CCHA, Historical Studies, 68
(2002), 44-65
The “Year of Joy” and Centenary Renovations to the
Cathedral,
St. John’s, Newfoundland, 1953-551
John Edward FitzGerald
In 1955, the
Roman Catholic Church in Newfoundland celebrated the centenary of the
consecration of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in St. John’s. In 1834
the construction of the largest Irish cathedral in the New World had been the
dream of the Irish Franciscan Vicar Apostolic of St. John’s, Bishop Michael
Anthony Fleming. Opposed by the British government and a small faction within
his own congregation, Fleming’s plan won overwhelming support among the Irish
in Newfoundland. The neoclassical architectural style of the building was to
reflect his ultramontanism, a philosophical and ideological spirit which
motivated clerics to look to Rome and the papacy for strong leadership,
orthodoxy, and resplendent examples in liturgy, architecture, art, and music.
Ultramontanism was believed to be the antidote par excellence to the
desire of lay élites, trustees, and state officials to influence the Church’s
temporal affairs, and these troubles plagued Fleming when he first became
bishop.2 He and other Irish clerics saw ultramontanism as the
means of ending Irish Catholics’ political and civil disabilities at home and
Newfoundland. In 1838, he stated his belief that the cathedral was the pivot in
the development of Catholicism in the island, for “the enemies of our Holy
Religion” had been “indefatigably employed” to stop him from acquiring the
lands, and to disparage the building’s construction.3 Against his enemies
in St. John’s, Fleming cultivated support in the Irish community there, and at
Westminster deployed the Irish politician and emancipator, Daniel O’Connell,
who repeatedly advocated Newfoundland reform causes. Hounded by Fleming, the
British government capitulated and in 1838 granted land for the cathedral.
Fleming secured architectural plans from a Mr. C. Schmidt, the architect of the
Danish Government resident at Altona-on-the-Elbe. His designs were chosen
because he had studied in Rome and designed in a style which appealed to
ultramontanists, and his roofs threw heavy loads of snow in northern
climates.4
On 20 May
1841, the twelfth anniversary of the announcement of Catholic emancipation,
the cathedral’s construction began with the cornerstone-laying. Enthusiasm was
high. On that day the astonishing sum of over £2600 was received in donations,
prompting Fleming’s chief clerical rival, Anglican bishop Aubrey Spencer, to
note (in his own memorial to the British government to fund his own cathedral)
that this was from a Catholic community four times poorer than his
congregation.5 Spencer’s successor Edward Feild later became jealous
of Fleming’s successes, in 1844 happily noting that the stone towers of the
cathedral had to be cut down several feet due to poor workmanship, causing from
£700 to £800 to be lost. Again in 1845 he gleefully observed that “a great deal
more of ye walls of ye R.C. Cathedral must be taken down this spring” due to
frost.6 On 6 January 1850, Fleming’s last public act was to
celebrate the first mass in the empty building; he died that July. His
successor, John Thomas Mullock, completed the project in accord with Fleming’s
wishes and in the ultramontane style. At its completion, the cathedral was the
earliest iteration of the Romanesque revival in North American architecture.7
High Altar of the
Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, circa 1950
showing Carew’s Baptism
of Christ, the polished pink granite columns,
Carew and Sullivan’s
angels holding aloft the cross, and St. Andrew’s altar behind the high altar.
Photo credit:
Archives of the Archdiocese of St. John’s.
Mullock
consecrated the cathedral on 9 September 1855, in the presence of the most
famous Irishman in America, John Hughes, Archbishop of New York.8 Soon thereafter Mullock chronicled the festivities, described the
cathedral, and emphasized its ultramontanism: “The church, which is built in
the style of a Roman Basilica, is 246 feet, 6 inches long, and 186 feet, 9
inches in the transept: and the facade is 99 feet wide ... The walls are
ornamented with Corinthian pilasters, surmounted by a cornice 13 feet wide ...
