Gentle reader,
Last Sunday, we made a date to meet an old friend at the Monastery of the Angels. Dawn Eden Goldstein is a rock and roll critic turned Catholic historian and Canon Law Advocate, and she’s been a great help in our work advocating for a preservation solution for the Monastery, as it’s become clear that the Dominicans who oversee it have little interest in maintaining a faith station in Hollywood.
We knew that the Monastery had been formally suppressed in recent weeks, and that the last nun who called the cloister home was gone. But we expected to be able to show Dawn the pretty mid-century chapel, and perhaps be able to buy a loaf of the baked off-site pumpkin bread as a thank you.
But what we found was a dead zone, with all of the public facing buildings locked up tight. As we enjoyed ice tea in the garden, we saw a heartbreaking series of older worshippers walk up to the chapel door, find it locked as we had, and stand there uncertain of what to do next.
For almost a century, Monastery of the Angels has been one of the very few places in California where perpetual adoration of the eucharist was offered, and a welcoming chapel space provided to anyone who sought the solace of prayer.
We hear that the chapel is still open sometimes, and should have been open when we visited. But a locked door is a terrible thing. People will just stop coming. And with the faithful discouraged from returning, it will be easier for the Dominican Federation to sell this valuable parcel for a use other than sacred.
We didn’t stay long. It felt so sad up there on the hill where the holy place had been hollowed out. But just four blocks away we found serenity at the Vedanta Society’s Hollywood Temple, where faith is still practiced daily and scholars, adepts and community members come together to see that a better world is possible.
We’re not giving up on the Monastery of the Angels, and we don’t think you should, either. Our Friends of the Angels have a plan to keep it much as it is, until another monastic order can take residence—even if that’s years from now. Until something happens, we hope the locals reading this will keep a friendly eye on the place, and let us know what you see.
We’re off next week, returning on September 3 with the new true crime and real estate tour, Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck and Skid Row Slasher Cases. Join us, do!
yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
Psst… If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar and a subscriber edition of this newsletter, vintage Los Angeles webinars available on demand, in-person walking tours, gift certificates and a souvenir shop you can browse in. Or just share this link with other people who care.
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