The Irish standard., 1906-03-31

/
is now i'll the archives of the Missouri
Historical society," for the erection OF
this church. bears date of April 10
1875. or the Third Festival of Easter
when the parish of st. Louis was ir
charge Of the Capuchin, Fray valen.
| tine.
Briefly described. the building was
60 feet long and 30 feet wide, with 9
gallery feet wide extending all around
it. 1t was to have belf,y. to be st
Andrews cross, and while the church
was to be Of wood, it was. rather more
pretentious than the first humble
structure of log. For nearly half q
century this little church continued to
be the only one in the village, and
though the town grew and took on
other improvements, the church stand
Ing under the very guns of the Spanish
stone Fort ST. Charles and the long
stone barracks in which were quarter
ed the soldiers Of the king Of Spain,
the wooden ana fast decaying church
was considered amply good enough by
the honest burghers. The ground be-
meath the church was used on at least
two occasions for the interment Of the
aristocracy of the town.
This humble little backwoods church
was in reality the first cathedral church
ever built west Of the Mississippi river.
True. 1t was not the cathedral proper
of the Bishopric of st. Louis, because
the See was not created until many
years after, but it was the cathedral
church for few months of the third
Bishop Of New Orleans, who had trans
ferred the seat Of his diocese tenn
porarily to st. Louis. The little
wooden church at Post st. Louis con-
tinued to be merely mission church
with no thoughts of cathedral status
or episcopal greatness for many years.
1t attained its episcopal dignity in
1913 when the city for the first time
IN Its history became the residence of
Bishop. Louis Guillaume Valentine
Dubourg, third Bishop of New Orleans,
who arrived in st. Louis from New
Orleans January S.. 1918, more than
81 years ago. He was accompanied by
two priests, De Andrcis and Rosati,
whom he had brought from Rome to
labor in st. Louis with him.
Work was begun November 90, 1918,
on new and substantial brick church.
OF some pretertions to architectural
graces. It was set on the corner Of
the church block, probably just south
of the present cathedral In order to
obtain the money to build the church q
loan was negotiated with one of the
wealthy members of the congregation
and in order TO repay the loan it was
afterwards necessary to sell some of
the adjoining church property.
BY the following Christmas day work
had sufficiently progressed on the new
church to permit of the celebration of
Mass in it. 1t was not completed,
however, until the spring of 1920. This
brick building, while it was not the
first cathedral church of the st. Louis
See Of the Diocese of New Orleans, be-
came the first cathedral church of the
Bishopric of st. Louis, after the sepa-
ration of that See from that of New
Orleans and its creation into an indie
pendent See. Bishop Dubourg, in 1922,
had written t. Pope Leo XII asking
that the Floridas be separated from his
already large Diocese of New Orleans
and be created vicariate. The Sow
ereign Pontiff, in compliance, published
a brief the following year in which he
not only separated the F1oridas from
the New Orleans Sec, but decreed that
at the expiration Of three years the
Bishopric of New Orleans should be
separated into two Sees, one at the
titular city AMI the other at st. Louis,
which had for some time past been the
seat Of the Bishop of New Orleans.
1t was thus that st. Louis became o
separate bishopric July 2, 1926. Joseph
Rosati, one of the Italian Lazarists,
who had accompanied Dubourg to st.
Louis eight years before, and who in
1924 had been created his coadjutor
as Bishop Of Tenegre, became the first
Bishop Of st. Louis. Shortly after his.
conservation as Bishop, Rosati had
gone to New Orleans as administrator
there. Upon the creation of the Bish-
Opric Of st. Louis he was transferred
from the See Of Tenegre in partibus
and March 20. 1927. he took up his res
idence in his own episcopal city Of st.
Louis. For years the first Bishop of
st. Louis continued to occupy the
the episcopal mansion and to omciate
in the Cathedral Church erected by the
Bishop of New Orleans in 1918.
Then, in 1881, from the pulpit of his
Cathedral. he called upon his growing
congregation to build larger and
more suitable Cathedral, himself set
ting good example in generosity by
subscribing toward it's erection $4,000
from his personal fortune. Others con-
tributed and the corner stone of the
new Cathedral, now the old Cathedral,
was laid with the most impressive
civil, military and ecclesiastical pomp
and circumstance August l, 1881.
The Cathedral. was built ON the site
of the cemetery of the Catholic con-