The Metropolitan Cathedral of the Sacred Heart and of Saint Mary His Mother, better known as Sacred Heart Cathedral, is a Roman Catholic cathedral church on Hill Street, Wellington, New Zealand. It is the parish church of the Thorndon Catholic parish (founded 1850) and the seat of the Archbishop of Wellington. The New Zealand Parliament is a close neighbour of the cathedral. However, the Thorndon Catholic parish predates that institution. The cathedral is part of a Catholic precinct which includes: St Mary's College; Sacred Heart Cathedral School; St Mary's Convent, the motherhouse of the Sisters of Mercy in Wellington; the Catholic Centre, in which Catholic administration is located; and Viard House, which is both the cathedral parish presbytery and the residence of the archbishop.
The church was popularly known as "the Basilica", because of its palladian architectural style.In Roman Catholic ecclesiastical terms, Sacred Heart Cathedral is not a minor basilica. See: List of minor basilicas in the world. It was designated as the cathedral of Wellington in 1984 after earthquake strengthening and the addition of the Blessed Sacrament chapel, foyer, sacristy, courtyard, hall (called Connolly Hall) and piazza. The parish of Thorndon was administered by the Society of Mary (Marist Fathers) for eighty-five years until 1935, although secular or diocesan clergy were also stationed there. The founder of the see, Bishop Viard, and the first two archbishops, Redwood and O'Shea, were also members of the Society of Mary. From 1954 all the archbishops and the resident clergy of the cathedral were secular clergy. However on 4 May 2023 the Marist residency was restored when Archbishop Paul Martin SM succeeded to the see.
Thorndon has always been the residence of the archbishops of Wellington except for the period 1935–1954 when Archbishop O'Shea continued to live at Paterson St, Mt Victoria which was his address as coadjutor.
On 13 July 2018, the main cathedral building was closed for seismic strengthening and renovation. After the $13 million renovation and strengthening the cathedral reopened in June 2024.
History
The first church to be built on the Hill Street site was the wooden, neo-Gothic, St Mary's Cathedral, blessed and opened in 1851. It was gutted by fire on 28 November 1898, during repainting. It was decided that a new cathedral should be erected near Mt Victoria and a parish church built on the site of the old cathedral.
However, the new parish church, called the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, was intended as a substantial building. Its foundation stone was laid in 1899 and the building blessed and opened two years later. The money to build Sacred Heart was partly taken from the fund for the new cathedral; the new cathedral was never actually built. It was not until 1984 that the Basilica was elevated to the status of a cathedral, and on 18 March 1984 the cathedral was consecrated by Cardinal Thomas Williams, the fifth Archbishop of Wellington. In 1985, the building was listed as a Category 1 Historic Place by Heritage New Zealand.New Zealand Historic Places Trust, Sacred Heart Cathedral, Wellington (Retrieved 17 August 2014)
The neo-classical basilica was designed by Francis Petre and was the only church Petre designed in the North Island. The building is a mixture of Oamaru stone, brick, and masonry.
The interior features a main aisle and two side aisles, a large arcaded nave and a large arch forming the entrance to the sanctuary. Walls are built in a succession of arches surmounted by a cornice of stone which forms part of the roof.Dan Kelly, p. 83, quoting The Tablet, 7 February 1901. Series of stone pilasters are ranged against the walls and on the sides of piers. The pilasters in the sanctuary form, with two free-standing columns supporting the cornice, a pleasing assemblage. Their capitals all continue the Ionic theme of the portico. To strengthen the building against earthquakes, concrete piers and steel beams were incorporated in the fabric of the building in 1983. The Blessed Sacrament chapel, the foyer entrance and the adjoining Connolly Hall were added to the cathedral in 1984. They are mainly constructed in concrete.Metropolitan Cathedral of the Sacred Heart and St Mary His Mother, Hill St, Thorndon, Wellington: A Short Guide, Sacred Heart Cathedral Parish, Thorndon, 2011(?) At the same time a large square or piazza was constructed at the east end of the cathedral and this is used for processions and gathering space, especially on Palm Sunday, during Holy Week, and at Easter for the Service of the light and the candle-lit procession before the Easter Vigil Mass. For a period Sacred Heart looked even more palladian when it had twin bell towers topped with domes.Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand: Photograph of the Cathedral showing bell towers. (Retrieved 23 November 2014) These towers (not designed by Francis Petre) were incorporated in the original design but were removed in 1942, following an earthquake.
In 2018 the cathedral was closed due to a poor seismic strength rating. $13 million was spent on not only strengthening the church but also restoring details such as paintwork. The roof had steel inserted for strengthening and rods were installed into the columns for support. The cathedral reopened in June 2024. During the works a Carrara marble altarpiece from St Gerard's Monastery was installed in the church.
Features
Stonework The previously-painted interior whitestonework of the cathedral has been restored to its natural cream-coloured state.Kate Green, "$8.5m to strengthen cathedral", 'The Dominion Post', 24 July 2020, p. 5.
Ceiling The cathedral has a painted pressed metal, Wunderlich ceiling.
