On an occasion like this, local history becomes especially significant.
December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is an important day for the Archdiocese of Perth. Fr John Brady, later Bishop Brady, the first Bishop of Perth, arrived in Fremantle on 8th December 1843.
With lightning speed, on 16th January 1844, Fr Brady laid the foundation stone of the first Catholic Church, which later became the first Cathedral when Brady became Bishop. It is still used today as St John’s Pro-Cathedral and is located but 100 metres away in Victoria Avenue.
Bishop Brady invited the Spanish Benedictines to the Swan River Colony to undertake missionary work for Aboriginal people. It was on 8th December 1847 that Dom Serra and Dom Salvado, both of whom later became Bishops, opened an Aboriginal School at New Norcia.
This Cathedral we reopen today might have been dedicated to St John the Evangelist, but because of the Proclamation of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, it is dedicated to Mary under that title, with its Patronal Feastday being today, 8th December.
This Cathedral is the result of these attempts to provide a complete and large enough Cathedral to cater for a growing population.
The first Cathedral to be built on this site was opened in 1865 by Fr Martin Griver as Apostolic Administrator. He was later ordained Bishop of Perth.
The total cost for the first Cathedral was â¤4,000. Archbishop Clune sought to build a much larger Cathedral in the 1920s. He built the sanctuary and the transept and these beautiful chapels, but had to leave its completion for later generations, because the finance of the Western world had collapsed into a profound depression.
It may be of interest to know that Archbishop Duhig of Brisbane preached at the opening.
In 2006, after years of planning and negotiation with the Perth City Council and the WA Heritage Council – every stone here is heritage – began the building of a structure in order to unite the first and second Cathedrals on this site into a harmonious whole in order to provide a complete Cathedral.
It is this Cathedral with its contemporary and historic elements brought together that we open and rededicate today.
Archbishop Clune left his dream to future generations to complete.
Those generations are here today, the families and generous donors who felt that the time had arrived to complete the Cathedral and who provided the daunting amounts needed to do so.
In a very real sense this Cathedral is the work of the people because had they not supported it with enormous generosity, it could not have been done.
Archbishop Clune faced a Depression – we came up against a Boom which made building costs skyrocket.
I do wish to acknowledge publicly today the architect, Peter Quinn, who offered us a brilliant solution to the problems of meshing the old and the new in an attractive and functional way.
I record my gratitude to the Perth City Council, the Heritage Council and the National Trust for their enthusiastic backing of this project.
I record too my warmest thanks to all the members of the Committees: Mgr Michael Keating and the Fundraising Committee; Mr Brett Mendez for his media, production, and fundraising skills; the Arts and Furnishings Committee; the Project Committee itself; other ad hoc working parties; the Dean of the Cathedral, Mgr Tom McDonald; the Project Manager, Mr Michael Reutens; the Chairman of the Committees, Bishop Don Sproxton; Sr Kerry Willison for the Arts and Liturgical Briefs, and for the hard work of all these people and the hundreds of others who worked with them. My work became easy because of all these willing people of faith.
A Cathedral is a symbol of the faith of the people. There is more than an echo of the great Temple of Jerusalem in our Cathedral.
The Temple was the centre of Jewish Worship of God. We believe that the Risen Lord Jesus is now the new Temple of the New Covenant. A Cathedral celebrates our dependence on Almighty God through Jesus our Saviour.
We do so in the celebration of the Sacraments, especially the Eucharistic Sacrifice of the Mass in the singing of the psalms, the reading of the Holy Scriptures and the prayers of the assembly of God’s People.
You will note many interesting features in this Cathedral: the use of the old sanctuary as the Blessed Sacrament Chapel with the original 1865 Tabernacle; the use of the jarrah for the flooring; the altar; the sanctuary furniture; the use of local materials in the limestone facing; the Donnybrook stone and the flooring stone from Myalup.
You will also note the repositioning of the great organ from the side transept to its noble location above the entrance.
The Southern Island Organ Company that restored and enhanced our Dodd organ gave us a second one that we have placed in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel.
There are many other unique features to note like the arresting Stations of the Cross, but I leave them to you to discover.
There is one feature that deserves special attention – the Aboriginal Pathway near the entrance to the Cathedral. It was drawn by a local Nyoongar woman, Laurel Nannup, and describes in 16 panels the life of the Aboriginal people at the time of the first Cathedral, and the coming of Christianity.
This is an acknowledgement that they were here thousands of years before and were, and still are, custodians of the land.
Last Saturday the remains of five of the former Bishops of Perth were interred in the crypt below the high altar; Bishops Gibney and Griver, and Archbishops Prendiville, Goody and Foley. It is a sobering thought that more will follow.
My hope is that this place of worship, with its delightful spire and gleaming in the bright Perth sun, will proclaim to all who pass by the beauty and love of God, and be a beacon that reflects the light of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour and the role of the sinless Mary Immaculate in offering her Son, Jesus to the world as its Saviour.