Amid Criticism, a Changing Brooklyn Gets a Second Cathedral

The New York Times has published a piece about the renovation and dedication of the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph:

Brooklyn has one more thing that Manhattan does not: two Roman Catholic cathedrals…

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The enormous, 102-year-old Church of St. Joseph on Pacific Street in Prospect Heights has been elevated to the status of co-cathedral for the Diocese of Brooklyn. Its rededication followed an $18.5 million renovation and redecoration. St. Joseph now supplements, but does not supplant, the much smaller Cathedral Basilica of St. James on Jay Street downtown.

The liturgical artwork at St. Joseph graphically describes a changing borough. Images of a dark-skinned Mary — Our Lady Queen of Nigeria and Our Lady of Perpetual Help (Haiti) — gaze tranquilly down from new ceiling murals above old stained-glass windows memorializing the Irish who built and originally sustained the church.

Read the complete article here.