High Altar The marble altar is fronted by a three part mosaic of the annunciation, with the Angel Gabriel on the left and the Blessed Virgin on the right. between those are the words verbum caro factum est ("the word was made flesh"). The altar was given to Sacred Heart Cathedral to become the cathedral's high altar by the ICPE Mission when they closed St Gerard's Monastery in 2023."St Gerard’s Monastery altar moving to Wellington’s Sacred Heart Cathedral", Catholic Archdiocese of Wellington (Retrieved 11 July 2023)
Sacred Heart The sanctuary is dominated by a large painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Enrico Refto above the cathedra of the archbishop. At the top of the westernmost arch of the cathedral, above the sanctuary, is a large, sculpted, Oamaru stone emblem of the Sacred Heart.
Pulpit The beautiful and ample pulpit just outside the sanctuary beside the northern aisle is still in use. It was installed in 1908 to commemorate the first parish priest of the new Basilica, Father W J Lewis SM, who died in 1907. He had been parish priest when the Basilica was being built. The pulpit was paid for by his fellow priests and records their sorrow at his demise. There was a memorial plaque which listed the details of Father Lewis' life on the adjoining pillar. This was removed to make way for one of the memorial crosses which signify the consecration of the church in 1984. The plaque may now be found at the top of the southern aisle of the cathedral. The names of all the bishops and archbishops in Wellington have recently been inscribed on the panels of the pulpit although the original dedication by the priests to the memory of Father Lewis remains recorded at the base of the structure.
Viard memorial
On a pier beside the South Aisle are three memorial tablets (one in English and two in Latin) relating to Bishop Viard, the first Bishop of Wellington, who died in 1872 and is buried in the cathedral. He was originally buried in the old St Mary's Cathedral in a brick vault at the foot of Our Lady's Altar. His tomb in the present cathedral is approximately on the Hill St side of the baptismal font at the cross-aisle (see photograph above right). Four years later, the first parish priest of Thorndon, Father Jean Baptist Petitjean, who had arrived in Wellington with Bishop Viard in 1850, died in front of the same altar at the tomb of his bishop. Father Petitjean is also commemorated in Sacred Heart."Catholic pioneers: Fr Jean-Baptiste Petitjean", Catholic Archdiocese of Wellington (Retrieved 23 November 2014)
Chapel The Blessed Sacrament Chapel, built to the north, at right angles to the main axis of the building, can accommodate about 60 worshippers. The chapel houses five examples of fine English Victorian stained glass from the studios of the Atkinson Brothers given by the parish of St Joseph, Mt Victoria. They were first placed in the original, octagonal, St Joseph's church in Buckle St in 1885.Jack Duggan, St Joseph's Parish, Te Aro and Mount Victoria, 1885-2007: A Perspective on Our Parish History and Catholic Faith, St Joseph's Parish, Mount Victoria, 2007, pp. 89 and 377. The central window is decorated with abstract designs. The other windows are of saints, two on each side. The saints are (on the left) Patrick and John and (on the right) Francis Xavier (with the notable astronomer Father David Francis Kennedy SM memorialised on this window) and, on the far right, St Peter. The windows " ... are a unique collection as no other building in the world contains more than two from these same workshops." The modern glass above the chapel doors was designed and fabricated by Graham Stewart of Christchurch. There is also a fine icon of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and St Mary his mother by contemporary iconographer Michael Galovic (installed in 2007)."Sacred Heart Cathedral: An oasis of peace open daily", Sacred Heart Parish, 2012.
In the west wall of the chapel is a small space or ambry where the holy oils (called chrism) are kept. The ambry is backed by a panel with a gold sculptured image of Christ on it. This panel was a door, once part of the tabernacle of the high altar of old St Mary's Cathedral. The front of the ambry has a wide red and yellow, glass, mosaic border (created by Con Kiernan) around the glassed-in space where can be seen the three glass, amphora-like, chrismaria containing the holy oils. These vessels and their contents are bathed in a somber green light.
Restoration of the chapel was completed in 2024 and it was reopened in December of that year.
Mary, mother of Jesus
In the cloister courtyard beside the foyer entrance of the cathedral stands the two-metre, cast-iron statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary, made in France ("with heavy Gilt") that was lodged, in honour of the Immaculate Conception on 8 September 1867, high up on the east side of the tower of the original cathedral, St Mary's Cathedral, where it faced the harbour and its gilding reflected "the first rays of the rising sun." The statue was placed in the tower in memory of the consecration of the diocese in 1855 to the Immaculate Conception, which Bishop Viard had carried out, after he had proclaimed the newly pronounced dogma, as a specific remedy against any recurrence of the series of severe earthquakes felt in the province of Wellington over several months in that year.
The statue fell some 80 feet during the 1898 fire, crashing down from the tower. However it was later salvaged with minor damage. Some eyewitnesses attested that when the cathedral tower fell, the statue hung momentarily in mid air before descending slowly and gracefully and in an upright position to the ground where it landed completely undamaged.see: Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, Christchurch describing a similar event in Christchurch 112 years later. In 1984 the statue of Mary, now painted white except for the crown and girdle, was placed in the cloister courtyard to remain "the sign and warrant of her protection of the city."
Statuary and mosaics