Seminary of the Good Shepherd, Homebush, 2 September 2026
On 30 June 1865 the Sydney Morning Herald reported that “By far the largest and most disastrous conflagration which has ever occurred in Sydney happened last night and resulted in the total destruction of St Mary’s Cathedral. This noble edifice, which was… the finest example of Church architecture to be found in the colony, is now an unsightly ruin. The intelligence of this deplorable catastrophe will cause a thrill of sorrow in the hearts of the Roman Catholic population throughout the country and must excite feelings of the deepest regret in the minds of the community in general.” Built by Fr John Joseph Therry in the 1820s as the first St Mary’s Chapel Hyde Park, it had been raised to a cathedral and enlarged under Archbishop John Bede Polding OSB, and surrounded by a Benedictine monastery. The destruction of the first edifice brought enormous grief and sympathy. But it proved to be a grace, as it allowed the Catholic community and friends to build in its place one of the greatest cathedrals in the Southern hemisphere.
Today the Church of Sydney celebrates the anniversary of the dedication of the subsequent building—the now Cathedral Church and Minor Basilica of the Immaculate Mother of God, Help of Christians, Patroness of Australia, known simply as St Mary’s. It was erected in four stages: the first, between 1866 and 1882, included William Wardell being commissioned to design the “English gothic revival” building dressed in Sydney sandstone, Archbishop Polding laying the foundation stone (1868), and Archbishop Roger Vaughan OSB opening and blessing the first section (1882).
The second phase included the erection of the central tower blessed by Cardinal Patrick Moran in 1900, and the solemn dedication of the new cathedral in 1905 over three days. The altars were consecrated on 1st September by the bishops of Australia; the central transept consecrated on this day by Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Kelly in a four-and-a-half hour long ceremony; and a Pontifical High Mass was celebrated on the 3rd, followed by a procession of Australian prelates into a Plenary Council, then a banquet, Vespers and Benediction.[1]
The third stage—the building of the Southern nave—started in 1912 and culminated in yet another formal dedication, just in time for the 29th International Eucharistic Congress in 1928. And the fourth ran for the rest of the century, as the cathedral was promoted to a minor basilica by Pius XI in 1932; the crypt completed in 1961 and dedicated by Cardinal Norman Thomas Gilroy; and the spires added for the Great Jubilee 2000 by Cardinal Edward Clancy. So, our mother church is rather confused about what day is her real birthday and how old she really is, we must admit she’s looking good for her age!
Why do we Catholics set such store by church buildings? Why do generation after generation seek to improve them? Why is the anniversary of the dedication of the cathedral so significant that it is a feast throughout the diocese?
One reason is a very human one: it’s a stand-out building. Its 75 metres in height mean St Mary’s can be seen from many angles in our city. Its 107 metres in length make it one of the world’s great cathedrals, significant enough to be one of those marked out down the central nave of St Peter’s in Rome. Its beauty and history make it the pride of the locals and surprise of visitors, a place of great civic significance.
Yet for all the wow of its architecture, a cathedral is principally for the glory of God, a God our first reading points out cannot be contained in any building (1Kgs 8:22-30). In this sacred space people find peace, comfort, transcendence; they hear the Word of God from ambo, cathedra and pulpit; they light quiet candles or pray out loud in Offices and Mass; and they participate in the holy rituals. There babies are reborn in the waters of baptism, sinners absolved, youths confirmed, couples married, young men ordained, the Holy Sacrifice offered and Holy Communion received.
So, using big words baby-theologians like you guys like to use, church buildings are consecrated spaces: as Jesus makes clear by cleansing the Temple (Jn 2:13-22), such buildings point to something above and beyond our everyday domestic, commercial and leisure concerns. They are set apart to be the Father’s house, the site for divine presence and action.
What’s more, cathedrals are Christological spaces: they point to Christ as the Living Temple of God, in whom the fullness of divinity dwells bodily. He is the portal between earthly, created things and the transcendent, divine ones (Col 2:9; Jn 14:6, 1Tim 1:17). And so, in our Gospel today, Jesus identifies the Temple with “the sanctuary that was his body”.
Thirdly, our churches are ecclesiological spaces, expressing our communion as the mystical body of Christ (1Cor 3:9-17; 12:12-13 etc.). There we join those early Catholics emerging from persecution to build the first St Mary’s, join those later ones who spent a century and half building a new cathedral, join the four canonised saints so far to have visited, join all the would-be saints of Sydney living, dead or still to come.
All of which speaks to your vocation, my sons, as future priests. You are yourselves temples of the Holy Spirit (1Cor 3:16; 6:19), some of you little chapels, some more like baroque basilicas, some gothic in your grandeur. Just as cathedrals are reserved for civic and sacred uses, so are you set apart from ordinary men. You, too, must attend to your physical appearance, your role in the community, your character and virtue, the messages you transmit, the graces that flow through you. As churches are dedicated to liturgical and evangelical ends, and point to Christ, so with you. And as cathedrals express the mystery of the Church, so must you as you build on what is received and build up the community of the faithful. Men of the Church: be living stones upon which others may build their faith; be the stained-glass windows through which they may glimpse the sacred mysteries; be spires that point to God and inspire communion even now with Him.
[1] “Consecration of St. Mary’s: An epoch-marking event in the Church,” The Freeman’s Journal 9 September 1905, 12 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/108120080/12262633
Word after Communion
Seminary of the Good Shepherd, Homebush, 2 September 2026
As my visitation of the seminary winds to a close today, I want to thank you all for your warm welcome and candid discussions. In particular, I acknowledge the Rector, Fr Michael de Stoop, who has served in that role faithfully these past six years; the Vice Rector Fr Greg Bellamy; Fathers Dominic and Daniele; Sr Susanna, Dr Christian and Dr Natalie; and the other staff. I pray for you every day and look forward one day to your ordinations, if that is God’s will. God bless you dear sons.
Introduction to the Mass for the Anniversary of the Dedication of St Mary’s Cathedral
Seminary of the Good Shepherd, Homebush, 2 September 2026
As the Church of Sydney and Australia celebrates the anniversary of the dedication of our mother church of St Mary today, here in the Seminary of the Good Shepherd I am pleased to gather with you guys, many of whom will, by God’s grace, be ordained in her, but all of whom acknowledge her as the spiritual heart of this diocese and nation. Conscious of the call of the Scriptures to be ourselves the living stones of a spiritual house, we first repent of the times we’ve failed to stand tall for Christ as does our cathedral…
