AmP on the road: The Baltimore Basilica & More

Yesterday I made the 40 mile trip from Washington DC to Baltimore. I experienced a very full day of sightseeing, aided in no small part by the helpful assistance of AmP readers!

Since I use public transportation, the trip from my door to the Baltimore Basilica (my first destination) involved stints on the DC metro, MARC commuter train, Baltimore lightrail, metro, and finally my own two legs.

The Basilica tour guide team was very helpful, and regularly offers tours lasting about 50 minutes to interested parties. They provide a good balance between information about the Basilica itself and the wider history of the Catholic Church in America.

The interior of the Basilica [wikipedia entry] is exceptionally bright and welcoming. Most everything has been renovated. The basilica was famously designed by Benjamin Latrobe, who also helped design the U.S. Capitol. He was told to construct an American church and did just that. The windows feature no stained glass and the architecture follows a strict newclassical style. Most impressively, the basilica has a huge, soaring dome, lit at the top with sky lights:

It's really difficult to take a full-size picture of the dome with my camera's aperature. It's really big. They eventually plan to have an online virtual tour which will probably do a better job. So this will have to do.

I found this an interesting piece of information. The upper church avoids any need for pillars through an inventive "reverse arch" system that is visable in the crypt below the church:

I thought the marble high altar, while rather minimal, was very beautiful:

The full name of the church is the "Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary", so appropriately enough. Children of the staff provided the models for the cherubs' faces:

As a Basilica which Pope John Paul II has visited, it has a Tintinnabulum and Conopaeum (visible in this picture to the far right).

As the "first among equals" American church, it features large memorials to the councils and gatherings of Bishops which have taken place in Baltimore over the centuries, as well as a list of the bishops consecrated in the cathedral (not pictured) - it's am impressive who's-who list of American prelates.

To conclude, here is a short video I took inside the Basilica (it's here on YouTube):

Now a couple fun facts:

According to tradition, upon the death of a Cardinal his galero is raised in the sanctuary of his cathedral church. The tongue-in-cheek follow-up is that the cardinal will be in purgatory until his hat disintegrates and falls to the ground. The first hat fell apart during the renovation, and the rector wished to still have one around, so he petitioned Rome for a replacement! I bet the cardinal wasn't too pleased about that.

Another fun fact:

This is the famous "Cardinal Gibbons balcony." The story is that the Cardinal was so popular with the people that he could never have solitude for prayer in his Church, thefore he had an overhang created to the left of the sanctuary so he could say his prayers undisturbed. It remains to this day.

After my tour of the Basilica, I headed down to St. Alphonsus Church, which is quite an experience (and contrast to the crisp neoclassicisc decoration of the Basilica). My photo did not turn out well but captures a bit of the soaring european-style gothic. An impressive and complex beauty:

I attended noon Mass here, celebrated by an Irish priest. Mass was about 20 minutes, but reverent.

For some reason, this put a smile on my face:

That Fr. Visitor sure gets around! I noticed him hearing confessions everwhyere. ;-)

And in case you were wondering, yes I did spend some time in Baltimore itself:

I highly recommend taking a water taxi if you are ever able to visit. "Get in on it." ;-)

I even visited the tomb of Edgar Allan Poe and left him a little present. And said some prayers for him.

The day concluded with dinner, a short tour of Baltimore's federal hill and a pint with some of the fine folks behind InsideCatholic. They were extremely hospitable and I can understand why they choose to live in Baltimore. My sincere gratitude goes out to them. It's always wonderful when I meet the people whose material I read in St. Blogs to find out that their blogging is just one (public) expression of their personal, lived faith. Cheers to that.

In case you were wondering, I always upload my photos from trips like this one to my Flickr page.

I might be back in Baltimore by as early as next week, which is nice because there are plenty of places I wished to visit that I did not have time to see this time around. Again, thanks for all the tips! I put them to good use.