Posted on 03/29/2008 3:11:10 PM PDT by NYer
Already hailed as "a Houston landmark," yesterday saw the first official preview of the city's new Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, which'll be dedicated on Wednesday before 60 hierarchs and a very lucky crowd of close to 2,000.
To mark the occasion -- which the regional media has treated as an earth-altering event and then some -- today's hometown Chronicle contains a full package on the festivities.
As Cardinal Daniel DiNardo consecrates the $65 million de facto hub of his 1.5 million-member archdiocese, Texas' oldest and the largest in the South, fellow neo-porporato Cardinal John Foley will be present... in the friendly confines of the commentator's booth.
Yet even for all the red in evidence -- and the local hopes that Purple Rain will fall during the celebrations -- Dedication Day will rightfully belong to the project's "mastermind": founding Archbishop Joseph Fiorenza, a native son and once a curate at the heretofore co-cathedral, who said in an interview that the "tremendous [i.e quadruple] growth of the archdiocese in the last two decades" necessitated "a new cathedral that would be sufficiently large for us to gather a large number of our people for the important moments in the life of the church." But even so, despite all the pizazz of the new building, the paper reminds that the official seat of the booming local church remains 50 miles south, in "the cradle" of Texas Catholicism: Galveston's St Mary's Basilica.
The first US mother-church to be dedicated since LA's Our Lady of the Angels in 2002, the Houston cathedral is one of two opening its doors this year; the other, Oakland's Christ the Light, will be inaugurated in late September.
Never to be outdone, the Chron's coverage is capped by an extensive photo gallery from über-photog Smiley Pool, who memorably gave the Vatican shutterbugs quite a run for their money during DiNardo's Thanksgiving Weekend elevation to the "papal senate."
Sia lodato Smiley... and congrats to everyone in H-Town.
Any freepers fortunate to be in attendance on Wednesday?
Any freepers fortunate to be in attendance on Wednesday?
I can ID a cathedral, but I’ve never seen Siamese-twin cathedrals, so I don’t know what a co-cathedral is.
It’s beautiful; and a beautiful photo.
If you know of a church that would like to have this kind of photo-documentation done of it, send them my way....
A co-cathedral exists usually when two smaller dioceses have been merged; one of the former cathedrals becomes the co-cathedral. I don’t know the history of the Houston diocese, but I would imagine this is what happened to result in the “co-cathedral.”
That said, I’m not a great fan of these giant “Risen Christ” images. Looks to me like we’re avoiding the Cross.
It looks to me to be a beautiful building which will honor God.
I agree. Look’s good.
It’s my recollection that as Houston exploded and Galveston stagnated, the functional center moved to Houston, and eventually the Houston church was named cathedral. Rather than stripping Galveston of the honor of being a cathedral, the two were named co-cathedrals.
Per one of the links, Houston received a Cathedral in 1959.
To continue a long, disjointed discussion, this isn’t even a candidate for one of our ‘ugly church’ threads. Full photo essay here: http://www.chron.com/channel/houstonbelief/photogallery/CoCathedral_of_the_Sacred_Heart.html#_self
What a lovely building. The iconography is especially wonderful. I hope that someday I can visit with my family — that Resurrection Window is awe-inspiring in person, I bet.
One quibble: no kneelers?
Our choirmaster told me a funny story. He was in a church in NYC, practicing on the organ late one night, and somebody had left the stop pulled out that connected the keyboard with the BELLS in the tower!!!!! He woke everybody up for miles around!
Engraved, just as it should be. " . . . made me, 2007."
That building survived the Galveston hurricane. The priests had taken refuge in the cathedral, and were standing with the bishop at the high altar when the bell tower suddenly collapsed and crashed through into the nave. The bishop turned to the rector, Fr. Kirwan, and told him, "Prepare these priests for death."
As it happened, they all survived.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.