I rode the train to downtown Los Angeles last week. East-coasters will think this natural; Angelinos will wonder why I didn’t drive (one answer: cheaper than parking in LA). My purpose: a triple pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, the old central branch of the Los Angeles Public Library, and the site of the birth of the global Pentecostal movement on Azusa Street. I plan to do a mini annotated photo essay of the dirty alley that is all that remains of Azusa St., which will be revitalized for a couple of days later this month when tens of thousands of Pentecostal Christians celebrate their centennial by seeing how many of the faithful they can cram into this hundred foot alley. I don’t plan to do a post on the LAPL, but libraries are as sacred as any cathedral to me, with their book-lined corridors as full of secrets as a hundred confessionals.

I started my trek at Union Station and walked through the old Pueblo of Los Angeles. I walked past the section of Olvera Street that was blocked off for a movie shoot and went into the 180-year-old Plaza Church. The poor lighting and small space made me feel claustrophobic, but soon my attention was drawn to the dark Hispanic parishioners who walked in singly, dipping their fingers in the holy water by the door and blessing themselves. Some were praying quietly as they crossed themselves repeatedly and fervently, “En el nombre del Padre, y del Hijo, y del Esp??ritu Santo.” I was intrigued by the intensity and obvious sincerity of their devotion. Every so often the woman in the front row would softly sing a hymn, then return to her praying.

As I walked over and along the Hollywood Freeway towards the Cathedral, I wondered about my fascination with these outward forms of worship. A lot of Protestant and Mormon (outside of the temple) worship focuses on the intangible—words, songs and prayers to and about a God who makes his presence felt through an invisible Spirit. In a Catholic church, the paintings and relics of the saints, the crucifix, and the vessel for the holy water—all of these are visible and tangible. Worship is active and sensory: making sign of the cross with fingers still damp and rolling the rosary beads, one at a time as each prayer is spoken out loud.

The Catholic Church gets a lot of bad press in our country, and I’m not just talking about recent news about Father O’So-and-so getting a too touchy-feely with the altar-boys. The British colonies were predominantly anti-papist long before the birth of Thomases Jefferson and Paine and the Protestant and Enlightenment mistrust of Catholic “ritualistic idolatry” influences the dominant religious and intellectual currents in the U.S. to this day. I was brought up to be a good little rationalist anti-superstitious (half-Asian) WASP—even my Irish and French heritage is Protestant. I converted to Mormonism as a teenager, and read in the Book of Mormon about the “church which is most abominable above all other churches” which is the “mother of harlots” and “whose founder is the devil.” I read commentaries and talked to LDS teachers and friends who told me that these referred to the Catholic Church. Officially the Mormon Church is clear that these don’t refer to Catholicism, but from my experience the historical perception still lingers.

I’ve belabored the point, and digressed from the actual pilgrimage. But I wanted to paint a picture of my personal historical bias against the Catholic Church specifically and against ritual in general. I’d like to think of my positive experience while these Catholic churches as proof that I’ve finally shed some of this prejudice.

It’s late—I’ll continue this post tomorrow, and I promise that I’ll actually talk about the cathedral some.