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Located just northeast of downtown Peoria, the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception has recently gained greater prominence as the burial place of the Venerable Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. I’ve looked at some of the houses nearby, once home to some of the prominent residents of the city before they moved up to the bluffs, back in 2013.
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Sadly, Interstate 74 comes crashing through here just to the southwest, so the cathedral complex is cut off from the rest of downtown, and likewise, the immediate area is also dominated by parking lots and the other malaise caused by the interstate highway system.
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But the cathedral is very nice, having just undergone a sensitive renovation that removed clueless mid-century modifications and the return of historically accurate details. The blue doors with gold hardware positively glowed in the early morning sunlight.
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Completed according to designs by Caspar Mehler in 1889, the cathedral is a mix of French, German and English Gothic Revival elements. As is typical of the late Nineteenth Century, features such as rose windows are placed in non-conventional locations such as the towers.
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The interruption of the octagonal spires with dormers is a bit strange, and causes the towers to have a weird appearance from a distance. I know of no European precedent.
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But overall the two front towers lend the cathedral a dramatic presence in the neighborhood to the northeast of downtown Peoria.
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The rectory next door is clearly older than the cathedral, and probably dates back to the original church on this spot, which was a plant from Chicago.
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Showing more of the influence of the industrial might of Chicago to the north, the window and door treatments show the Italianate style’s prominence after the Civil War.
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Inside the beauty of the newly restored sanctuary is on display. The star vaulting is completed with a rich blue and gold stars (rather appropriately). The slender columns that separate the nave from the two aisles, which are made of granite, are almost certainly hollow and contain steel supports in them to hold up the vaults and roof, as structurally they would not work otherwise. The quatrefoils hold depictions of the Old Testament prophets.
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A giant stained glass window is partially hidden by a massive organ designed by Dom Ermin Vitry of the Sisters of the Congregation of the Adoration of the Most Precious Blood of O’Fallon and it contains 3,329 pipes. It was constructed at the Wicks Factory in Highland, Illinois, a town I’ve visited before.
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The apse is painted red to symbolize the blood of Christ. The stained glass, which is a rich blue like many French Gothic cathedrals, was made by Wilbur H. Burnham of Boston in 1939. The other windows along the nave represent the saints of the various immigrants that came to live in Peoria, as well as the French missionaries who originally came to Illinois in the Seventeenth Century.
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What’s becoming a site of pilgrimage in the cathedral, however, is the recently relocated tomb of Venerable Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, who was ordained as a priest here. He went on to become famous for his primetime television show Life is Worth Living, which aired from 1952 to 1965 on ABC. Sheen was born and raised to the east of Peoria in El Paso, which I’ve looked at before back in July of 2012. The Diocese of Peoria has chosen to take their native son under its wing and taken him back from the East Coast and New York City, where much of his tenure as bishop was spent. There is also a museum about a block away and in El Paso.