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Think of the Movies Made Here!

Ocean Beach Moves Its Tabernacle

By Allyson Smith

Tempers flared February 6 during a diocesan-sponsored Environment and Art Seminar on the renovation of Sacred Heart church in Ocean Beach.

The announcement for the event from the diocese office for liturgy and spirituality, headed by Mary Ann Fallon, invited area Catholics to "Come, hear the story of the Parish Renovation Team." Speakers included Sacred Heart pastor (Father Ron Hebert), architect Darrold Davis, and Father Rod Stephens, the director of worship and evangelization for the Diocese of Orange.

Who is Father Stephens? In July, 2000 the Wanderer, a national Catholic weekly, reported that earlier in the year, Fr. Stephens had taken "a 23-day cruise on the Royal Princess love boat' with his companion, Howard Sellers, around South America. The report continued, "Fr. Stephens, who sent out copies of the itinerary to his and his companion's friends before embarking, with phone numbers for each leg of the trip, also sends out Christmas greetings of himself and his partner, Sellers, a professor of English at Fullerton College. Fr. Stephens denied he was in a 'domestic partnership' with Sellers, even though a Lexis search for their addresses indicates they share the same residence in Irvine. Stephens said he resides at the diocese's cathedral rectory. Stephens, however, has admitted that his liturgical design business, Sacra Forma, is based in Sellers' residence. A greeting card he and Sellers sent out to friends at Christmastime, showing the two of them standing together on a ladder, read, 'From our digs to yours, Howard and Rod,' and wished recipients a Happy Christmas, Chanukah, and New Year.'"

The February, 2001 issue of the Los Angeles Mission reported that on July 25, 2000, Robert Lynch of Concerned Roman Catholics of America, wrote to Bishop Tod Brown, "From the time of your appointment as the bishop of Orange in September 1998 to date, you permitted [Father Rod] Stephens to continue to live what is evidently a notorious, long-term, and committed homosexual lifestyle." Lynch claimed that "most if not all" of the priests of Orange either approved or tolerated Father Stephens' lifestyle; Lynch maintained that this situation had existed under Bishop Brown's predecessors, Bishops William Johnson, and Norman McFarland.

Before the beginning of the Sacred Heart seminar, a layman passed out fliers titled Renovation Alert that contained segments of the Wanderer's article on Fr. Stephens. The fliers asked attendees "Is this how you want your parish's money spent?'" and "Are you willing to trust this person to renovate God's sanctuary?' The fliers provoked Fr. Hebert, who confronted the layman saying he had called the police and that he had better leave because the fliers were a "disruption" and "not true." Hebert prohibited the layman from passing out more fliers and from asking personal questions of Fr. Stephens.

Fallon started off the seminar by telling attendees, "We are very pleased to feature the renovation as well as the process here at Sacred Heart church. I feel pretty sure that you will be enlightened and be inspired by hearing about the working relationship [of the renovation team]" and "I think the way they retained the structural integrity of the church and combined the traditional with the contemporary is a delightful and reverent experience for all of us."

Aspects of the renovation included the moving of the tabernacle to a new "chapel of reservation" hidden behind the sanctuary, as well as statues that one attendee described as "demonic" and "psychosexual." A bust of Jesus in one of the side alcoves, dubbed "Darth Jesus" by an observer, shows our Lord with a hood pulled down low over his forehead, holding open His chest to reveal His Heart. However, instead of the traditional depiction of the Sacred Heart, the heart in the statue consists of a relief sculpture of multitudes of people. The central figure in the heart is a naked woman, with breasts exposed.

In the opposite alcove, a statue of the Holy Family depicts St. Joseph seated on the ground with his legs spread, balancing a Baby Jesus on his knees. The Blessed Mother kneels behind Joseph, towering over him and pressing the front of her body against his head and back as she cradles him in her arms. There is no statuary in the sanctuary.

Fallon introduced Fr. Stephens and led the opening prayer with him as he called upon God "to celebrate this sacred space." He began his talk by introducing Fr. Hebert's dog, Paco, who roamed throughout the church's sanctuary and the Eucharistic "chapel of reservation" hidden behind it during the presentation. Fr. Stephens introduced the rest of the renovation team, including Fr. Hebert, whom he called "the person that Bishop Brom relied upon for the renovation of this space."

"At the beginning," said Fr. Stephens, "we would like to present the liturgical spirituality and the Eucharistic theology that underlies our Catholic faith and worship.... It's an extraordinary theology that we do in this place. And that's why our places of worship have these altars in them; we honor this place so profoundly. We can articulate who we are in a more profound way, which is, we are what we eat."

