CATHEDRAL TREASURES REMOVED : RISK CALLED HIGH AT ST. VIBIANA'S.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

The Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese has begun moving relics, artifacts and stained-glass windows from the landmark St. Vibiana's Cathedral in preparation for the eventual demolition of the quake-damaged building.

Among the items are the remains of St. Vibiana herself, an enigmatic third-century Italian martyr for whom the 120-year-old cathedral is named.

Workers on Monday opened the marble sarcophagus containing the saint's relics, which will be housed temporarily at archdiocese-owned Calvary Cemetery, said the Rev. Gregory Coiro, archdiocese spokesman.

Meanwhile, back at the cathedral at Second and Main streets, crews have been busy this week preparing for the removal of one-ton marble statues and 50 stained-glass windows, Coiro said.

``These priceless treasures are at risk, so it would be irresponsible to leave them where they would be destroyed,'' Coiro said.

Cardinal Roger Mahony ordered the 1,200-seat cathedral's valuable fixtures and decor cleared out and crated for safekeeping because St. Vibiana's sustained considerable structural damage during the 1994 Northridge Earthquake.

Mahony wants to protect the artifacts and statues in the event of another temblor. The cardinal has said that once a replacement cathedral is built, the historical items will be incorporated into the new building, which the archdiocese hopes to open by 2000.

Plans call for demolition of the cathedral because repairs and seismic retrofitting would be too expensive. The structure, a combination of unreinforced masonry and gray Indiana limestone, has been closed to the public for a year. Large cracks are visible in the 83-foot-tall bell tower.

Entrusted with relocating the artifacts is Carnevale and Lohr Inc., a Bell Gardens firm that specializes in cutting, polishing and installing marble and granite.

The 38-year-old family business has done similar work at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu and at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, said company President Louie Carnevale.

Years ago, the firm built the marble sarcophagus for St. Vibiana's relics. This week, as Mahony looked on, crews removed the lid to reveal the bones - encased inside the wax rendering of a young woman in a billowy gown, a crucifix on her lap.

Mahony said a prayer as mortuary workers removed the saint's velvet-lined wooden coffin from the sarcophagus for the trip to Calvary Cemetery, Carnevale said.

Crews using hand rigging have taken down from pedestals four life-size marble statues: Jesus pointing to his Sacred Heart; the Virgin Mary; St. Patrick - who, along with St. Vibiana, is the patron saint of the archdiocese; and St. Emydius, who in Catholicism is regarded as a protector from earthquakes.

``We estimate their weight at 2,000 pounds each,'' Carnevale said of the white Carrara marble statues, carved by Italian craftsmen. ``They were kind of teetering up there. They had been moving over the years.''

Carnevale's crew got a jolt about 8:30 Thursday morning, when a magnitude-3.6 temblor - with an epicenter near downtown Los Angeles - rattled the cathedral.

``It's ironic. We're worried about earthquakes and damage at the church, and (Thursday) we had an earthquake,'' he said.

The next task is to dismantle the ornately carved marble altar, baptismal font and pulpit into their component pieces. Workers will photograph and catalog the parts, pack them to prevent breakage and discoloration from moisture, and then place them in custom-built, numbered crates, Carnevale said.

The pieces are so heavy that they will be hauled out of the church on dollies and loaded onto trucks with forklifts, Carnevale said.

The company also will remove and crate several six-foot marble candlesticks and the two-foot stone Stations of the Cross that are mounted on the walls of the cathedral.

Meanwhile, artisans from a Highland Park business are in charge of salvaging the cathedral's stained-glass windows.

Coiro said 14 of them depict biblical stories, including the good shepherd, the archangel Gabriel telling the Virgin Mary she will bear a child, the nativity scene, and Jesus' resurrection and ascension into heaven.

Crews from Judson Studios will photograph, catalog, clean and replace the lead that holds the colored glass together and then pack the windows for storage - at a downtown site that also houses the cathedral's dismantled pipe organ, Coiro said.

The remains of St. Vibiana likely will be interred in a sarcophagus inside the new cathedral once it is built, according to Coiro, who said very little is known about who she was or what she did, 1,600 years ago, to be named a saint.

Her remains ``were discovered in 1853 in a previously unexplored area of the Roman catacombs,'' Coiro said.

The tomb bore this marking: ``This was the body of St. Vibiana, who was a virgin and a martyr of the faith.''

``In the early days of (Catholicism), anyone who was martyred for the Church was automatically considered a saint,'' Coiro said. The details of her life, however, are a mystery.

``St. Vibiana is a rather obscure saint. Very little is known about her,'' Coiro said. ``All we know about St. Vibiana is what was on that inscription.''

Archdiocesan history doesn't even explain why, more than a century ago, Pope Pius IX wanted the martyr's bones sent halfway around the world to a pioneer town that was already named for Our Lady, Queen of the Angels.

Coiro said he knows no particular connection between 19th century Los Angeles and St. Vibiana; the timing of the relics' discovery and the construction of the cathedral are probably the overriding reason the pope entrusted then-Bishop Thaddeus Amat with the remains, with the instruction that the cathedral be named in her honor, he said.

For several decades, a glass case containing the bones and wax effigy hung over the altar. ``She was lying on her back, and she looked like she was asleep, with her hands over her heart,'' Coiro said.

After the Catholic Church underwent sweeping changes following the Second Vatican Council, practices like the display of relics fell by the wayside. ``During the renovations of the cathedral in the early 1970s, the effigy was placed in the sarcophagus,'' Coiro said.

``There are other places in the world where the remains of the saints are contained in wax effigies, so (19th-century bishops) may have been following an Old World practice,'' he said.

``But manners of devotion have changed,'' Coiro said. ``I think some people (now) would say that having a saint's relics on display in a wax effigy was a bit excessive.''

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Photo: Workers have begun removing furniture, stained-glass windows, artifacts and relics from St. Vibiana's Cathedral.

Michael Owen Baker/Daily News