Sales From Doheny Library

Why must ignorance always prevail? Archbishop Roger Mahony’s decision, based upon St. John’s Seminary board of “directors,” to loot the Carrie Estelle Doheny Collection is both appalling and unforgivable. Must the tremendously precious gift given unselfishly by the foresighted Mrs. Doheny to all humanity from the past to the present and future be “spent?”

The Doheny Library is like a brain. All of the individual cells (in this case, books) bind together to form a harmonious whole. This is how such a collection functions to its true and intended potential. Break this bond, scatter the book/braincells, and that wise old brain perishes forever. What a different legacy to will future generations!

Shall we look back at this hypocrisy and be amazed at the stupidity and lack of foresight on the part of the current archidiocese and its supporters? Or shall we stop it?

All scholars, myself included, look back to the looting and destruction of the once great Alexandrian Library as probably one of the greatest losses of irreplaceable stored knowledge. It still bemoans us many centuries later. Ignorant, shortsighted people then made a conscious, deliberate decision to torch and raze it to its very foundations. In more recent memory, an unknown individual, decided to rip the heart out of a city by deliberately and premeditatedly burning and destroying the once proud and dignified Los Angels Public Library.

Now we are faced with a new dilemma. Shall a small self-centered group of shortsighted clergy consciously take it upon themselves to break apart and scatter a grand old institution, the Doheny Library?

Archbishop Mahony said not enough seminary applicants are received. Last year only six priests graduated. Is it money that attracts priests to become seminarists? Will this lure of money cause more priests to graduate each year from a seemingly failing seminary? Who passed this torch of destruction and anti-gnosis on to the archbishop and his fellow executioners? Why must history repeat itself, again?

And more important, what will St. John’s do for funds when this “blood money” runs out and there are no other revenues of income to tap?

JOHN RILLING

Van Nuys