The Cathedral of the Holy Cross is the

cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denomination ...

of the

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston The Archdiocese of Boston ( la, Archidiœcesis Bostoniensis) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or archdiocese of the Catholic Church located in the New England region of the United States. Its territorial remit encompasses the whole of ...

and is the largest

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

church in

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

. When construction was finished, the cathedral rivaled both

Old South Church Old South Church in Boston, Massachusetts, (also known as New Old South Church or Third Church) is a historic United Church of Christ congregation first organized in 1669. Its present building was designed in the Gothic Revival style by Charles ...

and Trinity Church in grandeur. The cathedral is located in the city's South End neighborhood, at 1400 Washington St. Although the South End was initially developed for Boston's emerging

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

Protestant middle class, the neighborhood transitioned to new immigrants, especially

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

, as middle class owners moved to the new

Back Bay Back Bay is an officially recognized neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, built on reclaimed land in the Charles River basin. Construction began in 1859, as the demand for luxury housing exceeded the availability in the city at the time, and t ...

neighborhood. The cathedral functions both as a cathedral and as a

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

. The Cathedral Parish consists of large English- and Spanish-speaking congregations, drawn largely from the local area, and also includes three Archdiocese-wide congregations: the

Ge'ez Rite Alexandrian rites are liturgical rites employed by three Oriental Orthodox churches, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, and Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, as well as by their Eastern Catholic count ...

practiced by Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Egyptian Catholics; the German Apostolate; and the

Tridentine Mass The Tridentine Mass, also known as the Traditional Latin Mass or Traditional Rite, is the liturgy of Mass in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church that appears in typical editions of the Roman Missal published from 1570 to 1962. Celebrated almo ...

Catholic community. The first of these congregations moved to the cathedral from the nearby Holy Trinity Catholic Church in 1994, the other two in 2008.

History

In 1860, Bishop John Fitzpatrick recognized that the church in Boston had outgrown the old Holy Cross Cathedral on Franklin St. However, plans for the new cathedral were disrupted by the outbreak of the

United States Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

. Bishop Fitzpatrick died in 1866 and Bishop

John Williams John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932)Nylund, Rob (15 November 2022)Classic Connection review ''WBOI'' ("For the second time this year, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic honored American composer, conductor, and arranger John Williams, who wa ...

took over planning for the cathedral project. Ground was broken on April 29, 1866, and the completed structure was dedicated on December 8, 1875, by Williams, who was by then Boston's first

archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...

. The cathedral was named after the relic of holy cross that is owned by the church. This relic, supposedly a small fragment of the cross from Jesus' crucifixion was on display in the cathedral until 2018 when a janitor discovered that it had been stolen. The relic was eventually returned to the cathedral, and since its theft the relic has only been on display during special dates throughout the liturgical year. In 2018, the first major renovation of the cathedral began. During the process, approximately 8,000 square feet of

reclaimed wood Reclaimed lumber is processed wood retrieved from its original application for purposes of subsequent use. Most reclaimed lumber comes from timbers and decking rescued from old barns, factories and warehouses, although some companies use wood fr ...

was salvaged from the building. The $26 million renovation was completed on Palm Sunday 2019.

Architecture

The cathedral was designed by

Patrick Keely Patrick Charles Keely (August 9, 1816 — August 11, 1896) was an Irish-American architect based in Brooklyn, New York, and Providence, Rhode Island. He was a prolific designer of nearly 600 churches and hundreds of other institutional buildin ...

