An Irish cathedral in New York

On a recent short visit to New York I had the chance to see the completed restoration work on St Patrick’s Cathedral. The last time I was there, it was like a building site –scaffolding everywhere. The finished job was worth the trouble. As the picture shows, it is absolutely beautiful inside. Normally I don’t like taking photos in churches or art galleries, but on a quiet Saturday morning in November, I allowed myself a couple of snaps!

Though now surrounded and somewhat dwarfed by skyscrapers, when it was built in the 1870s, it was the highest building in Manhattan. It was the fruit of an amazing effort by the bishop, the clergy and the faithful of New York. It’s extraordinary to think that only a few decades earlier, the influence of the Catholic Church in the United States was very small. What is even more extraordinary is to think of the huge contribution to building up the Church in New York and other US cities by Irish immigrants fleeing from famine and destitution at home. When visiting St Patrick’s I always feel a sense of justifiable pride that our forebears played such a part in the erection of this great building. I suppose part of that stems from a lack of such a cathedral in our own capital city – I feel very much a sense that it is an Irish cathedral, although I know there have always been lots of Catholics of other ethnic origins in New York and elsewhere in the USA.

Everyday it is filled with Mass goers – at the times of Masses, tourists (and there are very large numbers of them too) are politely, but firmly asked to stay away from the area where Mass is being celebrated. On a typical weekday, there are seven Masses, the first one being at 7.0 a.m. and the last at 5.30 p.m. And those Masses are celebrated with great reverence and one can almost say style – no messing about, no ad-libbing of the prayers. And when they sing, they do so with gusto.

My attention was drawn to some notices near the front of the cathedral which mentioned how almost every part of the building was restored during the period of renovation – the stained glass is brighter, the ceiling cracks repaired, the pews polished and the organ pipes cleaned. But one corner is still dusty and stained and will remain that way forever.

In the South spire at the access point to the great wooden attic, the windows are filthy, and marked with strange graffiti – over the years workers and even firefighters scrawled their names and on dates between 1999 and 2001 four men from the New York Fire Department left their marks while carrying out fire safety inspections. All four perished at Ground Zero on September 11, 2001. In 2006 the rector of St Patrick’s made the formal decision that those names would remain forever. The men were Michael Brennan, Paul Gill, Michael Lynch and Leonard Ragaglia – no marks for guessing the ethnic origin of the first three!

At a time when so many of my compatriots seem to be abandoning the practice of the faith into which they were born, it is always salutary to visit places like St Patrick’s and elsewhere in USA where, despite difficulties they share with all Western societies, the faith seems more vibrant. And just like the churches built in so many towns and villages in Ireland in the middle of the nineteenth century, the impoverished masses who emigrated sacrificed themselves to build so many fine churches and indeed schools. It is a heritage we must never lose.