One of the most distinctive cathedrals in the United States, it sits on Cathedral Hill overlooking downtown St. Paul and features a distinctive copper-clad dome

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Overview

The Cathedral of Saint Paul is a Roman Catholic cathedral in the city of St. Paul, Minnesota. It is the Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis; the Co-Cathedral is the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis. One of the most distinctive cathedrals in the United States, it sits on Cathedral Hill overlooking downtown St. Paul and features a distinctive copper-clad dome. It is dedicated to Paul the Apostle, who is also the namesake of the City of St. Paul. The current building opened in 1915 as the fourth cathedral of the archdiocese to bear this name. On March 25, 2009, it was designated as the National Shrine of the Apostle Paul by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Vatican. It is the third-largest Catholic cathedral and sixth-largest church in the United States.

Design

The dome of the cathedral is 76 feet (23 m) in diameter and 186 feet (57 m) high. Warm-colored paint and gold leaf were added during a major renovation of the dome in the 1950s. The exterior walls of the cathedral are Rockville granite from St. Cloud, Minnesota (from the Clark quarry). The interior walls are American Travertine from Mankato, Minnesota. The interior columns are made of several types of marble.

The interior is illuminated by twenty-four stained glass windows featuring angelic choirs. There is also a rose window in the transept designed by Charles Connick. Electric lighting was installed in 1940.

Heroic size marble statues of the four evangelists, sculpted by John Angel, are set into the niches of the piers in the four corners of the Church. This placement was not coincidental, according to Msgr. Lawrence Ryan (Historical Sketch of the Cathedral of St. Paul, 1904-1937), for as the piers hold up the church of stone, so the Word recorded by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John sustains that Church not made by human hands. Each statue rises to a height of 11’6” and weighs eight tons. The life of Saint Paul is honored by a bronze baldachin, as well as massive bronze Te Deum and Magnificat grilles. The cathedral also has six chapels dedicated to the patron saints of the European ethnic groups that settled the area around the city: St. Anthony for the Italians, St. John the Baptist for the French Canadians, St. Patrick for the Irish, St. Boniface for the Germans, Saints Cyril and Methodius for the Slavs; and St. Therese of Lisieux for the missionaries. There are also chapels dedicated to the Sacred Heart, to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and to Saint Joseph, her husband, as well as to Saint Peter.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Cathedral of Saint Paul (Minnesota)", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0