, a noted ecclesiastical architect, in the

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style. Construction commenced in 1867 and was completed in 1875. With local anti-Catholic sentiments a recent memory, the Gothic Revival edifice was intentionally massive, a statement that the Catholics of Boston were here to stay. Bricks from the 1834 riots in Charlestown, in which an Ursuline convent was burned down, were used in the arch over the front door. Built of

Roxbury puddingstone The Roxbury Conglomerate, also informally known as Roxbury puddingstone, is a name for a rock formation that forms the bedrock underlying most of Roxbury, Massachusetts, now part of the city of Boston. The bedrock formation extends well beyond t ...

with gray limestone trim, it reaches a height of 120 feet. Until the erection of the new

Cathedral of St. Joseph (Hartford, Connecticut) The Cathedral of St. Joseph in Hartford, Connecticut, United States, is the mother church and seat of the Archdiocese of Hartford. Dedicated on May 15, 1962, it stands on the site of the old cathedral which had been destroyed in a fire. It is loc ...

in 1957, Holy Cross was the largest cathedral in New England. The building, measuring in length and at the transepts, can accommodate about 2,000 worshippers in the main level. There is also an oratory for smaller services in the lower level. A planned western spire was never completed. Supervision of the construction fell largely to Keely and his assistant

John A. Dempwolf John A. Dempwolf (1848–1926) was a German-born American architect practicing in York, Pennsylvania from 1876 until his death in 1926. In association with his brother Reinhardt Dempwolf and son Frederick G. Dempwolf, he was responsible for the ...

.Virtual York: An Architectural Experience: The Dempwolf Contribution to York's Streetscape
/ref> The cathedral retains its E. and G.G. Hook and Hastings

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks ...

, opus 801, which was installed in 1875. The organ console was replaced in 1929 with a used theatre organ console when the instrument was updated. In 2003, the Andover Organ Company created and installed its opus R-394, a replica of the original three-manual console, and updated wiring and made other needed repairs.

Notable events

On January 19, 1964,

Richard Cardinal Cushing Richard James Cushing (August 24, 1895 – November 2, 1970) was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Boston from 1944 to 1970 and was made a cardinal in 1958. Cushing's main role was as fundraiser and builder ...

celebrated a

Requiem A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead ( la, Missa pro defunctis) or Mass of the dead ( la, Missa defunctorum), is a Mass of the Catholic Church offered for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, ...

for

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...

that was recorded and broadcast to the nation. The

Boston Symphony Orchestra The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1881, ...

accompanied the ''

Mozart Requiem The Requiem in D minor, K. 626, is a requiem mass by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791). Mozart composed part of the Requiem in Vienna in late 1791, but it was unfinished at his death on 5 December the same year. A completed version dat ...

''. On October 1, 1979,

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

held a 38-minute prayer service for 2,000 priests in the cathedral during his first pilgrimage to the United States. On April 18, 2013, an interfaith prayer vigil in honor of the victims of the

Boston Marathon bombing The Boston Marathon bombing was a domestic terrorist attack that took place during the annual Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Two terrorists, brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, planted two homemade pressure cooker bombs, w ...

took place at the cathedral, with

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

delivering the

eulogy A eulogy (from , ''eulogia'', Classical Greek, ''eu'' for "well" or "true", ''logia'' for "words" or "text", together for "praise") is a speech or writing in praise of a person or persons, especially one who recently died or retired, or as a ...

Cathedral High School

In 1927, Cardinal William O'Connell founded Cathedral High School adjacent to the church and charged the

Sisters of St. Joseph The Sisters of St. Joseph, also known as the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, abbreviated CSJ or SSJ, is a Roman Catholic religious congregation of women founded in Le Puy-en-Velay, France, in 1650. This congregation, named for S ...

with operating the institution. The school remains at this site today.

Photos

Image:Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Boston 1.JPG, View of the nave and sanctuary from the loft Image:Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Boston 3.JPG, View of the nave and loft from the sanctuary Image:Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Boston 2.JPG, Altar Image:Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Boston 4.JPG, Hook & Hastings Pipe Organ

References

External links

Official Cathedral Site

Archdiocese of Boston Official Site

Archdiocesan Information Page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cathedral Of The Holy Cross Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston Roman Catholic churches in Boston Holy Cross, Cathedral of the Roman Catholic churches completed in 1875 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States Gothic Revival church buildings in Massachusetts Patrick Keely buildings Towers in Massachusetts