Renovations to the Cathedral of St. Joseph are intended in part to bring to fruition the intent of popes since Pope John XXIII that the church be more welcoming, the Most Rev. W. Shawn McKnight said.
McKnight, the bishop of the Diocese of Jefferson City, toured the cathedral, which is deep in the midst of a construction/renovation project, on Friday morning.
The project represents "... the desire of popes since John XXIII that we be more outward-oriented," McKnight said. "That we be more welcoming and hospitable. And that we show forth the beauty of our faith and our long history as a Catholic Church of being a patron of the arts."
McKnight was scheduled Saturday to travel to St. Louis to view some art that is intended to adorn the walls of the cathedral.
The nearly circular cathedral provides many areas where art may be highlighted.
Lighting the fire
Consideration for renovations began the summer of 2018, when the cathedral's organ failed, McKnight said.
"We had an electrical fire. I began to realize that we had a number of issues with this building -- the church as well as the undercroft," McKnight said. "I invited Father (Louis) Nelen after he became pastor to do an assessment -- if we're going to do a bunch of little projects, let's consider doing them all as one."
That initial discussion led to a desire to increase the hospitality of the cathedral, McKnight added.
"The pipe organ had lasted longer than predicted, but you could tell it was failing," Nelen said. "So, that was a major thing we had to deal with."
One thing led to another, he continued. There were issues with the flooring. When it was originally installed, the altar -- a solid block of marble that weighed about 4,000 pounds, was supposed to rest across two steel beams.
"They had assumed it was distributed across a couple of these I-beams in the floor. What the contractor found out was the original builder just put a steel plate down on only one of the I-beams and the entire weight was resting on one beam," Nelen said. "They could actually measure with the lasers -- there was a deflection in the floor and when they took the altar out, these beams have enough tensile strength in them that it came back up."
The altar had rested on the beam for 50 years. That is likely why there had been issues with cracks in the floor, McKnight said.
"We're adding structural reinforcements to the existing steel to help with the new loads of the marble furniture (and the pipe organ)," said Abigail Steck, with the Architects Alliance Inc.
The new pipe organ will be twice the weight of the original organ, Nelen said. It is being made in Illinois and will likely be the last element installed for the renovation (maybe in late 2023) because it could be sensitive to dust from construction.
The pipes will be thicker than those on the original organ.
"As the temperature changes along that pipe, it changes the pitch of the pipe. These won't have that problem," Nelen said. "There's been a lot of thought put into this."
A space to gather
Guests will enter through sets of bronze doors.
A new gathering space will welcome Mass celebrants inside. It includes a much larger lobby, elevator access and large new bathrooms. Glass will divide the space from the nave, so people may use it as a sort of "cry room" if they would like to step out and still see and hear what is going on inside at the nave and sanctuary.
"It will be like an expanded cry room," Nelen said.
A glass roof allows natural light into the central area, which includes a hospitality desk.
Terrazzo (marble) flooring, shipped from Italy, will cover the sanctuary floor and stairs down to the undercroft. The floor of the undercroft is to be stained concrete. Antonio Morfeo, of Tuscany, Italy, is in town to oversee installation of the Italian tile.
The new pipe organ will protrude more into the sanctuary, so its sound will reach into the cathedral better.
The confessional will include a wall with the "old-style" sliding grate that would allow confessions to be either face-to-face or anonymous, Nelen said.
"It will give that feeling of a little more classical confessional," he said.
The old confessional area was two people in a room with a temporary partition, he said.
A warm look
Walnut nooks on opposite sides of the sanctuary will contain likenesses of Ste. Rose Philippine Duchesne (a 19th-century nun who spent about half her life teaching in the Midwest) and St. Isidore the Farmer (patron saint of farmers and rural communities).
"All are going to be original artwork," McKnight said.
The new baptistry will include three hand-painted murals, which McKnight was to review Saturday in St. Louis.
Mosaics will be arriving from Italy. Stained glass is coming in from Minnesota.
Walnut is to surround the sanctuary.
Freedom Wood Products, based outside Linn, is milling walnut that will surround the inside of the church nave, Steck said.
Round columns will wrap around steel posts holding up the structure around the perimeter of the room.
Stained glass will surround the cathedral, McKnight said, except for a triangular portion (including a mosaic) over a recess at the back of the sanctuary. The tabernacle will rest on a pedestal at the recess's back wall. Angels will reside on either side of the tabernacle, invoking the Old Testament Ark of the Covenant, he said.
A new cathedra (the chair of the bishop within a church) will sit to the east side of the altar.
"It is symbolic of the bishop's teaching authority and pastorate of the whole diocese," he said. "Just as the cathedral is not a regular parish church -- it's the bishop's church and symbolizes a mother church."
Therefore, he said, the cathedral is the church for all parishioners throughout the diocese, no matter the parish they belong to.
A presbytery (seating for priests) will reside on the right side of the area.
Comfort and convenience
A new room alongside the nave is set aside for dual uses, according to Steck. It will be available for nursing mothers and for brides who wish for privacy before a wedding. It includes a passageway that allows one to privately move to or from the gathering area.
