Amanda Vessel, “The Creating of a Landmark: St. Anthony’s Cathedral, Beaumont, Texas,” Touchstone, vol. XIX (2000), 48-58.
This article explores the background and symbolic and cultural importance of St. Anthony’s Cathedral in Beaumont, Texas. Amanda Vessel asserts that this Catholic Church has exclusive meanings for their parishioners. St. Anthony’s bodily visual appearance is quite symbolic. The ground program is formed like a cross and the statues and other functions of artwork signify several tenets of the Catholic faith.
Ahead of 1897, and the coming of Father William Lee, the Catholic Church in Beaumont, St. Louis, was pretty small and Spartan. In 1901, the discovery of oil led to an inflow of people today and oil-associated companies. As a final result, St. Louis turned much too little to accommodate the escalating Catholic population, and Father Lee proposed constructing a new church. This church was developed according to Father Lee’s style and design, and it was devoted in January 1907, in honor of St. Anthony of Padua. Next Father Lee began a new grammar school and the previous college was moved to be a convent for the nuns who taught at the faculties. Father Lee did not live to see the completion of the grammar university in September 1918 he died in July of that 12 months and was buried in St. Anthony’s at the foot of the altar.
Father E. A. Kelly, Father Lee’s successor, arrived in Beaumont whilst the town was nevertheless enduring the economic prosperity from the oil boom. He made a decision to construct a new convent for the nuns at a expense of $25,000. More making jobs provided a brick rectory in 1922, a higher faculty in 1926, and an outside recreation place in 1928. In 1937, Father Kelly began restoring and decorating the inside of St. Anthony’s. Father Kelly extra oil paintings and stained glass home windows at a value of $32,000. In 1953, a new grammar college was made to accommodate an expanding scholar enrollment. This faculty price tag $400,000 and is however in use right now.
Monsignor Kelly retired from his situation as pastor of St. Anthony’s in August 1954, and he passed absent 6 months afterwards. His successor, Reverend George Black, created a new significant school and a new convent in 1961. In 1972, Father Marvin Enderle commenced restoration of the church’s interior, and he included a parking whole lot for the church in 1979. In 1995, underneath Father Beenie Patillo, St. Anthony’s experienced developed a parish heart.
The evolution of St. Anthony’s from a Spartan church to the wonderful framework that is an historic landmark in Beaumont included quite a few unique pastors and generations of the Catholic parishioners. St. Anthony’s is more than a place of worship the church is concerned in many factors of its parishioners’ life. Thus, St. Anthony’s is quite significant to the Catholics in Beaumont.
