A brief history of the cathedral

PATERSON  The beginnings of Catholicism in Paterson date to 1816 when itinerant missionaries began offering Mass in private homes every few weeks. In 1820, Bishop John Connolly, O.P. of New York assigned one of his eight priests, Father Richard Bulger, to Paterson. Bulger was the first priest permanently assigned to New Jersey. The following year, the first St. John’s was built on the corner of Mill and Market Streets for $1,000. This church was quickly outgrown, and in 1833 a new stone church was built on Oliver Street for $15,000. On Oct. 30, 1863, Bishop James R. Bayley of Newark named Father William McNulty as St. John’s 13th pastor. During Dean McNulty’s nearly 60 years as pastor (he was named Dean of Passaic and Bergen Counties in 1886), Paterson’s population would grow to more than 100,000 people. The Dean’s vision for St. John’s kept pace with that growth.

Dean McNulty did not want a new church on a side street. In his mind the only place the Catholic Church should be located was on the corner of Main and Grand, and he maneuvered to purchase 16 lots on that corner for $10,000. The cornerstone was laid by Bishop Bayley on Sept. 11, 1865 before a crowd of 10,000. The new church was designed by a prominent New York City architect, Patrick C. Kiely, who also designed the Cathedrals of Boston and Chicago. The stone was quarried in Little Falls, brought to Paterson on the Morris Canal, and dressed on the site. Like medieval cathedrals, the church was built by “day’s work,” the volunteer labor contributed by members of the parish. The new St. John’s was sufficiently finished to allow its opening on July 31, 1870.

Over the next 20 years finishing touches were added including the Lady Chapel, the front minarets and the spire on the tower. The dimensions of the church were 180 feet deep and 88 feet across. The interior stone columns rise to a height of 60 feet, the front minarets to 120 feet, and the tower spire to a height of 225 feet. By 1887, the parish had paid off the $232,000 cost of construction and, free of debt, St. John’s was consecrated on June 29, 1890. Almost from the beginning, Dean McNulty had to deny rumors that he had pretensions of cathedral status for his new church. As early as 1881 Bishop Michael Corrigan of Newark speculated about the possibility of a future Diocese of Paterson. Those speculations came true on Dec. 9, 1937 when Pope Pius XI, by the Apostolic Bull, Recta Cuiusvis, created the Diocese of Paterson — comprising Passaic, Morris and Sussex counties — and designated St. John’s as the cathedral.

Over the course of the last century there have been additions and renovations to St. John’s, most notably in 1922, 1940 and 1987. On Sept. 20, 2010, a portion of the Cathedral ceiling collapsed resulting in the closing of the Cathedral for six and a half years. Under Bishop Serratelli, the latest technology was used to study the Cathedral, resulting in a comprehensive renovation. In the redesign of the liturgical space, several historic features have been re-purposed, including the 1987 altar, the 1927 Stations of the Cross, the 1881 Mission Cross, and the 1878 reredos.

Today, St. John’s is still the largest church in the Diocese, the tallest building in Paterson, and once again the beautiful “home for the Church” of the Paterson Diocese. Amid the urban mass of northern New Jersey, where cities and towns often lack definition as they spill into one another, you know you are in Paterson, and in the Paterson Diocese when you spot the tower of St. John the Baptist Cathedral pointing to the heavens. Like its namesake, St. John the Baptist, the Cathedral invites all who see it each day to listen to the voice of Christ and follow him.

[Msgr. Kupke is diocesan archivist and pastor of St. Anthony Parish in Hawthorne.]