the ceiling of the nave, like many of those in Italy, is flat, enriched with
elaborate centre-pieces.” The heart of the building was the “great” high altar,
“perhaps, the finest specimen of art in the whole western world.” It stood at
the intersection of nave and transept, “like many of those in the ancient
churches of Rome.”9 But at the heart of the symbolism were statues:
Under the arch [of the high altar] ... is a
colossal group of the baptism of our Saviour, executed by [John Edward] Carew,
in Caen stone: by whom also are the group of angels, and the infantine figure
of angels, and a lamb ... the remainder of the carving was executed by
W.[illiam] Sullivan. Under the high altar, which is open in front, is placed
[John] Hogan’s most superb work – the “Dead Christ,” executed in the purest
Carrara marble. This splendid figure, which will be the pride of Newfoundland
for ages, is the posthumous gift of Dr. Fleming. The Sanctuary is paved with
marble; and at the end of the apsis is another grand altar [St Andrew’s altar],
beautifully carved in Caen stone by Carao [sic., Carew] ... At the end of the
ambulatory every vista is closed by altars dedicated to S. Patrick, S. Bridget,
S. Joseph, and S. Anthony ... The two [funerary] monuments in alto-relievo,
exquisitely wrought by [John] Hogan in the purest Carrara, are perfect gems of
art; ... one was raised to Dr. Scallan by his successor; the other is about to
be erected... in memory of the Right Rev. Dr. Fleming.10
In the coup d’oeil, one’s eyes moved from
Hogan’s deposition scene The Dead Christ under the altar, the symbol of
Christ, upwards to Carew’s Baptism of the Saviour, a rendering of the
scriptural account of Christ’s baptism and a statement of faith in the need to
proceed from death to new life in baptism, upwards again and beyond through the
arch of the high altar, the symbol of the gateway to Heaven.
In the Irish
world, Fleming’s cathedral was unique and captured the spirit of its age. It
was the acme of pre-Gothic revival Irish neoclassical church architecture and
art. After Catholic emancipation in 1829, Irish bishops emerged as patrons of
the Celtic sacred arts and competed to acquire only the best works of Irish
artists for their churches, and Fleming and Mullock followed suit, acquiring
works by John Edward Carew (1785-1868) a renowned Irish sculptor in London and
a student of Sir Richard Westmacott. Carew worked in the naturalistic style,
and won the important commission of the bas-relief The Death of Nelson at
the Battle of Trafalgar for the base of Nelson’s Column, Trafalgar Square.
For St. John’s Carew did another Baptism of Christ, a revisitation of an
1835 rendering done as an altar-piece for St. James’ church, Brighton,11 the second Catholic church consecrated in England
after the Protestant reformation.12 To Carew’s works
were added two funerary reliefs and another statue by John Hogan (1800-1858),
Ireland’s most famous sculptor, whose works in the neoclassical style were
restrained, detached, and contemplative. Hogan assured his international
reputation in 1829 with the Dead Christ; thereafter, his creations were
snapped up by Irish bishops visiting his Rome studio, and Hogan was pronounced
by the egotistical Danish sculptor Bertel Thorwaldsen as “the best sculptor I
leave after me in Rome.”13 Hogan’s biographer John Turpin has remarked that
Hogan’s work must be interpreted against the “background of resurgent
ultramontane Catholicism which was being introduced to Ireland – a country
which lacked fine Catholic churches, art works or a splendid liturgical
tradition since the Reformation.”14
In the
Newfoundland Catholic imagination, O’Connell and Hogan were held in close
association and reverent esteem. In the parade preceding the laying of the
cornerstone, the order of procession placed the banner of Daniel O’Connell
higher in rank than those of Pope Gregory XVI, St. John, and St. Patrick, and
just before the Queen’s, the Virgin Mary’s, the clergy, and Fleming.15 Hogan’s 1829 Dead Christ had been installed
under the altar of St. Teresa’s church, Clarendon Street, the altar in front of
which O’Connell had stood in 1824 and announced his Catholic Association with
its plans for Catholic emancipation and the relief of civil disabilities
imposed by the Penal Laws.16 In May 1841,
O’Connell sat on the British Parliamentary Committee which investigated
Newfoundland politics, and he defended Fleming and the reformers.17 In 1843 at
O’Connell’s “monster” repeal meeting at Mullaghmast, before thousands of
spectators, the visiting Hogan “crowned” O’Connell with a green velvet cap
edged with gold during a staged ceremony redolent of the coronations of Irish
high-kings on the Hill of Tara.18
O’Connell never stood at the foot of the
cathedral altar in St. John’s, but his presence was felt there. Hogan and
Carew’s works in St. John’s proclaimed the cathedral as a first-class Irish
building of international rank, a Catholic triumph over the opposition of
Protestant Britain which had sought to suppress the Church. The cathedral’s
iconographic program of statuary also connected immediately to the Irish Catholics’
own historical experiences in Newfoundland, and made plain that outside the
Church there was no salvation, religious or political. The St. John’s Cathedral
thus became both a religious and political statement about the rights that
Irish Catholics should have in a British colony, an assertion of
self-confidence by a culture which saw itself as the guardian of the
independent Newfoundland state.19 In 1855, Britain was finally persuaded to
grant responsible government to Newfoundland. For the Irish who had fought long
and hard for “Home Rule” in the island, it was a sweet victory.