After polling the audience to find out how many attendees were "thinking about renovating or about to renovate or are engaged in renovation," Fr. Stephens said, "We have a cross-section of people gathered this evening to consider a worship space. We would like to start with our Catholic theology, because if it doesn't address our Catholic theology, we end up with a very beautiful building that might not work. Our buildings sometimes don't work because of lighting; sometimes they don't work because the roof leaks; sometimes there's other reasons why buildings don't work. Among those reasons why buildings don't work sometimes is because of the dynamics of the space: They don't enable the celebration of the Eucharist ... and that actually is one of the reasons ... why Fr. Ron and this community of faith decided to address their worship space."

Next, Fr. Hebert addressed the crowd of about 50 people, describing how parishioners who disagreed with the design team's consensus dropped out of the project: "The process of going through this renovation was a two-year process just in the thinking phase. We put together a group of parishioners who were representative of various age groups and various interests, and the reason I know that that was a representative group is that ... we had times when there were various opinions brought forward ... but sometimes there was a point of view that just could not go along with what the committee was doing and [that person] chose to leave the committee because of that.

"It was a parishioner, again, who came with a solution to where the tabernacle would be placed. She had the idea that it would form a beautiful interior chapel and a worthy place for the tabernacle.... What drove this whole renovation was to have the building speak to the people of what liturgy is about.... What was most important to me as a pastor was the place of baptism, was [where] to locate the baptismal font. It had gotten to a point when I arrived -- and again that's not a judgment, that's just how it was -- but we were using a fancy bowl to baptize children.... This church needed a focus for baptism, and that's what drove, again, the idea of placing the font where it is [a jacuzzi-style immersion tub at the entrance of the nave], and it was the relationship between the font and the altar; that was the main concern that I had.

"The other concern that I had dealt with music, and we were lucky to have a music director who has read the bishops' statement on music, and has tried to make this parish a singing parish.... We wanted to have people who understood what the liturgical thrust of Vatican II was about, and we were lucky in our liturgical consultant, we were lucky in the diocese. I must say the diocese of San Diego is not there to place obstacles....

"Of course, it did become very, very important where the tabernacle was going to be placed, and to place it elsewhere in this building, we felt, was going to be a disservice to the way this building was built. Father Rod said that he thought that this church building, was the most impressive on the street. I must say that we've had many, many inquiries from moviemakers to have films made here. In fact two were shot here until the neighbors got sick and tired of having actors and actresses and everybody else all over the place. So the building, when it was built, certainly was built with a lot of quality and a lot of thought and was a very beautiful building. I think the renovation -- of course, I would not think otherwise -- enhances all that this community is trying to be. We're trying to be a Eucharistic community, but that Eucharist is not centered here. It is celebrated here, and it leaves here to be a presence in the world and a change of will. If that does not happen, that it's all for nothing. So those were important issues."

In later remarks, Fr. Stephens said that the top of the bell tower "was the design inspiration for the altar. He described the hidden Eucharistic chapel as "the sacred tabernacle wherein one may enter the holy of holies," adding, "You are certainly welcome to go inside to the reservation chapel."

Fr. Stephens spoke of "the presider who calls us to Christ" and said that "God has the presider at the table." He emphasized that "Christian hospitality was key and said it was "the hospitality of Christ that said, 'Come on in and die to sin.'"

According to Fr. Stephens, the placement of the baptismal jacuzzi at the nave entrance was influenced by the fact that "The coffin, bride and groom, and first communicant stops at the font." He added, "The font is designed not for submersion but for immersion." Immersion baptisteries, according to Michael Rose in his new book Ugly as Sin, were "popularized by Protestant sects that deny the validity of infant Baptism." Fr. Stephens described the processional aisle baptismal pool to the altar as the "axis of the space," delineated by darker floor tiles, and talked about "the centrality of the crucifix".

Other speakers included an elderly parishioner who talked about the liturgical changes since Vatican II: "When they turned the altars around, that was another thing [during] 'Act 2' (Vatican 2). There's been different joyrides and heartaches all these times."

A woman from the renovation team told the audience, "Some people wanted to see the 'altar of reservation' (the tabernacle) in the center. It's like the holy of holies. You know it's there, and you can go around [the to the back of the sanctuary] to do that."

Outside the church, as she was leaving the seminar, one attendee told Darrold Davis, the architect, that she didn't like the fact that the tabernacle had been hidden. After offering explanations, Davis said, "That's the way it was in 100 A.D. Then, pointing to the other non-Catholic churches lining Saratoga Avenue, he said, "If you don't like it, you can join one of them."

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