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January 6, 1850
Old Christmas Day
Though unfinished, the Roman Catholic Cathedral (now Basilica) was opened for worship on 6 January 1850. (The Feast of the Epiphany – Old Christmas Day). Ill and exhausted by his labours, Bishop Michael Anthony Fleming who had conceived of the idea of building the massive Cathedral celebrated mass.
“It was the last time the dying Bishop was to assume the vestments, and the first and last time he would offer mass in his new Cathedral. He was so weak a chair had to be placed at the Altar, and several times he had to stop and rest.”
His death later that year was widely attributed to his exertions on seeing that the Cathedral (now Basilica) was built. The Patriot & Terra Nova Herald the local newspaper stated, “The Cathedral . . . has been that building upon which he seems to have staked all.”
The social status of the episcopate meant nothing to him; he was more at home “living weeks together at Kelly’s Island assisting the labourers quarrying building stone” than he was at dinner in Government House.
The mass was Bishop Fleming’s last public appearance. In the spring of 1850 an ailing Fleming, in semi-retirement, moved from the Episcopal residence to Belvedere, the Franciscan house. There he died a few months later on July 14, 1850. Thousands turned out to pay their last respects as his body was interred in the cathedral he had struggled so hard to build.
Rome had appointed a coadjutor bishop, John Thomas Mullock, who had been a friend and adviser to Bishop Fleming as his successor. Bishop Mullock completed the cathedral and it was officially consecrated in September 1855.
For more information on this and other related subjects contact the Archives of the R.C. Archdiocese. www.stjohnsarchdiocese.nf.ca
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Larry Dohey
Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John’s
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St. John’s, NL
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709-726-3660
E-mail: archives@nf.aibn.com
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