While the initial deposit of memorials and
statuary in the cathedral reflected official lofty ideals of what an Irish
cathedral should be – “elevated,” “colossal,” “superb,” “grand,” “exquisite,”
and “perfect,”20 subsequent bequests expressed the wider
community’s faith and culture. Several wealthy benefactors erected memorial
plaques in the neoclassical style. Between 1869 and 1905, the Irish-born
bishop, Thomas Power, and his successor, the native-born Michael Howley,
encouraged the donation of twenty-eight large 9'x18' stained glass windows. On
a panel under each window the Newfoundland painter George Gamberg painted a
cartouche bearing the name of the donor or parishioner commemorated. In 1903 a
coffered Italianate ceiling was executed by the cathedral plasterers, the
Conway brothers, working from the designs of Howley, St. John’s artist Dan
Carroll, and architect Jonas Barter.21 In 1914, a classically-styled
marble altar rail with bronze gates and Carrara marble balusters were donated
by Howley’s sister, Katherine Howley Morris.22 By 1915, fraternal
societies had made substantial donations of stained glass windows, an
archepiscopal throne carved by St. John’s cabinetmaker James Armstrong,23 and a copy of the
famous Irish DeBurgo-O’Malley chalice.24 These endowments,
in stylistic and cultural consonance with the cathedral’s neoclassicism and
Irish heritage, represented the faith and history of Newfoundland Catholics,
and they received wide publicity in local newspapers and journals. The interior
statuary and monuments of the cathedral survived virtually intact until the
1950s,25 despite some minor relocation of statuary, and with the exception of
the installation of a series of garish light fixtures, including one featuring
the holy name in lights in a frieze above the high altar’s arch.
By the late 1940s, Newfoundland Catholics
had to redefine their identity and culture as a consequence of political and
constitutional change. Their religious iconography was also adapted. In two
1948 referenda, most Catholics on the Avalon Peninsula voted according to the
advice of Archbishop E.P. Roche and Bishop J.M. O’Neill, who warned that union
would bring materialism and secularism into the island and create “a new
environment where pleasure was unlimited and joy unconfined.”26 Furthermore, they
warned, the Church’s rights in education also could be threatened. Only a bare
majority of Newfoundlanders voted to join Canada. In 1949 Roche expressed
coolness towards the visiting Apostolic Delegate to Canada and Newfoundland,
Ildebrando Antonutti, and kept him waiting for several hours before receiving
him at the Palace in St. John’s.27
Patrick James Skinner (1904-1989)
Third Archbishop of St. John’s (1950-1979)
Photo credit: Archives of the Archdiocese of St.
John’s
On 23 September1950, the ailing Roche died,
and four months later, his auxiliary, Patrick James Skinner, was nominated
archbishop. Born in 1904 in St. John’s, Skinner was educated by the Irish
Christian Brothers at St. Bonaventure’s College. In 1922 he entered Holy Heart
Seminary in Halifax, and two years later entered the Congregation of Jesus and
Mary, the Eudists. Unlike many Newfoundland clerics who had been educated in
Ireland, he established Canadian credentials and became acculturated as a
Canadian, but he was fond of America and frequently visited his brother
William, a lawyer in New York. Further studies at the Eudist seminary at
Charlesbourg, Québec, preceded his ordination in May 1929. Later Skinner earned
a licentiate in philosophy from Laval University. In 1946 he was named Superior
at Holy Heart Seminary in Halifax, and in 1950, with the nod from Antonutti, he
was appointed Titular Bishop of Zenobia and Auxiliary to Roche.28 A quiet and pious
man, Skinner was much less given than his predecessor to making pronouncements
on contentious issues. He was also thirty years younger than Roche.
Skinner’s first task was to reconcile
aggrieved Catholics to the new state. In 1948 the Newfoundland politician J.R.
