While Alice and I were taking a Sunday afternoon walk in a suburb of Newark, New Jersey, we were drawn by curiosity to a large church towering above the trees. Entering through a side door, we and found ourselves alone in a sea of empty pews under a canopy of soaring vaults and pointed arches. An organist was rehearsing on a large console in the sanctuary, and swept up in the thunderous music, we looked on in wonder. How was it that in downtrodden Newark, a city struggling to overcome its blight of empty neighborhoods and abandoned factories, poverty and violence such a magnificent house of worship could ever come to be? There must be a story — and indeed there is.
On a mild, slightly overcast June Saturday in 1899, the industrial city of Newark, New Jersey, was alive with excitement. Large numbers of men, women and children, from across the state’s five northernmost counties arrived on trains, trolleys, and horse-drawn coaches to join the inhabitants of the city a two-mile parade. The Irish groups, who were to lead the main procession escorting Bishop Winfred Wigger from the city center to the cathedral’s construction site, were there in force: the Catholic Benevolent Legion, St. Patrick’s Alliance, the Young Men’s Catholic Associations, and the Knights of Columbus. Italians with their confraternity banners, festive garb, and musical groups emerged from their neighborhoods to take part . German groups from the northern and western ends of the city were joined by Poles and Lithuanians. Fifteen marching bands were distributed along the line of march. It was the largest parade the city had ever seen.
Guided by police escorts, the stream of humanity, joined by smaller parades from north and south, converged on the Mount Prospect hilltop at the edge of the city. Thirty years earlier, a plot of land had been purchased here to serve as the site of a cathedral that would serve all the people of the diocese. A parish dedicated to the Sacred Heart Jesus was established and housed in a temporary wooden church, but it was not until 1897 that fund raising began in earnest for a massive Gothic cathedral, illustrations of which had been widely circulated in the press. It was one of the few things about which most Catholics were in agreement.
The Catholics of the Newark Diocese were a contentious mix: German groups did not get along with Polish, French-speaking Canadians were contemptuous of the Irish, the Irish looked down upon Italians. That such a fractious community could undertake a project of this scale seemed nothing short of miraculous. Yet the idea of a cathedral caught on and fundraising went forward. Parishes, assessed 8% of their annual revenue, met their goals. Catholics contributed their nickels and dimes in special collections at Sunday Masses, and pastors pledged $150 from their meager annual salary. Within a year enough had been raised to level the ground and lay foundations for the cornerstone at the base of the base of the great structure built in the style of a 13th century cathedral.
At the entry to the construction site, amidst piles of dirt and construction materials, a large platform had been erected. Here, hundreds of dignitaries and their wives joined the clergy and bishops, and mother superiors and sat patiently as the Newark symphonic band played arrangements from Mozart, Bach, and Rossini. Police estimated that 50,000 people were on hand, a crowd that overflowed into nearby school under construction, standing at the windows and on the roof.
About 3 pm, three bells were heard, and, in a cloud of incense, Bishop Wigger emerged from the wooden church preceded by a procession of fellow bishops, priests, acolytes, and seminarians. They were led by horse-mounted policed forcing a path through the dense crowd. The ceremony began with the singing of “Holy God We Praise Thy Name” by a thousand-voice choir sang, followed by lengthy Latin prayers. The granite stone bearing the inscription “A. 1899 D.” [“Year of the Lord 1899], was lowered into place, sprinkled with holy water, and the great litany of the saints began in which the choir and attendees invoking the angels, the holy men and women of God, prophets, and martyrs. In the address that followed, seventy-six-year-old Bishop Bernard McQuaid of Rochester, once a priest of the Newark Diocese, declared, that the cathedral would “not to be surpassed in beauty by any in the land.” When the voice of the aging prelate gave way, Archbishop Corrigan of New York City, stepped up to deliver the closing words and the ceremony ending the enormous crowd singing “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee.”
As the spectators filed off the hill, they looked forward to the day when the great Catholic monument would dominate the Newark skyline: a house of many mansions that would serve successive waves of Catholic immigrants, a testament of faith attracting believers and non-believers. A sacred liturgical gathering place of the bishop his, presbyterium, and laity.
And in good time, all of this came to be. But of the thousands of spectators present that day, few would see the building completed. The walls had gone up, but because of construction and financial difficulties, nearly twenty years passed before the structure was roofed. A decade later, temporary plate glass windows were installed. Depression and war caused further delays, and b it was not until 1954, fifty-five years that the enormous edifice was finally completed. Today, the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart is regarded as one of the most beautiful churches of America and a vibrant center of Archdiocesan worship. The fulfillment of dreams of the People of God of that long-ago day were finally realized.
