Oakland Cathedral revisited: "There is no prayer there"

The comment thread on my original post about Oakland's new "Cathedral of Light" has about 90 comments at this point. My editorial observations were minimal, but that didn't stop several people from claiming positions for me (and strongly disagreeing with ... the positions they thought I held).

This thoughtful post by "Vitruvian Duck" gets closer to identifying the concerns I had when I first saw pictures of the cathedral. He received his Masters degree from the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture, one of the best (if not only) classical schools of (Church) Architecture in the country.

He visited Oakland recently and made observations philosophical and personal:

"... of modern society we can say 'there is no prayer there'. Men and women bustle about downtown skyscrapers, office workers drone on in the vast oceans of concrete found in office parks across the country.

Rarely, if ever, do they hear the ringing of the bells marking the liturgy of the hours. Rare is the visual reminder that they are called to higher things as they drive past a church, and when we build churches like the new Cathedral of Christ the Light, we are accentuating the problem. Our churches are not inviting people into them. Most of the time, people don't even know what that building is, and what it's for. 'Is it a dentist's office?' 'Is it a museum?' 'Is it a hospital?' 'Oh, that's a church?! I never would have guessed!'

... during the 2 hours or so we were exploring the Cathedral, I didn't see a single person in prayer. Not so surprising. I don't feel compelled to pray at office buildings, either."

Christians are called to be salt and light to the world (Mt. 5:13-16), and I just can't help but feel that this Cathedral of Light is salt that has lost its flavor.

Ph/t: Margaret Cabaniss of Inside Catholic.