Sofitel Wentworth, Sydney, 9 May 2026
Your Excellency Governor Beasley and Mr Wilson, Prime Minister Albanese and Ms Haydon, Minister Prue Carr representing the Premier, Sir Peter and Lady Cosgrove, bishops, clergy, distinguished guests, generous sponsors, friends one and all: welcome, and thank you for being here tonight.
On 15 April 2019 the world watched in horror as the great medieval cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris was ablaze. People gathered nearby to pray and weep fearing this treasure of faith, art and national identity would be lost forever. Happily, it was not so bad. But the grief at the time was palpable.
Sydney already knew such heartache. During the night of 29 June 1865 Old St Mary’s, Australia’s first Catholic church and cathedral, was razed, along with the surrounding monastery, archbishop’s residence and seminary. Some vessels, records and relics were saved, but everything else consumed. The best stone-carving and finest organ in the colony, the cedar-covered pillars and chancel walls, the pews and valuable artworks were all lost. The heartache was deep and wide, not just amongst the Catholics of Sydney, but people of all faiths, around the country and the world.
But it sparked an extraordinary community effort to build a new and better cathedral. Archbishop Polding had William Wardell design a new cathedral, and laid a foundation stone in 1868. It was to be a huge structure with a wide nave and aisle and three towers that would take 132 years to complete. Archbishops Polding, Vaughan, Moran and Kelly saw through the first phase of the construction, the nave being completed just in time for the 1928 International Eucharistic Congress. Under Cardinal Gilroy building continued and the richly decorated crypt was added, under Cardinal Clancy the spires topped off the completed building, and under Cardinal Pell the renovated sanctuary and low altar.
The cathedral’s treasures include its gothic towers and walls of golden-blonde Sydney sandstone, the pierced parapet, flying buttresses and ribbed stone vaulting, the decorative gables and carved bosses, the North chancel window, rose windows, and others sporting some of the nation’s finest stained glass, the marbled side chapels, high and low altars and statues, the stations of the cross and other artworks, the Pietà and Unknown Soldier, the Celtic mosaic on the crypt floor, the pipe organs with their great fugues, the peel of bells that sounds out over our city, and the oldest and finest church choir in Australia promoting some of the greatest music of our civilisation.
These and other elements make the cathedral one of the most beloved buildings in Australia, and explain its designation in the Heritage register, by Tourism NSW and by others as a place of major importance for the cultural history of Sydney, NSW, and Australia; a place associated with important figures in our history and various communities; a building of uncommon scale and very high aesthetic value; and a place of particular spiritual importance for Catholics and all Australians.
St Mary’s stands to this day at the heart of our city, and, in many ways, as its soul. For generations its walls and spires have stood as a quiet but constant witness to faith, to beauty, and to hope. Within its walls, countless human stories have unfolded. It is where thousands come to celebrate the great feasts, Sunday or weekday Mass, divine offices and devotions. For moments of great joy such as weddings, baptisms and confirmations. For funerals and in other times of sorrow, to mourn, pray, find light in their darkness. For many, it is a place of stillness, as they step out of the city bustle, light a candle, and experience the sacred.
I think for instance of the interfaith services we have had there during times of national tension after terrorist attacks. Or the state funeral with full police honours for Curtis Cheng who, though a Buddhist, used to sit and pray in the cathedral when he worked at the College Street police HQ. I think of young Anthony Abdullah who, on the day he was to be so senselessly killed with two of his siblings and a cousin, came to pray in the cathedral with his Dad before the statue of St Anthony, little knowing he would soon be meeting his name-saint in person. Or of the state parliamentarians, Sydney hospital workers and patients, the lawyers, business leaders and office-workers, an endless stream of tourists, and people of every nation and suburb, who I see mumbling a quiet prayer, receiving the sacraments or just sitting quiet there. In a city so often defined by noise, change and ambition, St Mary’s offers a sense of quiet, permanence, transcendence.
It has featured in different seasons of my own life. As a boy, I was awed by its scale, beauty and holiness. As a university student, I delighted in the liturgies and once had my feet washed on Holy Thursday night by Cardinal Freeman, little imagining that one day I would be doing the foot-washing. As a youngish priest 23 years ago, I was ordained a bishop there and my life set on a new course. Later, as Archbishop, it became my responsibility and my usual place of worship and prayer. So for me, as for so many others, St Mary’s is far more than a monument of stone and glass: it is a meeting place with God, where the Gospel is proclaimed with grandeur and humility, and where grace and service are tangible.
St Mary’s Cathedral is woven into the fabric of so many ordinary lives, that in a real sense it belongs to all of us. But in another sense we only hold it on temporary trust to hand on to future generations. Those who built it, did so with extraordinary vision and sacrifice. Now it is our turn to demonstrate such love.
Today, the Cathedral faces some real challenges. Its sandstone and heritage fabric require constant restoration. Essential systems require renewal. New times bring new expectations, such as disabled access, fire safety, and choirs of both boys and girls which means twice as many scholarships and music facilities. If our wonderful cathedral is to continue to serve the people of Sydney, we must invest in its future.
That is why this evening is so important. Tonight, we launch the St Mary’s Cathedral Capital Campaign, a once-in-a-generation effort to raise $50 million to preserve and enhance this great Cathedral. Our aim is to ensure it remains a living cathedral, not just a museum piece, continuing to welcome more than a million visitors each year, giving hundreds of thousands experiences such as the annual Christmas at the Cathedral light show or the about-to-be-launched Sistine Chapel Revelations immersive experience, allowing crowds to come all year round for the worship, beauty, quiet, community, and encounter with God. And we want it to be at its very best when we host Pope Leo and pilgrims from everywhere the International Eucharistic Congress in 2028.
Prime Minister, as an old boy of St Mary’s Cathedral College, the cathedral is your old school chapel. You began your career with tonight’s Platinum Sponsor, CommBank. So you have really been preparing for tonight your whole life! It would be unseemly of me to remind you that the budget is just around the corner, but before you hit ‘Print’ on the budget papers, you might like to consider the cathedral!
In all seriousness, so far we have $8.8 million in early pledges for which I am deeply grateful. Yet there is still much to be done. Tonight I invite you all to take your place in the continuing story of St Mary’s, a story of faith handed on, of beauty preserved, of hope made visible in stone, light, and prayer. You can lend your support this evening through the auctions, raffles and direct pledges. But beyond tonight I invite you to do what you can yourselves and to be ambassadors to others so that together we can ensure that St Mary’s, the soul of our city, is there for your children, your children’s children and for so many others in years to come—so, like us, they will may find a place of peace, a sign of grace, a glimpse of the sacred.