Smallwood had used the Church’s stand against confederation to mobilize the
Loyal Orange Association, leaving a bitter aftertaste.29 Skinner also
recognized that Catholics in Canada’s newest province were a divided political
minority. Many in the St. George’s diocese on the island’s west coast had
connections with the Canadian Maritimes, and voted for confederation. But most
Catholics in the Archdiocese of St. John’s were of Irish heritage, had been
anti-confederates, took it on the nose in the referenda campaigns, and now
endured the hostile Anglophile Smallwood regime. A minority still considered
their Newfoundland to have been taken over by a foreign country. Skinner consequently
had to avoid inflaming anti-Catholic opinion, resurrecting Newfoundland
nationalism, or upsetting politicians. If he was pro-Canadian or a
“confederate,” he kept it to himself. In September 1952 he approved of the
visit of the renowned Irish-American priest Fr. Patrick Peyton and his Family
Rosary Crusade, but he vetoed a large Catholic parade through St. John’s as
part of the visit, fearing that Protestants might be upset at such a display.30
Fortunately,
the Cathedral was approaching the centenary of its consecration, and this
provided Skinner with a good excuse to celebrate the Church’s achievements. On
20 September 1954 he addressed a mass meeting of the diocese’s men and
announced a whole “Year of Joy,” which eventually came to include a series of
theatrical productions, a children’s day at the cathedral, a parade, a
fireworks display, a commemorative film and souvenir book, and liturgical
celebrations.31 The highlight of this unconfined “Year of Joy” would be
the visit of a galaxy of Canadian bishops and clergy, with the guest of honour
Canada’s “smiling cardinal,” James Charles Cardinal McGuigan, the Archbishop of
Toronto and the highest-ranking churchman ever to visit the island. It would be
an ecclesiastical fashion show without precedent, a spectacle to expose the
congregation to visiting prelates and their sermons paying compliments to the
historic cathedral and making Newfoundland Catholics more comfortable about
being Canadians. But the focus of the celebrations, the cathedral itself, was
in a state of disrepair, and Skinner was already at work on this file.
In the
century after 1855, successive bishops attempted to maintain the stonework
exterior and the plaster interior of the St. John’s Cathedral, but the
freeze-and-thaw cycles of St. John’s in wintertime proved a constant challenge
to the structural integrity of the building. The exterior stonework repairs
begun by Archbishop Roche were completed, but by 1952 the interior of the
cathedral still needed attention. What could be done with it? Skinner thought
the interior was cold, dowdy, and underwhelming.32 It spoke more about Newfoundland’s dim Irish past
than about its shiny Canadian future. To address this, Skinner appointed
Monsignor Harold Summers cathedral administrator in 1952, and his Vicar-General
in 1953.33 However, Summers
was not much interested in the details of history or the whims of interior
decorators, so he retained the St. John’s architect John Hoskins as cathedral
architect, mandating him to give the cathedral a facelift, and bring it into
line with the style of modern Canadian Catholic churches.
Ironically, the solution that presented
itself was American rather than Canadian. In May 1953, the New York church
decorator Viggo F.E. Rambusch visited Newfoundland on work he was executing for
the Archdiocese of St. John’s at St. Joseph’s church in the city, and at St.
Michael’s church, Bell Island, Conception Bay.34 At Summers’ direction, Hoskins sent plans
and photos of the cathedral to Rambusch in October 1953 and sought advice on a
new interior decorating scheme to consist principally of painting and lighting.35 Rambusch had
extensive experience in decorating American and Canadian churches, and Hoskins
later described the firm as specialists in “Church decoration, furnishings,
lighting, and fixtures.”36 Viggo Rambusch replied from his Greenwich Village
bureau on stationery reassuringly stamped “Canadian Office” that he was
interested. Hoskins advised that even though organized labour in St. John’s
would have no difficulties with the local employment of American nationals,
Rambusch “should count on only bringing in the minimum number, say two – a
superintendent and a decorator.”37
On 12 November Rambusch prepared a draft
estimate of $52,877 for the work, which would include the application of several
hundred books of gold leaf ribbon to the ceiling.38 He “strongly
recommended” the installation of a tester (a canopy to hang above the altar),
and began to think about what might be done. “When it comes to the
architectural surfaces of the interior,” he wrote, “we find them now cold and
decoratively neglected.” Instead, “Based on sound archaeological precedent, we
recommend a rich, dignified scheme, proper to this type of architecture.”39 Just what
archaeological precedents Rambusch had in mind were not specified. Unlike the
previous two Danes (Schmidt and Thorwaldwen) involved with the cathedral and
its artists, he was less interested in the history, artistic merit, or
ideological context of the cathedral’s monuments and features than in landing a
contract. He arrived in St. John’s on Friday 13 November 1953, estimate in
hand, and inspected the cathedral the following Sunday afternoon.
