Wandering Parish Is Going Home
Look deeper. There’s always more.
Father Fred Bailey often challenges his Aliso Viejo parishioners to do that when examining their faith, but come Nov. 5 he’ll be directing their gazes toward a more material wonder: a new $13-million Craftsman-style church.
There are crucifixes cut into metal lanterns, a rosary from Pope John Paul II embedded in the floor, a motion-sensor baptismal font carved from a 1-ton block of New Mexico granite and a chalice-inspired six-sided cupola, complete with remote-control windows.
Almost everything throughout Corpus Christi Catholic Church’s parish hall has a spiritual twist, the point being that there’s always something new to uncover. “Just like your relationship with God,” said Bailey, 52, grinning.
Designers say the 34,000-square-foot building, similar in style to the Grand Californian Hotel at Downtown Disney and many Pasadena bungalows, may be the first of its kind in the state.
Inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement of the early 20th century -- a rebellion against industrialization -- the church is characterized by the prominence of natural elements such as stone, glass and wood, as well as the use of handmade fixtures.
When Aliso Viejo formed its own parish in 1998 with congregants from Laguna Niguel’s St. Timothy, Bailey knew that a 5-acre slice of land overlooking Saddleback Valley would eventually be its home. In the meantime, parishioners gathered for services at an elementary school, a middle school and, currently, the bottom floor of a sterile office building.
All the while, Bailey was forming a vision. “The community of faith in Aliso Viejo is beautiful, and this is their home,” he said. “[That home] should speak to what’s inside.” He said he wanted to avoid the Spanish mission look, fearing it’s too pedestrian, and go for something more organic. Something cozy yet solid.
The Craftsman look slid easily into that mold.
The new facility will house the church offices, its youth and music ministries, a catering kitchen and a grand hall where Bailey will hold Mass until the sanctuary is constructed in three to five years. The entire space smells of fresh-cut wood and looks more like a quaint mountain lodge than a church, with its rusting lanterns and sunlit, vaulted lobby.
Every room has been tweaked to fit its purpose, Bailey said. In the children’s area, for instance, tiny armchairs with tiny ottomans are wedged beside grown-up-size counterparts, paintings hang beneath the counter for low-to-the-ground observers and the bathroom features tiles imported from Jerusalem depicting kid-friendly Bible stories such as Christmas, Noah’s Ark and Jonah and the whale.
Unconventional for a church? Absolutely, parishioner and development coordinator Ron Ploof said, but that’s Father Fred. Since the church’s inception Bailey has instituted, among other things, an annual summer margarita night and a costumed Halloween Mass in the fall. In lieu of traditional penance, Bailey requests that his congregants read aloud to their children or perform a random act of kindness.
With its large price tag, the Corpus Christi facility joins other recently constructed, aesthetically ambitious houses of worship in Orange County.
In late 2004, Chapman University unveiled the $10-million Merle and Marjorie Fish Interfaith Center, home to nine religious groups, a “garden of the senses” and a columbarium for urns.
A year later, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints consecrated its “Salisbury pink” granite temple in Newport Beach. Inside the 18,000-square-foot structure, crystal chandeliers and life-size statues of oxen greet Mormon worshippers watched over by a fiberglass gold-leaf angel Moroni atop a 100-foot spire. And early this year, the Jain Center of Southern California broke ground on a 20,000 square-foot temple made with marble imported from India -- the last phase of a $16.5-million expansion.
Though the building cost more than the average church, Bailey believes it was worth the effort. “We have a real faith,” he said. “Why would we use fake stone? Real rock lasts forever.”
The project’s original estimate weighed in between $7 million and $8 million, but hikes in the cost of basic materials such as steel, concrete and copper forced the parish to amp up its budget, architect Tom Lennon said. And in general, he said, opting for a Craftsman-style building adds about 20% to the tab.
Most of that money was raised by parishioners, Ploof said, a feat that wasn’t “slam-dunk easy.”
“We’re not Coto de Caza,” he said, referring to a wealthy housing development in south Orange County. “It’s the community rising to the occasion.”
And they couldn’t be more thrilled.
“How beautiful that is not to have just slapped some drywall up,” parishioner Maribeth Cooper said. “While that may be OK for some communities, we’ve always tried to raise the bar for ours.”
Her family contributed, among other things, a table and four chairs to the new facility, to symbolize their party of four.
Although it will probably be five years before the parish meets in the completed six-sided church, Cooper says that’s OK.
“We’re hoping our children will be married in this church, and that our grandchildren will be baptized in this church,” she said. “We’re here for a lifetime.”
kelly-anne.suarez@latimes.com