The Church in New York Celebrates Its Immigrant Past and Present

Yesterday at the main Mass, New York's famous Saint Patrick's Cathedral dedicated a major new addition to the cathedral's interior, the largest artwork commissioned in the cathedral’s 146-year history and the first since the massive bronze doors were installed at the cathedral's Fifth Avenue entrance in 1949. It is a 21-feet high, multi-panel mural by artist Adam Cvijanovic, titled What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding, which celebrates the history of immigration in New York City and the role of the Church in the city's development. It recalls the 1879 Apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Knock, Ireland, which occurred in the same year as the original dedication of the cathedral. The mural depicts the succession of 19th and 20th-century immigrants to New York, more contemporary immigrants, and other prominent New York figures like St. Kateri Tekakwitha, Pierre Toussaint, Dorothy Day, Al Smith, and Archbishop John Hughes.     

“I want people to be able to see themselves in it,” the artist Adam Cvijanovic has said. Looking at it yesterday for the first time, I did see a lot of myself iand many others in it - in its depiction of generations of immigrants who found refuge in this city and a spiritual home in our Church.