When Rambusch wrote Hoskins from New York a
week later, his proposals were much more specific. A new lighting scheme was
needed, but he quickly returned to an old theme and pushed a bit, advising that
“we shall eventually be informed as to whether or not a tester is desired.” If
it was desired to “alter the reredos,” Summers and Hoskins were told that “we
have available not only photographs, but a complete set of measures by means of
which carefully prepared scale drawings could be made and sent on to the
architect, who in turn will have the alterations carried out by a local
contractor, after which we are to do the painting and gilding.” Furthermore,
“The three open areas [the spaces between the columns of the high altar] should
be closed. This could be done by means of drapes but better yet, would be a
plywood wall, for this in turn could carry applied mouldings and the proposed
statue of St. John.”40 Rambusch proposed relocating the stations of
the cross at a lower point on the cathedral walls and refinishing them in two
tones of bronze – “a solution similar to that carried out within the Cathedral
in Omaha.” As for seating in the sanctuary, he wanted to know “how many seats
should be provided for the clergy under normal conditions” and whether he
should send “suggestions for a temporary solution to seat the ‘X’ members of
the hierarchy and clergy who will be there for the centenary.” He also proposed
to construct a new throne for Skinner, and install a new sanctuary lamp, for
the existing lamps were “not worthy of a Cathedral.” For this he saw an
immediate solution. At St. Joseph’s in St. John’s, he had seen “a very large
and beautiful brass sanctuary lamp which would in size and character, be most
appropriate.”41 It seems not to have mattered that the lamp
had been donated in 1917 by the children of St. Joseph’s school for their
parish church.42 Rambusch aimed at getting the lamp at a price
well below what he believed was its value: “If Monsignor thinks well of the
idea,” he wrote, “Mr. Hoskins or R.[ambusch] D.[ecorating of] C.[anada] could
offer Monsignor Maher $250 for his sanctuary lamp (which is worth at least
$1,000) which is inappropriate for the new St. Joseph’s church as it would be
successful within the Cathedral. With the monies provided Monsignor Maher, we
would provide him with a new, smaller, and more appropriate bronze sanctuary lamp.”43 Liberating
churches of their memorials was acceptable, provided the items suited the
cathedral.
Rambusch also had no qualms about modifying
the cathedral’s monuments, provided his employers approved. He had seen the
eleven-foot-high marble pulpit erected by Archbishop Roche in memory of
Archbishop Howley, and learned of Summers’ discomfort at having to mount it
because of his fear of heights. Writing to the cathedral authorities in careful
language, he noted: “It has been considered that the pulpit should be lowered.”
He also proposed lowering the marble altar rail, and moving the donated
memorial plaques situated throughout the church: “As there may undoubtedly over
the years be other tablets erected, some thought might be given to relocating
those now in place, so affording planned locations for the others still to
come.”44 But the implications of buying and selling donated monuments, memorials,
and statues went unconsidered by Rambusch or the cathedral authorities.
Rambusch’s proposals sat with Hoskins and
Summers through the winter of 1954. Summers accepted some and questioned
others, but next to the recommendation about the altar rail, he wrote, “to
remain as is,” and next to the suggestion of removing the plaques, he scribbled
a bold “No.”45 He reserved judgment on Rambusch’s main
recommendation, the re-painting of the cathedral ceiling in a “walnut” colour.
In March, Hoskins was getting worried about the need to conclude work on the
cathedral before the end of 1954, and Summers had unresolved questions about
Rambusch’s proposals. He directed Hoskins to get a second opinion and check
Rambusch’s credentials. The architect wrote the Boston architectural firm of
Maginnis and Walsh to seek their interest in conducting the cathedral
renovations. They were told that Rambusch had submitted “rather detailed studies,”
and that Hoskins had visited the decorator’s warehouse in New York in December,
and that Archbishop Skinner and Summers had stopped there on their way to Rome
in January, discovering that Rambusch “appeared to have the necessary personnel
and fabricating facilities to execute all forms of interior decoration.” But
the work would be expensive and Maginnis and Walsh were told that “the
Administrator has not ... committed himself in any way to the Rambusch concern
and has consistently declined to sign a contract for the execution of the
work.”46 Furthermore, Hoskins found Rambusch’s scheme
comprised
of rather vaguely executed proposals from the drawing board covered, I may say,
by not so vague but quite realistic cash estimates. The treatment of the
plaster ceiling proposed – walnut or alternatively, mahogany – appears heavy
and does not meet with general concurrence. Unqualified or reserved acceptance
of the Rambusch proposals will entail a substantial financial outlay and the
advantage of competitive tenders is at once eliminated. Monsignor Summers,
having given the matter careful consideration, feels the whole project deserves
a new approach represented by the retention of an independent architectural
authority fully experienced in this particular type of work.47
Eugene Kennedy of
Maginnis and Walsh replied, thanking Hoskins for his flattery but refusing the
offer due to other commissions. Kennedy also strongly endorsed Rambusch. He had
“executed a great deal of work for us under our direction that has been highly
satisfactory” and done “splendid examples of work” entirely “without benefit of
architectural supervision,” wrote Kennedy, and “in this connection we know of
no one more competent than they to solve the artificial lighting problems
relating to a large church.”48
The grandeur of the Roman basilicas must
have whetted Skinner’s and Summers’ appetite for more pomp at the cathedral in
St. John’s, for on their return they were more eager than ever to begin
renovations. All hesitancy over Rambusch had vanished. On 2 April 1954, Hoskins
telegraphed Rambusch that the “Cathedral authorities having returned from Rome”
wanted an alternate proposal for the treatment of the ceiling, and that a final
decision was pending.49 On 26 July, the first contract was signed for
$68,152 to repaint the cathedral walls and side altars, paint the ceiling,
install a tester, and modify the high altar, which involved “marble areas to be
cleaned and painted areas to be [re]painted and apply some gold leaf,” along
with the installation of a new nine-foot-high carved wooden statue of St. John
the Baptist.50 Other contracts followed. Work began soon
thereafter and Rambusch scrambled to meet the centenary year deadline. A forest
of scaffolding filled the cathedral to within six feet of the 55-foot-high
ceiling,51 and the painting and application of classical
floral motif stencils began. The cathedral was closed for six months, and the
congregation worshipped in the nearby auditorium of Mercy Convent on Military
Road.
