Cathedral Building in America

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 10, 7 March 1907, Page 33

Cathedral Building in America

The Catholic Church in this country (says the Milwaukee ' Catholic Citizen ') is passing through a cathedral building era. In twenty dioceses of the country, cathedral churches have just been completed, are under construction, or are projected. No less than £3,000,000 will be spent on these edifices. A cathedral building wave appears to be running throughout the country. The Church has passed through its pioneer days. It has struggled to a position _of financial affluence. The cathedrals built in the fifties and sixties are too small and too meagre for the growing dioceses. Many of these, new cathedrals will be magnificent edifices, costing up into the millions. Nor is the cathedral -building confined to any sectkm of the country. In the East, Brooklyn is to 'have a £1,000,000 cathedral. In the South, a magnificent cathedral has just been dedicated 'at Richmond, Va. In the middle west, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indian^ apolis, St. Louis, St. - Paul, Minneapolis, are at work on the cathedral building proposition. Denver is 'building a cathedral. Los Angeles has had plans drawn ' for one. In his sermon at " the recent laying •of the corner stone for a new cathedral at Great Falls, Mont., Bishop ODea, of Seattle, called attention to • the fact that the construction of a cathedral church is under way in each of the five dioceses constituting the" province of Oregon. Baker City, Ore. ; Boise, Ida. ; Great Falls, and Helena, Mont. : Nesqually an>d Seattle, Wash. In Cincinnati Archbishop Moeller has decided to erect a cathedral to cost about £200,000, as a centre of a 'group of buildings,. On a ten-acre^ tract of land given for the purpose north of Norwood it is proposed to erect the new cathedral, a seminary building at a cost of about £35,000, a residence for the Archbishop' at a cost of £10,000, a parish priest's house, a school and a teachers' house. On Christmas Day, the new cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul, Indianapolis, was dedicated. A sum approximating £3,000,000 will ,be spent on Catholic cathedrals within the next few years. This does not take account of Our Lady chapel, now being constructed in St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City, to cost £160,000. Of these cathedrals, the new one planned for Brooklyn N.Y., will be the greatest. It- will be modelled along the lines the cathedral of Notre Dame -de Rouen, France, and will cost £1,000,000. It will be located on one of the finest sites in the city. The St. Louis cathedral will almost match it in magnificence. It will , have a seating. capacity of "450~0. It will probably be the largest church in America. The St. Paul Cathedral - will cost over £200,000. The Minneapolis cathedral will be almost as large and costly. In far-away Los Angeles, Bishop Conaty, has -had plans drawn for a great cathedral, in the Spanish style, which will be the finest church edifice on the Pacific coast. -' '