San Salvador Cathedral

The Metropolitan Cathedral of the Holy Savior ("Catedral Metropolitana de San Salvador") is the principal church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Salvador and the seat of the Archbishop of San Salvador. The church was twice visited by Pope John Paul II who said that the cathedral was "intimately allied with the joys and hopes of the Salvadoran people." [ http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/1996/february/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19960208_pastorale-san-salvador_sp.html, Greeting of the Holy Father John Paul II to Catechists in the Cathedral of San Salvador. ] During his visits in 1983 and 1996, the Pope knelt and prayed before the Tomb of Archbishop Óscar Romero, assassinated in 1980, whose tomb here is a major pilgrim draw.

History

The Cathedral site is the place where the old Temple of "Santo Domingo" (St. Dominic) once stood. The Cathedral stands on the northern side of "Plaza Barrios", named after the Salvadoran military hero, Gerardo Barrios. On the western periphery of Plaza Barrios is the old National Palace building. The Cathedral has a history of tragedy and rebirth. Since 1888, a wooden structure Cathedral served as the seat of San Salvador's archbishops. On August 8, 1951, the Old San Salvador Cathedral was consumed by fire as a distraught crowd of onlookers watched. [ http://www.elsalvadorturismo.gob.sv/catedralmetro.htm, CATEDRAL METROPOLITANA. ]

For the next forty years, the San Salvador Cathedral was a barren concrete structure, of exposed bricks and jutting iron buttresses. During the late 1970s, Archbishop Óscar Romero famously deferred completion of the Cathedral in order to fund projects for the poor. During this time, the Cathedral was the stage of several national sagas, including the grand funerals of assassinated political figures, and Romero's fiery Sunday masses. On May 9, 1979, 24 demonstrators were gunned down by supposedly security forces on the front steps of the Cathedral during the San Salvador Cathedral Massacre. [ http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/9/newsid_2520000/2520219.stm, 1979: El Salvador cathedral bloodbath. ]

An even greater toll was exacted on Palm Sunday, March 31, 1980, during the funeral of Archbishop Romero, when 44 people were killed during a stampede after some elements, allegedly members of security forces (although it has never been corroborated) fired on mourners/worshippers and on Romero's funeral cortege, the real gunmen were never identified. Later, the square in front of the Cathedral was the site of rapturous celebrations after the signing of the Chapultepec Peace Accords that ended the Salvadoran Civil War in 1992. The Cathedral was completed and inaugurated on March 19, 1999 and finished off with a festive tiled facade by the Salvadoran master Fernando Llort. [ http://www.elsalvadorturismo.gob.sv/catedralmetro.htm, CATEDRAL METROPOLITANA. ]

Architecture & Style

The festive and colorful facade borders a shrine to an image of the Divine Saviour of the World (Jesus, after the Transfiguration, the patron saint of El Salvador) sculpted by Friar Francisco Silvestre García in 1777. [ http://www.elsalvadorturismo.gob.sv/catedralmetro.htm, CATEDRAL METROPOLITANA. ] The main altar features an image of the Divine Saviour donated by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1546. The image rests on a four-column baldocchino surrounded by images of the prophets Moses and Elijah, who take part in the Transfiguration story. The main altar is surrounded by eight great paintings showing scenes from the life of Christ painted by Andrés García Ibáñez. [ http://www.elsalvadorturismo.gob.sv/catedralmetro.htm, CATEDRAL METROPOLITANA. ] Above it all, the bright "Churriguresque" cupula stands 148 feet in height, with a 79 foot radius. [ http://www.elsalvadorturismo.gob.sv/catedralmetro.htm, CATEDRAL METROPOLITANA. ]

Footnotes