Archbishop of Sydney

125th Anniversary of the Opening of St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney

2 Chronicles c5: 6-11.13-c6:2
Ps 8 3: 3-5. 10-11
1 Cor. 3: 9-11. 16-17
Jn 2: 13-22

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
23/9/2007

This weekend in our beautiful Cathedral is somewhat unusual, principally because we celebrate the 125th anniversary of its opening, but also because yesterday I ordained two young priests for our Archdiocese (making a total of five for this year).  We don’t have such ordinations celebrated on every weekend.

Otherwise however it was business as usual with the daily Masses on Saturday, Sunday Masses, confessions and weddings and today we have the First Communions and Confirmations of some of our choirboys.  A cathedral, even more than the usual parish church, is a spiritual powerhouse where the one true God is worshipped, the fruits of Christ’s unique redemptive activity are made available to us and the Church, the Body of Christ, continues to renew herself through the nourishment of her members in the various sacraments.

In the first reading we heard about the dedication of the first temple in Jerusalem, Solomon’s Temple, about 950 years before the Lord’s birth.  It is the prototype of all our great cathedrals and was a building loved by Christ himself as He wept over its future destruction.

But we, unlike Solomon, no longer sacrifice innumerable sheep and oxen; nor is the Holy of Holies empty except for the tablets of the Law given to Moses at Mt. Horeb.  Our worship of the one true God (identical of course with the God worshipped by the Jews) is centered on the life and redemptive death of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and in our holy of holies, the sanctuary with the main altar, we make present again Christ’s unique sacrifice through the celebration of the Eucharist, when we eat Christ’s Body and drink His Blood.

It is the conviction in faith of the importance of the activities we perform in this Cathedral, a conviction shared by generations of clergy and people, which explain its magnificence and also explain our determination to complete the interior renovation of the Cathedral so that its external beauty is at least equalled internally.

We all know that this is not the first chapel or cathedral on this site; that Governor Macquarie laid the foundation stone for the first church in 1821, when the site was on the eastern fringe of Sydney Town, next to the convict barracks of Hyde Park and on a steep hill above the Woolloomooloo basin.  This miserable site reflected the social position of the Irish Australian Catholics.

However even Vicar General Ullathorne when he arrived in 1833, reported that Father Therry’s still roofless church was “a solid noble building, the finest in the colony”, which was completed for the arrival of the first bishop, John Bede Polding, in 1835.

Disaster struck on the night of June 29th, 1865 when the first Cathedral was burnt down.  We know from his letters that Archbishop Polding enjoyed his misfortunes.  Already in a “sea of troubles”, he explained that he was “prostrate, stunned at first by the blow”.  Eventually however he was “almost glad” that the “dreadful calamity” had occurred because of the widespread support outside the Catholic community which Catholics received and because of the new opportunities which now lay open.

Some months later on October 6th, 1865 he commissioned William Wardell, who had already designed St. John’s College at Sydney University and was the finest architect in New South Wales and Victoria, to design a Gothic Cathedral in “any plan, any style, anything that is beautiful and grand, to the extent of our power”.

Wardell warned Polding that it would be “a comparatively costly work”, a prophecy which remains true today, because he was building “not for today, but for all time” and “the supreme consideration is not what is cheapest, but what is best”.  God’s house deserves no less.

Today with modern technology and finance available through development funds or banks, we are used to completing huge building projects in some years.  In the Middle Ages cathedrals were usually only completed in many generations, sometimes across a century or more.  St. Mary’s Cathedral falls between these two extremes as the work was substantially completed in three stages, with the official opening of the first stage, the northern section by Archbishop Vaughan on September 8th, 1882.  Next in 1902 Cardinal Moran provided a permanent roof, the stained glass windows, the central Cardinal’s Tower and one bay of the nave, while Archbishop Kelly erected the Southern section with the façade and basis of the two towers in 1928.  We all know that the beautiful spires on these towers were constructed in the Jubilee Year 2000.

All in all our Cathedral was finished in one life time as Archbishop Redwood of Wellington, New Zealand, who even remembered the old St. Mary’s and preached at Archbishop Vaughan’s ceremonies to mark the opening in 1882 was also present, as a ninety year old at the 1928 completion ceremony.

Well might we say with the psalmist “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God” and “Here God lives among his people”.  Our duty, the duty of all of us who love this building and worship here, is to ensure that this house of God our Father remains as a house of regular prayer and does not degenerate simply into a museum visited by largely uncomprehending tourists.

I am pleased to claim, in truth and humility, that the Cathedral is now used for worship more frequently than at any time in its history.  We have a larger population than earlier generations and transport is also easier.  Christ remains our only true foundation and the physical stones in this building remain at the service of the Spirit and the many living stones, individuals of every age and race, who come here to pray.

Extravagant claims have been made for our Cathedral.  In 1928 the New South Wales premier Thomas Bavin, the son of a Methodist minister, described it as “the most beautiful Cathedral which has been built in the world during the last two hundred years”.  I have friends in Melbourne and New York who would hear this claim with some scepticism!

But Premier Bavin was completely correct in two other claims.  First of all that St. Mary’s is “the possession of all of us, no matter what class or creed we belong to” and that “it stands as a sermon in stone, silent but eloquent witness to the truth that men do not live by bread alone”.

Archbishop Vaughan, more than anyone else, deserves praise as the founder of this Cathedral.  He personally wrote 1466 letters asking for money and 1000 personal “thank you” replies in raising the finance to complete the first phase.

He claimed that this Cathedral would speak to later generations of the faith of the generation which built it.  He was correct.

Today, when many inside the Church, as well as a larger number outside her, can only muster a faith that is uncertain and weak, or even non-existent, we need to ponder these stones, their beauty and their order and strive to hear what they are saying.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen