Talk:St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney

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Is St Mary's is the largest Catholic church in Australia? --WikiCats 02:52, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Its the was the first Catholic Church in Australia and its was made a Minor Basilica in 1930 Pope Pius XI --KaiAdin 09:54, 3 July 2006 (UTC) -(St Patrick's was the first Catholic Church in Australia.)--WikiCats 11:56, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

(This comment presumably refers to St Patrick's Church Hill, not St Patrick's Cathedral. St Patrick's, Church Hill, is the oldest existing Catholic church in Australia.)--Amandajm 22:35, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Oh! Size-wise, I dont think so... -- KaiAdin 09:55, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
St Mary's is the largest church building of any type in Australia, by a long shot. --Centauri 11:32, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
  • St Mary's is the largest, but not by such "a long shot". Its about 10 metres longer than St Patrick's Cathedral Melbourne, and approximately the same width. St Patrick's Cathedral is also a very big church.

--Amandajm 13:10, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why the changes?

I've received a message on my talk page from someone who forgot to identify themselves so I was unable to reply directly. However, this seems like the best place to do it.

The message I received was:-

St Marys Singers just curious as to what your links are to this building; why you feel the need to change things so extensively.

The reason that I "felt that I needed to change things so extensively" is that among the great number af articles about Australian matters that need tidying-up, accuracy-checks, grammatical checks, organising under section headings that conform with "Wikipedia Style" and the addition of verifiable information, I perceived this article as being of importance. One reason is that as a Christian person, I see the presentation of spirituality in this country as a thing of significance. I thought that it was really not appropriate, for example, that the first sentence talked, about the size of the building, not its role in serving the Catholic community of Sydney.

For those of you who don't want to go back through the history, what the first line previously said was :-

St Mary's Cathedral is the largest Roman Catholic church in Australia (and reputedly the Southern Hemisphere).

OK... What else have I done?

  • The dedication of the Cathedral to Mary, Help of Christians, Patron Saint of Australia. I'll bet Father Therry was responsible for that!
  • A more detailed description of the history of how the church came to be built.
  • The names of all (many of?) the successive priests invovled in seeing the project through.
  • A description of the building written by an architectural historian. So that the description uses the correct terminology and draws upon the specialised knowledge of an expert.
  • An explanation of the geographic orientation and how and why it differs from nearly every other Christian church. I do not know of any other cathedral in the English-speaking world with a North/south orientation. Perhaps someone else will come up with one.
  • The provision of a pic of St Marys that shows it a) within the context of the city it serves, b) is a cheerful positive image, c) that has the right "landscape" layout to fit next to the "contents box". It's about making the page look good. This was the only pic that I could find that fitted the bill, but it would be better to have a new, really clear more recent picture in this space that fulfils the above requirements annd is a "beautiful" shot of the building, (not your average snapshot). How about we submit a few images to this discussion page and choose the best?
  • Music at St Mary's:- The information that had been provided discussed the nnewest organ first and did not put the organs into historic perspective. Each of the three mentioned is of importance. What I have done is simply put them into the right order. There is a fourth organ in the crypt that also needs info. The section on the organs is of great interest to Boffins. It needs to be expanded by someone who is expert in the subject. If there is a great deal of informayion forthcoming, then the organs need to have their own page created for them with a heading that makes a direct connection to the cathedral's page "St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney - the Church Organs".
  • Michael Hissey- the St Mary's page was not the right page on which to place a biography of just one of the numerous people who have been associated with the Catholic Church in Sydney over the last 180 odd years. Where is Therry? Moran? George Pell? They all have their own pages. Now Michael Hissey has his own page as well.
  • The Hardman stained glass- people tend to take these things for granted. But the fact is that the windows of three of Sydney's buildings constitute one of the most amazing arrays of 19th and early 20th century glass to be found anywhere in the world. The Great Hall of Sydney Uni, the complete cycle of 27 windows at St Andrews and the magnificent display of glass at St Mary's are of World Heritage Significance, even though they have not been grouped and designated as such. It is hard to overestimate the artistic value of the Chancel Window (north) of St Mary's.

There are things in the article that need expanding-

  • St Mary's Cathedral Choir needs its own page, if it doesn't already have one.
  • The school, its foundation and association with the cathedral needs one or two paragraph and a direction to a specific article. Additional articles work best if the start off with the major heading eg "St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney - St Mary's College". This means that they are liisted when you search "St Mary's". Note- The punctuation must be the same.
  • The Bells - don't as yet have a paragraph. Needs to be either researched or written by someone who knows the subject.
  • The Crypt is a story in itself- needs a paragraph devoted to it.
  • Significant burials- and their locations.
  • A ground plan - I have one I can scan and put up
  • Specifications - mine are all in feet, I'll have to do a conversion.
  • Great moments of celebration in the Cathedral's history - I was at the service for the Opening of the Olympics and blessing of the athletes. Wow!

What about the Pope's visit? There have been a number of significant State Funerals- what else?

Note- apart from removing Michael Hissey to his own page, the only information that I have actually deleted is the sentence that says that St Mary's with St Pats and St Johns is the largest church of the 19th century. Three of them are the largest? Let's please take into account that half of St Mary's was only on paper at the end of the 19th century. To say that it is the largest church in Australia is sufficient.

Hey- let's have a Trivia section. Did you know that in St Peter's, Rome they have marks in brass on the floor showing the sizes of some of the world's significant churches. and Sydney is there. I've got a pic somewhere of my son looking at the mark.

The aim here is to make the page worthy of a really great cathedral... OK?

--Amandajm 23:57, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] St Mary's Photo gallery

If you have really good clear pics of St Mary's, please share then! What we need to improve the page is:-

  • A really clear bright recent "landscape format" shot showing the Cathedral in the context of the city it serves, to go near the beginning of the article to replace unclear pic taken in 2000.
  • A good long shot of the interior down the length of the nnave, showing the architectural features clearly.
  • A nice angle shot across the transept showing the Marian Chapel, or the Pieta, or the light coming across the floor or the splendid pulpit.
  • A picture of a really important occasion, with the cathedral full of people, poss. taken from the organ gallery or some such.
  • A picture of the Floor of the Crypt. showing the Celtic patterns.
  • An East end (North end) exterior showing the tracery of the chancel window.
  • Pics of the windows. Pics of the windows should show the details of the painting of faces as well as having the colourful parts properly coloured. Its hard to take photos that show both.
  • A pic of one of the carved faces. The nun with the frilled wimple near the Confessionals on the east side is one of the nicest.

Please place pics here!

Do you have a replacement for this?

--Amandajm 00:17, 21 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Height of spires

This article notes that St Marys is the 3rd tallest church in Australia, after St Patricks in Melbourne and the Sacred Heart in Bendigo. This is not correct, as St Pauls in Melbourne (at 96 metres), is the 2nd tallest. In fact, the wiki page about the Sacred Heart cathedral is also wrong. It should state that it is the 3rd highest (not 2nd highest).

    • Don't know how to address this comment which says that the info about three different churches is wrong, but give no positive suggestion as to which are the first, second and third tallest. The claim for the tallest spire in Australia has been made for the Hunter Baillie Memorial Church in Annandale, Sydney, but I don't know the different heights.

--Amandajm 10:38, 10 March 2007 (UTC)