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.
The artist did good work.
top to bottom, left to right: St. Anthony of Padua (my man!), St. Therese, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, St. Martin de Porres, St. Joseph in his carpenter's apron, St. Juan Diego with the miraculous tilma.
The bishop just waited to go last, like a good commanding officer! I think it was Bishop Gallagher at that time.
>> I can ID a cathedral, but I’ve never seen Siamese-twin cathedrals, so I don’t know what a co-cathedral is. <<
Prior to the 1900 (?) hurricane, Galveston, and not Houston, was the key city in that area. And Galveston was made the mother church of Texas 1839, and the see of Texas in 1847. Since Houston is by far the more populous and politically significant city, now, it was made a second seat of the diocese, which has been an arch-diocese only since 2004.
There was a great article on the Galveston hurricane, with photographs. Made quite an impression on me.
I still have ALL the issues from when it changed its name from the "Journal of Local and Regional History" in the early 50s, up into the 70s when the old editor retired and they went all politically correct and repetitive.
You can get the text of most of the articles on line now, but what you don't get are the incredible pictures. It was one of the early glossy hardback magazines, each article began with 4-6 pages of coated paper with full color reproductions of paintings, illustrations, prints, etc. and then continued in the back on ordinary paper.
Struck the perfect balance between scholarship and readability. Bruce Catton, the long time editor, also wrote a Civil War trilogy - "Mr. Lincoln's War" , "Glory Road" and "A Stillness at Appomattox". Won the Pulitzer Prize for the last one, back when it meant something.
Wonder if they’ll ever celebrate a real Mass in it.
Yes, thank you, I was glad to see a crucifix, and there are certainly many lovely things in that church, especially the carvings.
We don’t have a crucifix here in our cathedral in St. Augustine. The altar was renovated in the 1970s, to conform to the supposed dictates of Vatican II, and instead we got a rather ghastly looking “Risen Christ” looming over the altar.
One of our priests makes sure that he brings the processional crucifix out with him for Mass, since in theory, according even to recent things from the Vatican, there should be a crucifix on or behind the altar - as a focal point, at any rate. The pastor doesn’t care, and I guess the bishop doesn’t either. But it always bothers me when I see a Catholic church without a crucifix, and from the outside, I was afraid that this was another one!
Quite lovely! The statues are particularly impressive. I love St. Therese and San Juan Diego.
Don't bother with anything after 1976.
Here was a really good issue - June of 61. Look at the list of articles to the right - the only hanging for mutiny in the U.S. Navy, the surrender at Appomattox, Frank Merriwell the dime novel hero, Catherwood the discoverer of the Mayan civilization, Yalta, the first New York subway (run by compressed air!), and funny money issued during the Depression.
It is just a real shame that the pictures aren't reproduced -- you don't realize how integral they are to the articles until they are missing! It's obvious that they scanned the articles in, because there are lots of typos, too.
But almost any college or university library should have a full set of these things.
I would love to steal the incredible larger-than-life size wooden crucifix from Immaculate Conception downtown . . . they only bring it out for Lent . . .
Just be glad she’s on our side!!! I am almost convinced that she must be some sorta wierd Vatican A.I. super-computer program with access to all the juicy hidden knowledge in the secret templar guarded crypts combined with southern USA traditions as a web cover...
Freegards
I know where they put the crucifix they took out of our church when the altar was “renovated.” I have occasional fantasies of people walking into the church and simply finding it restored one day, no comments, no fuss, just back in its place. But we’ve moved so far away from the Cross in our happy-slappy Catholicism here that most people would probably be horrified.
LOL! I’m just a newbie convert, they haven’t even issued me my Secret Vatican Decoder Ring and Tie Tack yet!
“Engraved, just as it should be. “ . . . made me, 2007.”
What happened to “Anno Domini?”
You know the saying - if you want to know about Catholicism, ask a Calvinist.
The executive vice president of the company I work at is in this picture! I’m sure she has a seat close to the front. I do know some other people who received invitations to the event. Not me, I’ll watch it on the web at work.
And it looks like all the bells' mottos are exactly the same, when they all should be different.
But at least they HAVE one.
Have you read The Nine Tailors?
The bell mottos figure largely in that mystery.
“Have you read The Nine Tailors?”
No, I haven’t. Who’s the author?
Excuse my ignorance, but this is something I’ve never known for certain before and should: Is St. Anthony of Padua the same St. Anthony we pray to when we pray, “St. Anthony, St. Anthony, please come around, something is lost and cannot be found”?
Interesting, thank you.
Or, "Tony, Tony, look around! Something's lost and must be found!"
And when it's found, you have to give something to the poor box right away. That's "St. Anthony's Bread."
He also is the one who preached to the fishes, he was known as "The Hammer of the Heretics" and "The Living Ark of the Covenant" because of his eloquence.
He was responsible for the miracle of the horse (or the mule) and the Eucharist (hence he is carrying a monstrance in the statue).
He is often depicted with the Christ Child in his arms, because another friar saw him so in a vision.
And if he weren't a saint, he would have a full time job just looking after me and the stuff I lose . . . .
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