Aug 15 - Basilica Cathedral of St. John

It was another glorious warm, sunny day here in St. John’s. We have been extremely fortunate with the weather.

First stop of the day was back up at Signal Hill so Doug could get a souvenir t-shirt. The view up there never fails to impress, and it’s easy to get to and there is plenty of free parking, so it warranted a second visit.

Then we headed downtown to the Basilica Cathedral of St. John the Baptist which is the metropolitan cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John's, Newfoundland and the mother church and symbol of Roman Catholicism in Newfoundland.

We asked about tours and the young man, David, at the information desk, said that he could give us a personal tour. So, off we went! He was wonderful and we thanked him profusely when we left, as well as leaving a donation to the church.

The Basilica-Cathedral was the largest building project to its date in Newfoundland history. Construction lasted from the excavation of the ground in May 1839, through the laying of the cornerstone in May 1841, until the completion and consecration on September 9, 1855. At this time, it was the largest church building in North America and remains the second largest church in Canada after Saint Joseph's Oratory in Montreal and the largest cathedral church in Canada. The Basilica-Cathedral is one of the few buildings in St. John's to survive the Great Fire of 1892.

It is a basilica in architectural terms because of its shape – oblong, with double colonnades and a semi-circular apse. In the Catholic world, a basilica is a church building that has been recognized and accorded special privileges by the pope. During its centenary celebration in 1955, Pope Pius XII raised the cathedral to the rank of minor Basilica. (The only major basilicas are in Rome.)
A cathedral is a church that contains the cathedra (Latin for 'seat') of a bishop.

The building was constructed on an orientation with its facade facing the line of the rising sun on the Winter Solstice, and the setting sun at the Summer Solstice, just as the medieval Chartres Cathedral is oriented on a solstitial axis.

The Basilica-Cathedral of St. John the Baptist is unusual among North America's 19th century public buildings in that it was constructed using limestone and granite imported from Galway and Dublin, Ireland, as well as 400,000 bricks from Hamburg, as well as local sandstone and Newfoundland bluestone quarried from St. John's and Kelly's Island in Conception Bay, giving the Cathedral its characteristic grey colour.

For its day, the St. John's Basilica was the largest Irish cathedral anywhere outside Ireland. No other building of the Irish diaspora in North America can boast of such intimate influences from or upon Ireland, and no other building had such an international reputation in its day.

The Basilica-Cathedral contains twenty-eight stained glass windows which adorn the upper walls (clerestory) and are of English and French workmanship. The windows were the gifts of patrons and religious societies, such as the Society of the Holy Rosary and were installed between 1859 and 1905. The 35 stained glass windows in the ambulatory all date from 1954–55 and were the work of Gerard Earley and Company of Dublin; they constitute the largest collection of mid-20th Century Irish Arts and Crafts style-stained glass windows in one building in the western hemisphere.

The Altar of Sacrifice, which stands at the front of the Sanctuary, enshrines one of the most revered and important pieces of statuary in the Basilica, The Dead Christ, sculpted in Carrara marble by renowned Irish neoclassical sculptor John Hogan in 1854.

There is a beautiful Fatima Shrine, a gift from the many Portuguese people who live in Newfoundland.

In 1955, the parish installed a great pipe organ from the Casavant Frères firm of St-Hyacinthe, Québec and dedicated it in memory of the parishioners who died in World War I and World War II. The 66 stop organ with 4,050 pipes is the largest instrument in Newfoundland, and is one of the largest pipe organs east of Montreal.

In 2021, Diocesan officials announced that the Basilica was among properties being assessed for potential sale to compensate men who were sexually abused at the former Mount Cashel Orphanage. In July 2022, the diocese and the Basilica Heritage Foundation, a non-profit consortium which has pledged to protect the historic properties, announced that the foundation had purchased the Basilica, along with several other adjacent properties. The Basilica will continue as the main Catholic church for the city.Читать далее