The cathedral’s design may not appeal to those who prefer traditional architecture.[/caption]
Name of Church The Cathedral of Christ the Light
Address 2121 Harrison Street, Oakland CA 94612-3788
Phone number 510-832-5057
Website www.ctlcathedral.org
Mass times Sunday, 8 a.m. (Vietnamese), 11 a.m., 1:30 p.m. (Spanish). Monday – Friday, 12:10 p.m. First Friday, 7 p.m. (Vietnamese). Saturday, 7:30 a.m. (Vietnamese).
Confessions Sunday, 10:20 – 10:50 am. Tuesday and Thursday, 11:30 am to noon.
Names of priests Father Brandon Macadaeg, rector. Father Stephen Barber, SJ, parochial vicar. Father Michael Pham, chaplain to the Vietnamese community, Father Dennis McManus, spiritual director.
School No.
Special groups and activities Adoration Thursdays 12:30 to 1:15 pm, The Rescue Project (evangelization).
Music Organ, choir. The cathedral has a quality music program.
Acoustics Very good.
Fellow parishioners English and Spanish-speaking communities, many Vietnamese.
Parking There is a parking garage at 250 21st Street; check the website for hours. Free during Mass. There is overflow parking at the KP Lot at 325 22nd Street for a fee.
Additional observations The cathedral is the seat of the bishop of Oakland, Michael Barber, and is located alongside the chancery office of the Diocese of Oakland. It’s a modern cathedral, replacing one severely damaged in a 1989 earthquake. It was completed in 2008 and features a large image of Christ over the altar area. Its design may not appeal to those who prefer traditional architecture; it is a glass structure with high ceilings and a wood interior, seating 1350. It has a mausoleum. There is a park and waterway across from the cathedral.
If you drive to Oakland, skip the cathedral and go to St. Margaret Mary.
100% agree, St. Margaret Mary has been offering the TLM for years so yes please visit this lovely parish.
Worth driving to see? A cold airplane hanger that looks nothing like a Roman Catholic cathedral and no TLM! Pass on that, but thank you for the offer to see it.
What a depressing structure.
Time for another earthquake, preferably centered directly beneath this monstrosity.
That’s a very odd comment. The 1989 earthquake killed 63 people and injured 3,757.
“The 1989 earthquake killed 63 people and injured 3,757.” My rhetorical comment was aimed only at the look of the cathedral and was not intended to be taken literally. I thought that was obvious. I too have lived through bad earthquakes. But since you took offence, I do apologize for not seeking a better way to make my point.
Earthquakes can happen at night when nobody’s in the cathedral. Make no mistake, though: the Big One is coming. God will time it to have just the precise effect he desires on California. The Church such as it is is not exempt from divine retribution.
Which would you rather? Oakland, Los Angeles, San Francisco or Orange cathedrals?
Well, Los Angeles looks like a prison from the outside. Oakland has been compared to female anatomy. San Francisco looks like a washing machine tumbler (hence, “Our Lady of Maytag”), and Orange looks like a performing arts center. I prefer my parish church to them all, actually.
LA Cathedral looks like a prison???
I beg to differ. Clearly, it looks like a National Guard Armory.
Great, thought provoking question.
All I know is: I always get agitated looking at the SF Cathedral.
“I beg to differ. Clearly, it looks like a National Guard Armory.” Whichever you choose, the point is that the modernist building focuses the soul on the banalities of this world instead of directing the soul heavenward to God, which until the present time was the purpose of church architecture.
Pass on all of them they are cold, ugly and just plain ghastly.
All of them.
In fairness, Bishops Barber, Cordileone and Vigneron all inherited this cathedral. It was planned by Bishop Cummins.
The Cathedral cost nearly $175,000,000 nearly 20 years ago. It can’t simply be torn down and rebuilt.
And, the Diocese of Oakland has filed for bankruptcy after paying $56,400,000 in settlements due to some of their abusive, mostly homosexual, priests.
Thankfully, Archbishop Cordileone has turned St. Patrick’s Seminary around and it is no longer “the pink palace,” as it was once known.
Since St. Patrick’s is now a good seminary, when will Bishop Cantu allow the San Jose seminarians to return and be formed there, instead of under Cardinal Cupich in Illinois?
There are reasons why Bishops Barber and Daly and others send their men to St. Patrick’s.
Oakland is a dangerous city, besides. Don’t walk around Lake Merritt.
If you’re near Lake Merritt, you’d best be Runnin’
In the 70s I lived in a nice apartment building on Bellevue Avenue close to Lake Merritt. An apartment facing me in the next building was obviously a prostitution lair. The fun began at 9:00 pm and lasted through the night. My apartment manager begged me to stay because she’d lost a lot of tenants due to said shenanigans next door. She probably left too.
I saw that star trek episode. TOS. Spock kills kirk. Remember?
No, wait, I thought that was Stark Trek VI. Clearly the building in the picture is where Kirk saved the Federation president from being assassinated by the Klingon. It’s the United Federation of Planets headquarters.
I’d rather visit any tiny mission church in the Fresno Diocese than travel to Oakland for that.
Indeed stay away from Oakland it puts your life in danger to say the least. And by the way California is a Red state the counties proved that on this election, its the BIG cities of California that are Blue and vote Communist, just letting you know, the same for New Jersey, Illinois, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington and Virginia.
I thought our new church was bad until I saw this eyesore. So sorry for those who have to attend to what looks like a barn set on concrete.
Not only is this Cathedral ugly, cold-looking, and depressing, the acoustics are very bad. It is very hard to understand what anyone is saying as sound bouncies around in a distorting manner.