To me, it looks like a "tear-down"

To Bishop Tod Brown of the diocese of Orange, CA, it looks like a pretty cathedral, so he paid $57.5 million for it.  Rorate Caeli has more here.

Perhaps Bishop Tod Brown intends to form a congregation of monks who devote themselves to a life of  grueling penance which consists of attending Mass in this ghastly place every day?

UPDATE: Bishop Tod Brown's negotiators have reportedly won a convert on the Crystal Cathedral's board, which is nice, but doesn't make the building any less ugly.