Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, Raleigh

Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral
The cathedral under construction in October of 2016.
Location	715 Nazareth St Raleigh, North Carolina
Country	United States
Denomination	Catholic
Website	holynamecathedralnc.org
Architecture
Status	under construction
Architect(s)	O'Brien and Keane
Style	Romanesque Revival
Groundbreaking	January 3, 2015
Construction cost	$41 million
Specifications
Capacity	2,000 sitting
Administration
Archdiocese	Archdiocese of Atlanta
Diocese	Diocese of Raleigh
Clergy
Archbishop	Wilton Daniel Gregory
Bishop(s)	Michael F. Burbidge

Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral currently under construction that will be the new seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Raleigh, replacing Sacred Heart Cathedral.

The building

The dome is 164 feet above the floor. Italian marble floors will be used at the altar, and porcelain tile everywhere else. Seating capacity is 2000. Of the 95 stained glass windows, 45 will be restored windows from a former church in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. 23 of 24 niches in the walls will have statues of saints, with the last being reserved for Father Thomas Price, the first person from North Carolina to be ordained as a priest, in the event he becomes a saint. Three arches above 10-foot main doors will each have a coat of arms. One will be for the Diocese of Raleigh, one for Pope Francis, and one for Bishop Burbridge.^[1]

History

In 1899, Fr. Thomas F. Price and his sister, Sr. Mary Agnes of the Sisters of Mercy, founded a Catholic orphanage on a large property of land that Price had purchased in his own name adjacent to the city of Raleigh. The orphanage, serving primary and secondary school aged children, initially was an all-boys institution, but later also served girls. In the early 1950s, Bishop Vincent Waters decreed that all racial discrimination in Catholic parishes and institutions in the Diocese of Raleigh cease, so the high school students at the Nazareth Orphanage were transferred to Cathedral Latin High School at Sacred Heart Cathedral. Two years later the Nazareth Orphanage's elementary school closed.^[2]

In the 1960s, Cathedral Latin High School was the only Catholic high school in Raleigh, and was not large enough to accommodate the growing population of Catholics. Bishop Waters built a new high school, Cardinal Gibbons High School, on a portion of the former Nazareth Orphanage site. The school was moved in the late 1990s to its current location after a request was made by Bishop F. Joseph Gossman.

The Nazareth Property housed the Diocese of Raleigh Catholic Center, which serves as the headquarters for the Bishop and administrative staff of the Diocese, until 2014 when it was moved to a building off of Creedmoor Road.

In 2011, Bishop Michael F. Burbidge announced the construction of a new cathedral to replace the existing Sacred Heart Cathedral, due to the need for a larger church to accommodate the growing number of Catholics. Fundraising for the cathedral campaign began in September 2011. Groundbreaking for the Cathedral took place on January 3, 2015. The construction of the cathedral cost forty-one million dollars. The cathedral is set to open in the spring of 2017.^[3] The pipe organ is being built by C.B. Fisk Company in Gloucester, Massachusetts.^[4] The dedication mass is set to take place on July 26, 2017.^[5]

References