A bankruptcy judge has said he'll make a decision Thursday on who the winning bidder is for Crystal Cathedral, Orange County's original Protestant megachurch that was completed in Garden Grove in 1980 and is now $46 million in debt.
Bidding seems to have come down to two other Orange County institutions: the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, which represents 1.3 million church followers, and Chapman University of Orange, which represents 6,300 students who did not have the grades to get into a UC.
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After Crystal Cathedral's board revealed it did not want to sell—but would entertain offers in the $50 million range while the ministry the Rev. Robert H. Schuller started tries to come up with enough scratch of its own to buy back the 40-acre complex—Chapman opened up bidding earlier this year at $47 million.
The Diocese countered with $50 million. The university came back with $50 million and an offer to allow Crystal Cathedral to lease space with a buyback option. The Diocese upped its bid to $53.6 million and an offer to let the Protestant ministry remain there for three years. Chapman came back with $51.5 million and an offer to let the ministry lease Crystal Cathedral, the bell tower and the cemetery for $1 a month—for 15 years. The Diocese has upped the ante twice more, to $55.4 million and now $57.5 million, with an offer to allow the ministry to take over a nearby Catholic church. It's surprising no one included a new pony.
As we await a final decision from the judge, here are 5 things the Schullers could also be offered (besides a new pony) to seal a deal:
All the grapes in first class.
Bishop of Orange Tod D. Brown could throw in his personal chef, who really was plucked from the shi-shi Five Crowns in Corona del Mar.
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Chapman President James Doti could offer to add a Schuller bust to his rows of mostly deadheads sprinkled around campus.
Speaking of busts, through a three-way trade with the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, either bidder could throw in that creepy bronze of Dick, which can then be worked into Crystal Cathedral's all-new Glory of Halloween show.
Jeebus, did you sickos really think we'd end by offering a sacrificial altar boy? No way, Jose. We instead will have the sewing departments of either the Diocese or university create a new ministerial robe for Rev. Bob sewn from Elvis' old rhinestone capes.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.