Dusty Buildings

When a civilization ends, it does not leave behind a tombstone. Instead, it leaves stackings of stones (i.e. buildings.) We lose the remembrance of individual people, the things they said, did, and wrote, but we remember what they built because those things endure for much longer. The Ancient Greeks and Romans tell us about themselves through their Classical Architecture. We remember the Medieval period in Europe from its castles and Gothic Cathedrals. We remember the early 20th century from the Art Deco buildings it left behind. The style tells us something about their priorities, what they believed, what they knew, and what their hopes were. In a sense, the buildings a culture leaves behind are a kind of epitaph.

Let’s look through the structural epitaphs of our ancestors.

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Imagine driving through the middle of what seems to you to be nowhere, when up from the ground, in the far distance, springs a pair of twin spires. When you get close enough, you might recognize those twin structures to be part of a large Catholic Church Basilica.

If you’re ever driving down Interstate 70 in the state of Kansas, this might be your experience. In sparsely populated Ellis County (28,934), in the even smaller town of Victoria (1,129) a mighty building was constructed over a century ago. It continues to dominate the landscape, so much so that it has a nickname that is known well beyond the far reaching Western Kansas horizon: The Cathedral of the Plains. Of course, that’s not it’s real name.

Basilica of St. Fidelis

The first thing you might need to know, to feel informed, is the difference between a basilica and a cathedral.

Basilicas are Catholic church buildings that have a designation, conferring special privileges, given by the Pope. Basilicas are distinguished for ceremonial purposes from other churches. The building need not be a basilica in the architectural sense (a rectangular building with a central nave flanked by two or more longitudinal aisles). Basilicas are either major basilicas, of which there are four, all in the Diocese of Rome, or minor basilicas, of which there were 1,810 worldwide as of 2019.

A cathedral is a church that contains the cathedra (Latin for ‘seat’) of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of “cathedral” are usually specific to those Christian denominations with an episcopal hierarchy, such as the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and some Lutheran churches. Church buildings embodying the functions of a cathedral first appeared in Italy, Gaul, Spain, and North Africa in the 4th century, but cathedrals did not become universal within the Western Catholic Church until the 12th century, by which time they had developed architectural forms, institutional structures, and legal identities distinct from parish churches, monastic churches, and episcopal residences. The cathedral is more important in the hierarchy than the church because it is from the cathedral that the bishop governs the area under his or her administrative authority.

So… in this case, the nickname is more an indication of perceived grandeur than an official declaration of the hierarchy or function of the building. Even the official “basilica” title did not become official until recently. How did this Church building come to be? For that, we’ll first consult wiki:

The Basilica of St. Fidelis, commonly known as the Cathedral of the Plains or Basilica of the Plains is a Romanesque-style Catholic parish church in Victoria, Kansas, United States.

St. Fidelis is not formally a Catholic cathedral. It is located within the Diocese of Salina, whose formal mother church is Sacred Heart Cathedral in Salina. However, St. Fidelis was formally raised to the status of a minor basilica in 2014.

History

The church was built between 1908 and 1911. The architect was John T. Comès of Pittsburgh with modifications and supervision by architect Joseph Marshall of Topeka. According to the church history, each member of the church who was 12 or older was asked to give $45, haul six wagon loads of Fencepost limestone and four loads of sand each year until the church was built. Some families brought as many as 70 to 80 wagonloads of stone.

The nickname The Cathedral of the Plains was bestowed upon the structure by former presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan after he visited the town in 1912. Its 48 historic stained-glass windows were installed in 1916, by Munich Studio of Chicago, at a cost of $3,700, and are now valued at more than $1 million. The church was added to the National Register in 1971.

In 1994, the church began a series of restoration efforts. The congregation spent more than $265,000 on weatherproofing the exterior, re-plastering and repainting the interior and updating the sound, electrical and heating systems. Work also included installing a marble floor in the sanctuary for $60,000 and replacing old carpeting and linoleum floors in other areas. The parish re-shingled the church roof in 2006 for $137,000. The twin towers are 141 feet tall and are clearly visible from Interstate 70, making the basilica a major landmark in western Kansas.

In 2011, it replaced the parking lot and sidewalks for $225,000, and spent $70,000 on repairing the plaster ceilings and walls that had cracked with age. In 2013, an Arkansas company replaced plastic coverings that were installed in the mid-1980s to protect stained glass window from Kansas storms. As it aged, the plastic grew opaque, however the new coverings are tempered glass which will remain clear.

After approval by the Vatican in early March 2014, Bishop Edward Weisenburger of the Diocese of Salina dedicated St. Fidelis Church as a minor basilica on Saturday, June 7, 2014.

• Plaque outside the church (1997)
• Front of the church (1997)
• Nave of the church (2011)
• Convent next to church (2018)

Capuchins

Since the late 19th century, the faithful and their meeting places in Ellis County, Kansas, including St. Fidelis Catholic Church, have been overseen by the Capuchin Order, a subset of the Franciscans. A three-story building beside the church is a Friary of the Capuchins, and now houses retired and aging Capuchin priests.

Notable persons

Theodore Edgar McCarrick – former resident; laicized former cardinal and bishop of the Catholic Church. In January 2020, it was announced that McCarrick had moved away to an undisclosed location.

If it seems odd that a tiny town in Kansas, far from comparatively larger cities, built a church large enough that it garners cathedral comparisons and that it attracted a visit from William Jennings Bryan while he was campaigning for President… well, I shared you confusion. However, I dug around and found a satisfactory explanation:

In short, in the early 20th century, if your local 250 families regularly had 10 kids apiece, you needed a big building for the Mass. And if the parishioners were willing to do most of the work themselves, there wasn’t much of a limit to what they could build. By the mid 20th century though, many original families moved away and family size grew gradually smaller. I think the takeaway here should be elevated expectations for what is possible. The attitude that build this Church in a tiny Kansas town also built ornate cathedrals, libraries, train stations, and other public buildings all across the Western world for centuries before it. If that attitude had persisted through the 20th Century, our world would be far more beautiful today. Either way, there’s no reason to believe that we cannot do in the 21st century what people did in the early 20th century and prior. The only limit is ourselves.

It’s also odd (referring back to the wiki article above) that the disgraced and laicized former Cardinal McCarrick was sent here, of all places, though perhaps the idea was that sending him to the middle of nowhere was best for everyone. The good people of Victoria disagreed, noting that the friary was next to an elementary school. Hence the now 94 year old McCarrick is in an undisclosed location.

To end this post on a more upbeat note than that topic, I am going to share a couple of great walking tour videos of the Church: