St. Patrick's Cathedral, Thunder Bay

St. Patrick's Cathedral or Thunder Bay Cathedral is the Roman Catholic cathedral for the Diocese of Thunder Bay. It is situated on the corner of Donald and Archibald Streets in the city.

St. Patrick's Cathedral
Thunder Bay Cathedral
Front of the cathedral
LocationThunder Bay, Ontario
CountryCanada
DenominationRoman Catholic
WebsiteStPatricksCathedral.ca
History
StatusActive
FoundedOctober 10, 1891 (1891-10-10)
Founder(s)Society of Jesus
DedicationSaint Patrick
Dedicated26 August 1894
Consecrated22 August 1952 (cathedral)
Architecture
Functional statusCathedral
Architect(s)H. Rochon
Jean-Paul St Jacques
Groundbreaking15 September 1963
Completed8 September 1964
Construction cost$900,000[1]
Administration
DeaneryCentral
DioceseThunder Bay
ProvinceToronto

History

Origin

The cathedral was founded by the Society of Jesus. They set up the Immaculate Conception Mission (French: Mission de L’Immaculée Conception) for the Fort William First Nation. 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.[2]

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,[3] and the first Mass was celebrated on 21 August 1892.[2] The Jesuit parish priests made plans for the construction of an elementary school later that decade.[2]

In Autumn 1924, the Jesuits handed over administration of the parish to the Diocese of Sault Sainte Marie.[3]

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.[3] 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.

See also

References
  1. Piovesana, Roy, Hope and Charity: Diocese of Thunder Bay, an Illustrated History (Altona: Friesens, 2002), p. 162.
  2. History from Diocese of Thunder Bay retrieved 4 April 2014
  3. History from StPatricksCathedral.ca retrieved 4 April 2014
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.