"So for brides who feel like they can't be seen, we've got you covered," Nelen said.
The sanctuary appears larger, but essentially all that has been done is that workers have connected it to the new space for the baptistry. The baptistry had been much smaller, and was housed in a small room near the entrance. Now, a chapel alongside the sanctuary has been opened up for the more prominent baptistry.
The chapel had often been used for overflow, but seating was turned away from the main altar. Celebrants who sat in overflow had to turn their heads and look over their right shoulders to watch the Mass.
The new baptistry includes an area for adult baptisms. Three hand-painted oil works are to decorate the walls behind the baptistry. A large glass cupola over it allows natural light in.
A shrine of Father Augustus Tolton will stand alongside the baptistry. Born a slave within the Jefferson City diocese, Tolton, who was baptized as a baby, wanted to become a Catholic priest, but the American church rejected him. So, he traveled to Italy, where he became a priest. The church required him to return to the United States to serve as a priest.
He died of heat stroke at 43 while treating others afflicted by summer heat in 1897.
There will be scenes depicting the healing and treating the sick, with Tolton as the priest figure, McKnight said. African marble will highlight the area.
Work down under
Renovations to the St. Joseph Cathedral undercroft are expected to be completed in November, long before those to the main level.
That day is much anticipated, McKnight said. While the church waits, Masses are being held in the gymnasium at St. Joseph Cathedral School.
The St. Mary's Hospital Auxiliary has already staked a claim to a date for its annual Ice Cream Social to be held in the undercroft, McKnight said. Organizers canceled the event in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and moved it in 2021 and 2022 because of anticipated remodeling in the undercroft.
The undercroft's central column is now wrapped in stone. Several walls also have stone veneers and highlights.
The ceiling, which will be covered in wood, is wired for audio and visual upgrades, and for installation of LED lighting. Steck, with Architects Alliance, said people will be able to control the lighting for different purposes or uses.
She said the wood is to be western hemlock.
"We chose one of the lightest-weight woods because there are some concerns about adding to the existing structures," Steck said. "We chose one of the lightest-weight woods we could find."
In the undercroft, the footprint mostly remains the same, she said.
A "stage or presentation area" has been moved slightly to allow more line-of-sight from areas within the undercroft, and to move it away from a space where an elevator is being installed. Designers didn't want elevator doors opening and closing to distract from presentations.
Getting a lift
An elevator -- connecting the undercroft and the main floor of the cathedral -- is a major addition to the building, which lacked one before.
McKnight pointed out the elevator makes it easier for the aging population within the diocese to get from one level to the other.
The elevator is in a space that was a stairwell before, Nelen said. Workers brought in a jackhammer on a robotic arm, which dug as far as they could. Workers had to go in and finish digging the pit for the elevator by hand -- the old-fashioned way, using hammer and chisel, he added.
Block walls are covered with gypsum board now.
The kitchen has changed a little to allow for a larger vent/hood. The previous hood didn't quite cover all of the appliances, so it had to be brought up to code. And, the walk-in refrigerator had long since passed its usefulness, and was replaced.
Bathrooms in the undercroft have also been redone. They'll have ceramic tile walls and epoxy floors, which is low maintenance and easy to clean, Steck said. The bathrooms have the same layouts they had before, but have upgraded plumbing and wiring.
"The problem with that cast iron plumbing is that it -- over time -- wears out," Nelen said.
Bishop Shawn McKnight, left, and Fr. Louis Nelen point out details of the renovation plan, according to the architectual drawings taped to the wall. Both were at Cathedral of St. Joseph Friday, Aug. 26, 2022, for a tour of the renovation currently underway. (Julie Smith/News Tribune photo)
Andrew Plata uses a cut-off saw to remove a section of an indoor overhang at the Cathedral of St. Joseph. His co-worker Ian Bedell, out of the frame, both of whom work for Sircal Construction, the contractor on the renovation at the Jefferson City Catholic church. (Julie Smith/News Tribune photo)
Jefferson City Diocese Bishop Shawn McKnight talks about some of the artwork that will be on the south wall of the baptistry room at Cathedral of St. Joseph. Eventually canvas paintings will fill the curved space in the background. (Julie Smith/News Tribune photo)
Wally Kane, at right, and Jesse Castillo set a piece of marble in place to make sure that it is the perfect fit before placing adhesive on it and setting it permanently. Kane and Castillo are mason fabricators and installers from Murphy Marble in Chicago, Illinois, and working on the renovation project at the Cathedral of St. Joseph. (Julie Smith/News Tribune photo)
Bishop Shawn McKnight, right, stopped to talk to Antonio Morfao, who, along with the crew from Murphy Marble in Chicago, in background, all of whom make up the team responsible for placing the marble flooring of the chancel. New flooring for the altar is only a small part of the work being done at the Cathedral of St. Joseph. (Julie Smith/News Tribune photo)
Architect Abigail Steck, at right, talks about some of the details in the work being done in the undercroft at the Cathedral of St. Joseph. Next to her is Fr. Louis Nelen of St. Joseph and at left is Bishop Shawn McKnight. (Julie Smith/News Tribune photo)