WHEN MONTREAL’S first Catholic cathedral burned down in 1852, Bishop Ignace Bourget decided to demonstrate the importance of the Catholic Church in Canada by building a new one in a district dominated at the time by the English Protestant commercial elite.

To show his flock’s loyalty to the Pope, he modeled his new church on St. Peter’s basilica in Rome. The cathedral, which was completed in 1894, has dimensions that are a quarter of those of St. Peter’s. The statues on the roof represent the patron saints of all the parishes that constituted the Montreal diocese in 1890.

The magnificent altar canopy, a replica of the one Bernini made for St. Peter’s, was cast in copper and gold leaf. Another reminder of Bourget’s loyalty to Rome can be found on the pillar in the northeast corner of the church. Here lies a marble plaque listing the names of all the Montrealers who served in the Papal armies during the Italian war of independence in the 1850s.