Scheduled Events

• The following dedication events are by ticket only; therefore, access to the Cathedral is restricted:
• Christ Cathedral Celebration - July 13
• Solemn Evening Prayer and Vigil with the Relics - July 16
• Christ Cathedral Solemn Mass of Dedication - July 17
• Solemn Evening of Prayer in Thanksgiving - July 18
• Youth Dedication Event - July 19
• On July 17, from 5 - 8 p.m., the Cathedral will be open to the public for visitation.
• Following the dedication events, the Cathedral will only be open for the Saturday Vigil Mass and Sunday Masses until the Hazel Wright Organ is fully installed and voiced. It is anticipated that the Cathedral will open daily in February 2020. Therefore, not until that time will regular scheduled tours be conducted.

Fact Sheets

• The Diocese of Orange purchased the 78,000-square-foot cathedral in 2011 and the initial design concept was unveiled in late 2015.
• Most Rev. Kevin W. Vann, Bishop of Orange, traveled to Verona, Italy, to personally select the stone and marble for the altar, cathedra, ambo, and baptismal font.
• 11 million parts of scaffolding, like an erector set, were required to paint the nine-story space frame that supports the glass panes of the cathedral, hoist frames, support ladders, trusses, planks and plywood.
• Cathedral Memorial Gardens cemetery is the fourth active cemetery within the Diocese of Orange. It is the only ecumenical burial ground in the Diocese, and is a rare operating cemetery adjacent to a church. The cemetery is available to both Catholics and non-Catholics in an effort to honor the multi-denominational roots of the space.

Learn More About The Diocese and Its Mission

• Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange Website
• Follow Renovation
• OC Catholic

In The News

• Iconic glass-paned church converted to Catholic cathedral
  The Durango Herald | 8/17/2019
  The cavernous house of worship is covered on the inside with quatrefoil window shades that send sunlight cascading across a stone altar, wooden pews and prominent steel crucifix
• Christ Cathedral’s Connection to Archbishop Sheen and Mother Angelica
  National Catholic Register | 7/28/2019
  Long before the July 17 dedication of Christ Cathedral as the Catholic cathedral of the Diocese of Orange, California, the 10,000-paned glass building and 52-acre campus completed in 1980 had a unique Catholic connection: a large bronze life-size statue of Archbishop Fulton Sheen.
• With Dedication Mass, Orange Diocese’s Christ Cathedral ‘Becomes Reality’
  The Catholic Sun | 7/26/2019
  Tim Strader believes Christ Cathedral of the Diocese of Orange “will become the most important Catholic cathedral in the United States, other than St. Patrick’s” in New York.
• Christ Cathedral’s Transformation Is an Act of Providence
  National Catholic Register | 7/25/2019
  The July 17 dedication of the new Christ Cathedral for the Diocese of Orange looked backward and forward: backward to discerning the providence of God at work in the unusual conversion of a Protestant televangelist’s iconic church — the Crystal Cathedral — into a Catholic cathedral; and forward to a renewed sense of mission for the diocese organized around the new cathedral.
• Crystal Cathedral, the original evangelical megachurch, has a conversion to Catholicism
  The San Diego Union-Tribune | 7/24/2019
  On Wednesday, the former Crystal Cathedral, a Southern California landmark that has long stood at the intersection of kitsch and postmodernism just three miles from Disneyland, was officially rededicated by the most unlikely of saviors: the Catholic Church.

Diocese of Orange Leadership

Dedication Letters

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