertain. I’ve heard that many parishioners, still upset by the parish’s purchase of a house for Frs. Davadilla and LeDuc, are not in a mood to dedicate their hard-earned cash to another expensive project. But, who knows? Catholics today, confused by 40 years of liturgical and doctrinal disarray, have lost their sense of Catholic tradition and do not have the strength of conviction to resist clerical browbeating or appeals to a sense of unity that is mere togetherness. Balloons, pendant streamers, and tinsel WOWs have obscured the cross, which represents not only the sacrifice of Christ which is the Mass, but the intersection of the ages with our own time, preserving us from fads and the tyranny of the here and now.

Yet, parishioner dissatisfaction and California’s looming economic downturn occasioned by the collapse of the housing market, may do what the lack of a Catholic sense is powerless to avert. If not, then St. Malachy’s will join the host of Catholic churches possessed by the spurious Spirit of Vatican II – a spirit, conjured not by the council, but by those slight-of-hand artists who dare cite as Church authority their own, misconceived opinions of what, “today,” Catholic worship requires in the way of church design.

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