Once renovations got underway, the first
monument to be treated was the pulpit. By 15 September, Rambusch again proposed
to Hoskins that it be lowered in height, and the work was done soon thereafter
without consulting the Howley family who were cathedral parishioners.52 When this work and
the reason for it were discovered, parishioners began to call Summers “the bull
of the woods.”53 But on other issues Rambusch did not get his
way. On 1 September, a penitent Rambusch wrote Summers, making
one last
plea to have the many plaques within the Cathedral relocated in some more
reasonable place or places ... Could we, in the interior consultants, not
accept the blame, responsibility, or credit for doing this? It should be a
system which would allow for appropriate additions from time to time over the
coming generations. It would at least seem proper that the least important
plaques be placed in the narthex. If the problem is not solved at this time,
there is no knowing what the ultimate results will be. Please forgive me for
bringing this up once again for review, but I do feel it is very important.54
But Summers again
refused. By the end of September, Hoskins protested to Rambusch that the
lighting fixtures were not to Summers’ liking, and that at a cost of $1800 per
unit “we had visualized something a bit more distinctive. The cost of bronze
metalwork seems to have gotten entirely out of hand...”55
By 23 October 1954, Summers feared that his
renovations were getting out of hand. Under pressure from the decorator, he
directed Rambusch that “with regard to the figure of the Dead Christ under the
main altar, I have no intention whatever of moving it. It is to stay there.”
Also, no changes were to be made to the high altar to install a tabernacle
there, as Rambusch had recently requested,56 nor were changes
to be made to the tabernacle on the Blessed Sacrament altar, and Rambusch’s new
plan to apply gold leaf to the entire “area above the mensa” to “render it
important and beautiful” was not to take place, but rather as the contract
stated, the high altar and two side altars simply were to be cleaned and
painted in colours, and some gold leaf was to be applied.57 Summers then wrote
a second “Dear Viggo” letter, alarmed that Rambusch firm’s site foreman at the
cathedral, Egon Pederson, believed that the sanctuary would not be finished in
time for Christmas, even though Rambusch had given Summers “every hope” that
the sanctuary would be done in time for Christmas, and that this did not bode
well for a limited six-month disruption at the cathedral which would see all
work concluded by the beginning of Lent 1954.58 On 1 November
Rambusch apologized to Summers and explained that his business associate Leif
Neandross was “now at the Cathedral making samples.” Neandross, who had served
in a camouflage unit during World War I, was an expert at faux-finishes and had
won the Rambusch firm important contracts from the U.S. War Department during
World War II.59 Rambusch promised to wire Neandross
immediately and guaranteed that a “successful series of solutions” would be
arrived at “within the course of 5,7, or 9 days.”60 Three days later,
on 3 November, Neandross gathered Summers and Hoskins in the cathedral, where
several sections of scaffold had been removed to show off the painted ceiling.
The administrator and the architect were pleased, and relieved to know that the
scaffold would be out of the sanctuary by Christmas.
Unfortunately, not all the artworks in the
cathedral survived as intact as the funerary monuments and the Dead Christ.
Only one memo to the cathedral authorities from Neandross documented what was
actually planned for the high altar. “The rear of the altar, behind the granite
columns,” he wrote, “is at present sheathed in wood construction – to be
covered on both sides with veneer panelling ... Thus for Christmas, the upper
portion of the altar will be painted and gilded; the rear wooden portion will
be treated and the central design will be in place.”61 True to his word,
by Christmas the eight polished pink granite columns of the high altar were
painted a cream colour. Carew and Sullivan’s entablature, brackets, and angels
of the high altar were taken down, as were the angels holding aloft the cross
over the high altar were removed and those above the side altars. These were
discarded. A tester, built by the Casavant organ company, was installed over
the high altar,62 which itself was remodelled into a serliana.63 Given that
Rambusch expected “blame, or responsibility” from the congregation, this may
explain the absence of further documentation of what was done to the high altar.
