A Short Separation Between Church and State (6/17/2023)

Today’s adventure consisted of visits to the St. Paul Cathedral and the Minnesota State Capitol. We began at the cathedral, which was an easy ten minute drive from the house. It is very impressive inside and out and is on par to many older ones we’ve seen overseas with an impressive organ, chapels, and beautiful stained glass windows.

The St. Paul Cathedral, a Roman Catholic cathedral, was completed in 1915. It is the sixth-largest church in the United States and can hold up to 3,000 parishioners. Today, it had only a few guests while we were there. In fact, we didn’t see many other people at the Capitol or out and about on our walk between the two sites.

It was an easy walk to the capitol from the cathedral and both seem to be on one edge of downtown St. Paul.

The Minnesota State Capitol was completed in 1905, so it predates the cathedral by 10 years. Wikipedia says that it is built in the Italian Renaissance, Beaux Arts style. We wouldn’t have known, but we were both impressed with the marble used (Georgia white marble) and the gold statue on the front facade. Fun fact: the dome is the 2nd largest self-supported marble dome in the world behind St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.

There were a number of statues on the grounds as well.