California’s most eye-popping place of worship up until now has been Los Angeles’ controversial Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral.

Now it may have some competition. Oakland is unveiling its shiny new Cathedral of Christ the Light. And the local press is abuzz:

The new Cathedral of Christ the Light is a dramatic glass structure that has reshaped the downtown Oakland skyline. But even bolder could be the ambition of the community that’s being created inside.

The Catholic diocese representing Alameda and Contra Costa counties has placed this mother church for 84 parishes in the heart of downtown Oakland even as churches here and in other urban areas are dying.

The diocese has built this cathedral – a many-centuries-old concept of creating a universal identity for a diocese – as Catholic identity is increasingly fragmented along ethnic lines. In this diocese alone, the church’s multiculturalism means that Mass is offered in 13 languages.

The obstacles to creating community hardly deter Bishop Allen Vigneron, for whom the cathedral becomes a seat of influence as well as his residence. The diocese and its 600,000 parishioners – a population that would make it the Bay Area’s third largest city – have staked $190 million in construction costs on the belief that people will come.

“It bespeaks a kind of missionary confidence,” said Vigneron. “With the attractiveness of the message of Christ, we can build up the congregation.”

After three years of construction, the cathedral holds its first event this weekend. As a way of signifying that parishioners are the foundation of the cathedral, that event will be a procession Sunday from the site of the old cathedral to the new, where a cornerstone will be laid and water from all 84 parish baptismal fonts will be poured into the cathedral’s.

The diocese designed the building and its mission with a broad sense of multiculturalism, from architectural elements to the name.

The church will have Mass in the diocese’s four most popular languages: English, Vietnamese, Spanish and Tagalog. There is a “healing garden,” an outdoor sanctuary designed by and for those sexually abused by priests. Instead of naming the cathedral after a particular saint, a designation that might seem to favor one ethnic group, the diocese chose the neutral “Christ the Light” – a reference to the first lines of the magna carta of the Second Vatican Council, which ended in 1965 and began the era of modern Catholic multiculturalism.

In addition to worship and community events, made possible by a conference center on site, the cathedral will be the hub of various ministries, such as medical and legal clinics for the poor, and more are envisioned.

Yet the cathedral already finds itself struggling with the delicate balance between creating space for every community and the challenges of building collective identity.

Parishioners have been told they will need permission to put flowers on the altar, and Filipinos have been told they can no longer sing “Our Father” in Tagalog, a revered tradition, said Priscilla Cardona, 60, a parish councilmember of the Parish of Christ the Light. And Vigneron said the Christ the Light parish’s tradition of regularly bringing all ethnic communities together for a joint Mass, with a homily in English, might not continue at the cathedral.

The challenges at the cathedral underscore a reality facing all Catholic communities, but particularly in places like a cosmopolitan cathedral, where many are asked to worship as one, said the Rev. Paul Fitzgerald, a Jesuit priest and professor of religious studies at Santa Clara University.

“Fifty years ago, the way we dealt with multiculturalism was that we did Mass in Latin,” he said. “Now that we put Mass in the vernacular, the community comes to different liturgies. The challenge of a community like that is to find ways for people of those different language groups to meet in significant ways on a regular basis, not just in terms of worship, but also socializing and making decisions together.”

There’s much more at the link, and more pictures.