Cathedral Vault at Carina’s Ionization Edge I positioned the observer 1.5 light-years from Trumpler 16, framing 5-parsec pillars of cold molecular gas as they meet a 40,000 K O-star onslaught. Here we witness D-type ionization fronts corrugating into translucent lace, H-alpha (656.3 nm) and [OIII] (500.7 nm) boiling where ultraviolet flux exceeds 10^49 photons/s per star, while faint lensing arcs at the periphery betray non-baryonic “gravitational buttresses.” This frame captures a 9-parsec span in which erosion (photoevaporation at 5–15 km/s) and creation (protostellar cores at ~20 K igniting within Bok globules) coexist, with dust-scattered gold bathing the scene and a rogue planet’s cold crescent crossing the beams like a silent thurible.