A year later, to explain to the congregation, Hoskins wrote an essay on the
“restoration” of the cathedral. In a subsection entitled “High Altar Liturgical
Corrections,” he asserted that
Structural
corrections designed to simplify and improve the architectural proportions of
the High Altar have also been carried out. The classical entablature previously
surmounting the central opening between the Altar columns and bearing aloft a
cross and statuary was entirely removed. The statuary group portraying the
Baptism of Our Lord by St. John the Baptist has also been taken from its
position above and behind the mensa and now rests in the adjoining grounds of
the Archbishop’s Palace.64
But nothing was
“restored,” and if anything was ever liturgically “incorrect,” neither
Rambusch, Hoskins, Summers, nor Skinner ever claimed as much in contemporary
correspondence. Liturgical and structural correctness were in the eye of the
beholder. If “restoration” and “correctness” were guiding principles, respect
for the historical integrity of artworks was not. According to parishioners, it
was soon discovered that Carew’s “Caen stone” statue adopted the consistency of
wet plaster outdoors over the winter. It soon disintegrated. Thus the high
altar and all of its statuary – Mullock’s “finest specimen of art in the whole
western world” – were discarded with the official approval of iconoclasts who
knew little and cared less for history than having a decorator coat everything
in their path, polished pink granite columns included, with stencils, cream
paint, faux marble, and gold leaf.
The remainder of Rambusch’s work at the St.
John’s Cathedral received mixed reviews. Some treatments were absolutely
inspired, but others were destructive. The ceiling, finished in walnut paint
and stencils and highlighted with gold leaf, looked like the ceiling of a Roman
basilica. The repainted walls and side altars were brightened considerably.
However, the names of Irish parishioners who had donated the twenty-eight large
stained glass windows, originally painted in cartouches on panels below each
window in the nineteenth century by Newfoundland artist George Gamberg, were
painted over, erasing the name of the person memorialized. This angered many in
the congregation. The stations of the cross were lowered, obscuring ten of the
twelve of the consecration crosses set into the walls. The St. Andrew’s altar
behind the high altar, with its work by Carew, was also dismantled and
discarded, as were a number of large paintings, copies of the old masters
ordered by Mullock in 1856.65 Twice thereafter Rambusch tried to interest
the cathedral authorities in costly modern furnishings. First he proposed a
$508 bronze crucifix for a side altar.66 This was not
purchased. Then he proposed a $241 six-foot velvet sash,67 to replace the
bronze gates at the centre of the altar rail which bore the name of the donor,
Katherine Howley Morris. This was purchased, but again the Howley family was not
consulted.68 Finally on 29 March 1955, long after Rambusch
returned to New York, the wooden statue of St. John the Baptist arrived. A
frustrated Hoskins telegraphed Rambusch a message which could have aptly
described the whole renovation program:
Positioning
of statue however has disclosed that previously executed gilding of panels and
surround scrolled treatment overlap the carved figure at sides and head
noticeably detracting from the figure. Opinion unanimous that the scrolled
treatment has been too profusely applied crowding the statue unduly resulting
in a confused overall ensemble. Accordingly regret to advise you that the
presently executed panel decoration not acceptable to Cathedral authorities. It
should be removed restudied and re-executed to owners satisfaction.69
Rambusch’s
“restoration” had modernized the St. John’s Cathedral to conform to the
hierarchy’s standards of aesthetics, but the price was the destruction of
significant portions of the community’s Irish and artistic cultural heritage.
The sole Canadian improvement to the
cathedral was a success. Ordered by Archbishop Skinner, who was a friend of
Joseph LeDoux, the Vice-President of the Casavant Frères Organ Company, the new
4-manual, 66-stop pipe organ was one of the largest in eastern Canada, and was
dedicated to the memory of the cathedral’s parishioners who had died in
Interior of St. John’s Cathedral, pre-1954
Photo credit: Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and
Labrador, E-42-18
Interior of the Basilica-Cathedral of St. John the
Baptist, 1955
Photo credit: Archives of the Archdiocese of St. John’s
both world wars.
