Our Hundred and Twenty-Fifth-III

Details: 31 August 2012

First Task

Almost as soon as he arrived in Lincoln to take up his duties as the Bishop of the new Diocese, Bishop Thomas Bonacum decided that one of the first immediate needs he had to confront, as the founding Bishop, was finding a cathedral. A cathedral, of course, is designated as the principal church of a Diocese where the Bishop has his permanent and fixed ceremonial seat, the symbol of his authority as a Successor of the Apostles in any locality. This episcopal seat or throne is called in Latin the "cathedra". Hence, the name of such a church is the "cathedral". Technically the Bishop himself is always the Pastor of his cathedral Parish. However, he usually assigns another priest to be the Rector, who, embellished by the Bishop’s vicarious authority, actually and "de facto" functions as the Cathedral Pastor as any pastor of a parish would.

Looking for a suitable church to be the Cathedral of the new Diocese, Bishop Bonacum could not find any. However, the largest church then in Lincoln and one of the newer ones was Saint Theresa Church located at 13th and M Streets. It was a brick structure and had been built in 1879. However, when the Bishop arrived in December of 1887, Saint Theresa Church was already too small even for the number of people who belonged to the parish, and thus not only the Bishop, but also the clergy, immediately declared that it was really not adequate to be a cathedral. However, since it was all he could find, Bishop Bonacum on December 21, 1887, named Saint Theresa Church as the Pro-Cathedral of the Diocese of Lincoln. (A pro-cathedral is an "acting" or "temporary" or "substitute" cathedral.) The patron saint of the parish was Saint Theresa of Avila (Theresa of Jesus, the "Big Flower"). In 1887, the other Therese (the future saint to be later called the "Little Flower") was only a fourteen year old girl, getting ready to enter, with a special dispensation because of her young age, the Carmel Cloister of Lisieux.

Pro-Cathedral

Bishop Bonacum, in that same December of 1887, called a special meeting of the people of Saint Theresa Parish along with some of his prominent priests of the new Diocese to discuss the possibility of constructing a new Cathedral. After some extensive consultation with architects, builders and others, however, they discovered it would cost at least $100,000. That kind of money was not available, and Bishop Bonacum was dead set against accumulating any such debts at the outset of his episcopate, so he and his consultants decided instead to enlarge Saint Theresa Church, the pro-Cathedral. The thinking was to find enough money in several years to build a new Cathedral at a more desirable location, and using money from selling the 13th and M property to pay for most of that undertaking. So, starting in the following April (1888), an annex was built onto Saint Theresa Church, with two transepts, each with a gallery, one for the choir loft and the other for the religious sisters. They also added two small rooms, one to be the sacristy and other to be an office for Bishop Bonacum. The annex cost $15,000. The new annex was supposed to be blessed on October 7, 1888, but all the parishioners’ financial pledges had not been met at that time, due mainly to the fact that the pledges also included money for a new parochial school for the pro- Cathedral. Bishop Bonacum decided to postpone blessing the annex and new school until there were no debts. The debts unfortunately remained until 1899, and it was only on August 5th in that year that the blessing finally took place.

The priest who was most instrumental in finally paying off the Saint Theresa debts was Father James Reade, who had come to live in Lincoln from New York because the healthy Nebraska climate was advertised there to be the best for peoples’ health, and Father Reade was in fragile health. He belonged to the wealthy and distinguished Rhode Island Cole-Reade Family. Two of his ancestors had been among the signers of the Declaration of Independence, one from the Cole Family and one from the Reade Family. Because of his fame and family connections, he was able to obtain generous financial donations from many non-Catholics in Lincoln, which also enabled him to renovate the church building inside and out, install a new pipe organ, arrange for artistic frescoes and paintings, decorate it with beautiful tiles, etc. By Easter Sunday in 1902, Saint Theresa Church even had more than 300 electric lights in it, something very new and exciting in those times.

St. Mary’s

However, Saint Theresa Church was still too small for episcopal ceremonies and for the numbers of parishioners and for those who attended pontifical ceremonies. Bishop Bonacum, therefore, kept an eye out for some other possibilities. He spied one located in Lincoln on 14th and K Street, where a Protestant denomination had purchased some land and built an imposing edifice calling itself the First Church of Christ in Lincoln. Bishop Bonacum learned that the Protestant Congregation had gone bankrupt in the national financial panic (the name for recessions in those days) of the 1890’s, and the property had passed into the possession of the mortgage holder, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

At first Bishop Bonacum tried to persuade the Jesuit Order to come to Lincoln and purchase the Saint Theresa property and run the parish, so he could use the money to buy that property for a new Cathedral. However, the Jesuits declined his offer. Then he called a meeting of the diocesan priests about the matter, but initially there was too much opposition from some of them to borrowing the money to buy the 14th and K place. However, the property remained unsold and deserted, so Bishop Bonacum soon tried again. Most of the priests by then agreed to go forward with the buy, and the diocesan canonical College of Consultors on March 24, 1904, gave him the formal "go-ahead" to make the purchase, and so he paid $14,000 for the actual property and $3900 for some adjoining land. He informed his priests that he intended to remodel the Protestant building to make it suitable for Catholic worship at an estimated cost of $8500. He remarked that it needed immediate work to repair the roof and replace the broken windows in order to save the building from further deterioration. He told them he hoped to sell the 13th and M property as soon as possible so as to fund most of the project, but until that sale was done, the parishes all together would have to pay $750 yearly, the annual interest which would be due on the purchase loan. Consequently several of the priests did not hold his name in benediction because of this "financial burden" which they would have to share, but most were happy "to pitch in".

Little suspecting the disappointments that lay ahead for him, Bishop Bonacum then arranged for the Vincentian Order (nicknamed the "Lazzarists" and officially the "Congregation of the Mission") to buy the Saint Theresa property and run that parish instead of the Jesuits. This then permitted him, so he thought, to sign the contracts to begin the remodeling of the First Church of Christ structure so it could become the diocesan Cathedral. But, disaster in this matter loomed in the near future for Bishop Bonacum and the Diocese of Lincoln.