History Comes Full Circle as Restored Cardinals’ Galeros Hang in St. Patrick’s

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Look 24 feet above the floor behind the sanctuary in St. Patrick’s Cathedral and you will literally see history in colorful cardinal red.

Four galeros, or cardinals’ hats, dating from the late 1800s, have been restored and rehung in the renovated St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Cardinal Dolan was on hand in the early afternoon Aug. 25 to oversee the hoisting of the first hat, which belonged to Cardinal John McCloskey. The Brooklyn-born prelate became the first American cardinal in 1875 and served as archbishop of the archdiocese from 1864 to 1885. The son of Irish immigrants, he was the first native New Yorker to be ordained a bishop.

The hats had previously hung high above the sanctuary but were moved to the ambulatory, behind the sanctuary, for greater visibility. “They used to be way up there, and unless you knew where to look for them, you wouldn’t see them,” Cardinal Dolan explained to members of the press assembled for the occasion.

The cardinal said that while he and the cathedral rector, Msgr. Robert Ritchie, reviewed plans for the cathedral’s restoration and renewal, they decided to have the deteriorating hats repaired and rehung “where people can see them” to provide “a sense of the history of the past of the archdiocese.”

“We’re delighted today to share that with you,” the cardinal said.

The other galeros that were subsequently rehung belonged to Cardinal John Farley, archbishop from 1902 to 1918; Cardinal Patrick Hayes, who headed the archdiocese from 1919 to 1938, and Cardinal Francis Spellman, who served from 1939 to 1967.

It was tradition to hang the galero after a cardinal’s death.

A former Church practice was for new cardinals to receive the ornate, wide-brimmed, tasseled hat from the pope. The practice was discontinued in the late 1960s by Pope Paul VI. Depictions of galeros, however, continue to grace the coats of arms of archbishops and bishops.

In addition to the red zucchetto, new cardinals now receive the red biretta, a three-cornered hat. Along with their red cardinals’ robes, the color of the zucchetto and biretta is indicative of the unconditional love they are to show to those entrusted to their care, even to the extreme of being willing to shed their own blood on behalf of others.

The galeros, made of cotton, wool and silk, had been caked in dust, and some of the tassels and fringe needed to be reattached and stabilized.

The ceiling from which the galeros had been hanging has also since been restored in conjunction with the cathedral’s overall restoration work which began three years ago and is scheduled to be completed in time for Pope Francis’ 36-hour visit to New York Sept. 24-26.

That same afternoon, a restored wooden angel clutching a cross was replaced above the cathedra, or the archbishop’s chair, in the sanctuary. “Isn’t that beautiful?” exclaimed the cardinal after Msgr. Ritchie presented him the statuary before it was returned to its rightful place.

The Catholic imagery in the cathedral, the cardinal said, is about the past, present and future: the past being “the repository of memories for a diocese,” the present depicting “God’s grace and mercy, God’s word and the sacraments,” and the future “because it reminds us of heaven.”