Act of vandalism may have saved St. Paul Cathedral’s historic stained glass windows

By John Lauritsen

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    ST. PAUL, Minnesota (WCCO) — The Cathedral of St. Paul is full of hope and history. An act of vandalism may have saved the church’s historic windows.

“You begin to see the crowds increase. The faithful coming back,” said Father John Ubel.

The Christmas season is the busiest time of year at the Cathedral of St. Paul. You’ll see decorations everywhere, along with saint after saint.

And towering over it all is where spirituality meets transparency.

“There aren’t that many people who make stained glass windows anymore. I mean, there’s certainly some companies that still do it, but it’s a bit of a lost art,” said Ubel.

For Father Ubel, that became an issue in 2014, when one of the windows became the victim of a BB gun. A crew went up to investigate the damage and came back down saying they could fix the broken glass. That was the good news.

“The bad news is the glass is separating from the lead and you’ve got a much, bigger problem. In fact, you should actually thank whoever shot the window because it uncovered that,” said Father Ubel.

It was an epiphany, and an expensive one. The plan was to replace 18 of the smaller windows and two of the larger rose windows. They are 19 feet across and cost $100,000 a piece to restore.

It took time to raise all that money, but thankfully church members and the Cathedral Heritage Foundation came through. That’s when the real work began, piece by piece.

Each of the rose windows took a week to take down, 10 weeks to restore and another week to put back up.

“All new lead is put in. All the windows are cleaned and put back together again. It’s a giant jigsaw puzzle,” said Father Ubel.

But when they finished, the difference was clear. And the restoration revealed secrets not seen before. The window of St. Mary Magdalene is one example.

“And I never realized at the base of her foot is the top of the ointment jar. In the Gospels, she anoints Jesus with the oil. You never could have seen that kind of detail before they were restored,” said Father Ubel.

“I think they’re beautiful. They’re absolutely gorgeous,” said visitor Roger Goerke.

For visitors, the golden hour is 10 in the morning. That’s when the colors truly radiate. The windows shed light on a Catholic tradition that began during the Middle Ages.

“Stained glass windows were very popular in Europe. And for many of the peasants who didn’t read, that became a living catechism where the priest could teach the children the stories of the Gospel by looking at the stained glass,” said Father Ubel.

Fifteen centuries later, that tradition continues in St. Paul.

“They add to my prayers. They’re not distracting at all, they’re just the opposite,” said visitor Terry Goerke.

“It’s amazing to see the people’s response and reaction when they see the Cathedral,” said Father Ubel. “I love to see people come into the Cathedral and look up right away. You always know you have a visitor when the first thing you see is people looking up.”

Ubel says there are about 30 windows left to restore and he’d love to get to them some day. He credits Gaytee-Palmer Stained Glass in northeast Minneapolis for their help restoring the windows, some of which were 85 years old at the time.

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