St. Patrick's Cathedral or Thunder Bay Cathedral is the

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

cathedral A cathedral is a church (building), church that contains the of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, Annual conferences within Methodism, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually s ...

for the Diocese of Thunder Bay. It is situated on the corner of Donald and Archibald Streets in the city.

History

Origin

The cathedral was founded by the

Society of Jesus The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 ...

. They set up the Immaculate Conception Mission (French: Mission de L’Immaculée Conception) for the

Fort William First Nation Fort William First Nation () is an Ojibwa First Nation reserve in Ontario, Canada. The administrative headquarters for this band government is south of Thunder Bay. , the First Nation had a registered population of 1,798 people, of which thei ...

. In July 1849 two French Jesuit missionaries, Fr Pierre Choné (1808-1879) and Fr Nicolas Frémiot (1818-1854) came to the area and started the mission. From there, St. Patrick's Church was one of many churches that was missioned to the First Nations in Northern Ontario, as well as St. Andrew's Church, which was handed over to the diocese in 1997.History
from Diocese of Thunder Bay retrieved 4 April 2014

Construction

St. Patrick's was built in 1892, the same year as Thunder Bay was incorporated as a town. The foundation stone was laid on 10 October 1891,History
from ''StPatricksCathedral.ca'' retrieved 4 April 2014 and the first Mass was celebrated on 21 August 1892. The Jesuit parish priests made plans for the construction of an elementary school later that decade. In Autumn 1924, the Jesuits handed over administration of the parish to the Diocese of Sault Sainte Marie.

Reconstruction

In 1952, the Diocese of Fort William was created and St. Patrick's became its cathedral. In 1970, the diocese was renamed and it became the Diocese of Thunder Bay. From 1955, plans were drawn up to build a new larger cathedral. Three plots of adjacent land was purchased for a total of $50,000. In September 1962, the old church was demolished. A year later, 15 September 1963, the foundation stone of the new cathedral was laid and a year after that, on 8 September 1964, the first Mass was celebrated.

Parish

There are three Sunday Masses at the cathedral. There is one at 5:00pm on Saturday evening and at 8:30am and 10:30am on Sunday morning. There are weekday Masses at 9:00am from Tuesday to Friday.

References

External links

St. Patrick's Cathedral site

Diocese of Thunder Bay site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thunder Bay, Saint Patricks Cathedral Saint Patricks Cathedral Roman Catholic cathedrals in Ontario Cathedral of Saint Patrick Saint Patrick's Cathedral, Thunder Bay 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Canada