Unfortunately, Skinner’s handling of the music program at the cathedral became
a fiasco. In 1952, forty-nine years after Pope Pius X’s Motu Proprio
prohibited women from choirs and banned “profane”musical compositions in favour
of Gregorian Chant,70 Skinner asked the organist and choir director,
Ignatius “Nish” Rumboldt,71 to teach the choir Gregorian chant and the
music of Palestrina, and to abandon the choir’s romantic repertoire. He also
directed that only men and boys should sing in the choir. Rumboldt replied that
he had not studied these musical genres. Skinner even offered to send Rumboldt
away for training, but the organist had a young family, and was totally
committed to his four-part concert choir. A mixture of commitment to his family
and anger at being required to jettison half the choir prompted him to submit
his resignation. He was devastated when, after seventeen years of service, the
resignation was accepted.72 Lacking an organist, in 1953, Skinner
contacted Monsignor J.E. Ronan of St. Michael’s Choir School in Toronto and
obtained the services of a young German-trained organist, Reiner Rees, who
arrived in St. John’s to play the new organ.73 However, Skinner’s
musical demands and shabby treatment of Rumboldt, and the choir’s discovery
that Rees was hired to play the new memorial organ, caused a scandal in the
congregation’s musical community and prompted the choir to resign en masse.
The 1955 celebrations proceeded without a resident choir at the cathedral, giving
Skinner the only thing left and exactly what he didn’t want: choral music
provided by the female students of the Presentation and Mercy sisters’ schools.
Even though the final bill for the
“restoration” came to over $300,000, the costs of the “Year of Joy” in the loss
of the congregation’s goodwill were much higher. As far as documents show,
Archbishop Skinner followed a “hands-off” policy with respect to personal
involvement in changes at the cathedral, leaving Summers and Hoskins to approve
or reject them. Rambusch could hardly be blamed for doing his work and trying
to make a profit, but it was ultimately Skinner’s cathedral, and the
congregation held him responsible for the improvements and the damage.
Unfortunately, the desire to celebrate the cathedral’s history became an
unwitting de-greening of the Irishness of several of its central artistic
features, and an even more oblivious surrender to the secular world of commerce
of the right to define what was sacred and profane. Instead of celebrating the
building’s history and helping to reconstruct Newfoundland Catholics as
Canadians, the cathedral renovations were characterized by high-handedness,
ad-hocery and profound historical amnesia, and they alienated many congregants.
Skinner, Summers, and Hoskins lacked a clear sense of the ultramontane
character of the cathedral, and more importantly the Irish and indigenous
heritage it embodied. The changes made to the sacred space were insensitive to
the cultural heritage and the feelings of the local community.
Was Skinner blind to this culture’s
expressions in the cathedral church, and to how the changes would be received?
Professional scholarship on Newfoundland history and the concepts of cultural
heritage preservation would not arrive until the late 1960s, but the history of
the cathedral and its artistic treasures were well-known, even in Skinner’s
youth. The extent to which he was influenced in the early 1950s by new
architectural movements in Québec, Europe, and the United States, particularly
with regard to new church buildings and renovations of older churches, is also
unknown. How much did the decorative styles of American churches influence him?
He certainly saw these during his visits to New York. Perhaps he had an
ecclesiastical version of renovation-itis, an affliction which accompanied the
rise of mass consumer society in Newfoundland the wake of World War II, and
which became a full-blown case of keeping-up-with-the-Joneses following
confederation in 1949. Flushed with cash, thousands of Newfoundlanders in the
outports and St. John’s discarded the mahogany and oak dining sets in favour of
chrome sets, believing that new and modern meant superior. The 1950s
“restoration” of the St. John’s Cathedral was a harbinger of things to come. By
the 1980s, scarcely a single older Catholic church in outport Newfoundland had
escaped the renovators. This tide was only stemmed after the 1987 revelations
of the sexual abuse of children by the clergy, and when congregations declined.
Had renovations to the St. John’s Cathedral come after the Second Vatican
Council, there might have been an outright festival of iconoclasm.74
The climax of the Year of Joy came on 26
June 1955, when Skinner read a brief in the cathedral from Pope Pius XII
designating it a minor basilica, the ninth Canadian church to be so honoured.75 The distinction
had been granted because of the cathedral’s “impressive vastness, for the
dignity which so befits it for the sacred ceremonies, for the many large
representations of the Saints which it enshrines, and for the variety of its
adornment with marble and other precious materials.”76 From that moment
onward, proud St. John’s Catholics were joined by all Newfoundlanders in
calling the cathedral “The Basilica,” and its status as cathedral in the
popular imagination was instantly eclipsed by the honorific. But as glorious as
that moment was, the designation rang somewhat hollow, for the preparations for
the birthday had run roughshod over many of the very same “adornments” which
had merited the designation in the first place and had failed to take account
of the views of the congregation. The “Year of Joy” was a bittersweet
celebration. Newfoundland Catholics did become Canadian Catholics, but attempts
to gild over their memories of an Irish heritage, repaint their identity,
change their culture, and discard their nationalism were less successful. The
“Year of Joy” remains a tarnished episode in the history of Catholicism in
Newfoundland.