PHOTOS: Near century-old cathedral needs updating

As the building has no heritage status and the diocese has been unsuccessful in the past finding government grants to assist with the renovations it has been forced to get creative with fundraising the nearly $500,000 necessary for all the updating.

“We re-did the steps last year and we tried to get some grants for that but there wasn’t anything really available,” said Fiolleau. “We started a campaign last year in the fall and we’ve got about $119,000 pledged already. We’re doing a campaign right now for the windows, people can purchase different sizes of windows at different prices, and so you can purchase the window to restore it and then there will be a plaque with the name of the family or person on the particular window the person purchased.”

He added they will need about $260,000 to finish the windows. The windows can be purchased on a sliding scale from $10,000 for the largest to $3,000 for the smallest. But the diocese will happily accept smaller donations to add to the pool.

Another, more affordable, way its gathering donations from residents will be through sales of a historical cookbook, set to be released this fall.

“It’s going to be out here by mid-summer, probably August, we’re calling out Centennial Cookbook, it will be two volumes,” said Fiolleau. “What we did is we approached people from across our diocese, from Meadow Lake to Rosthern and from Hudson Bay to Lloydminster, so we requested recipes and we got 1447 recipes within two months.”

Fiolleau added the official launch for the book will be Oct. 5, with a night of tasting various recipes selected from it.

Also in the fall, larger renovations like painting, carpeting and the heating system will start up, and Fiolleau said they will have to shut down the church during that time in order to move the pews and set up scaffolding.

“Right after thanksgiving weekend we’re going to be closing the Cathedral until Christmas,” said Fiolleau. “The Sisters of the Presentation of Mary have offered for us to use their chapel for our Sunday services and for any funerals we might have. And St. Mary High School has offered their little chapel for the weekday masses.”

Construction on the Sacred Heart Cathedral was first started in 1913 and finished in 1914.

The cathedral was built to replace a previous cathedral that was constructed where the parking lot for the building now exists in 1892. It had deteriorated quickly due to an underground stream under the building, according to Fiolleau.

Anyone wishing to make a donation either by purchasing a window, making a smaller donation or are interested in the Centennial Cookbook, contact the diocese at 306-763-2319.

jbowler@panow.com

On Twitter: @journalistjim

by James Bowler

PHOTOS: Near century-old cathedral needs updating

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