A Story of Salvation in St. Patrick’s Cathedral

If Catholicism in New York has a vital center, it must be the famous St. Patrick’s Cathedral on 5th Avenue in New York City.

Virtually everyone knows about the magnificent neo-Gothic cathedral in the heart of America’s biggest city. It’s on every TV screen as the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York passes by its doors and receives the blessing of the Cardinal-Archbishop of New York.

Most people, however, are not aware of one very important feature of this temple of grace: it’s situated right across the street from the famed Rockefeller Center, a curious fact of geography, as we will see.

Rockefeller Center was built during the entire decade of the ’30s and completed in 1939 when John D. Rockefeller himself ceremonially inserted the final rivet. Let’s also keep in mind that St. Patrick’s was there first (it was dedicated in 1879), so it was Rockefeller who chose to situate his building across the street from the church.

So, why is the positioning of these two incredible buildings relevant? Well, because of this picture.

What you see framed in the cathedral’s doorway is the monumental figure of the Greek god, Atlas, who holds the world on his shoulders. He stands at the entrance to the Rockefeller Center across the street.

It looks like a crucifix, doesn’t it?

I took this picture on a recent visit to New York City. The photo was inadvertent. I walked up the side aisle to get a closer look at the altar, and when I turned around to look at the back of the church…there was Atlas, peeking through the open doors of the cathedral.

I don’t know the history or motive behind the sculpture, but I think the crucifixion analogy was deliberate. The gigantic Atlas was placed strategically in front of the doors of the Catholic cathedral to offer an alternative message of salvation to all who would visit the glorious temple of Christ.

Rockefeller’s message is that the “gods” of human progress hold up the world. I don’t think that’s a wild interpretation, for one simple reason:

Atlas’s mythological brother, Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods on Mt. Olympus and brought it to earth, is the other famous sculpture at the Rockefeller center (see the feature picture above). And the Center contains many more works of art that celebrate human progress and achievement.

You might call Rockefeller Center the “Temple of Man Who Doesn’t Need God”.

That’s the world’s message of salvation.

The other message, preached in St. Patrick’s, is the Good News of Jesus Christ. He is not a myth. He is the only Savior of the world who saved mankind by the single historical act of His Death and Resurrection.

Any doctrine proclaiming salvation by any other means than Jesus is an illusion. Humans simply need to repent of their sins and ask for salvation.

If Rockefeller’s Atlas could only shrug off his burden and stop looking down at the earth, he might turn his eyes heavenward to see the true God who bears the weight of the entire sinful world on His mighty shoulders.

The full picture of the back of St. Patrick’s puts it all in perspective, doesn’t it?

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Photo Credits: Uris at English Wikipedia (Prometheus), cathedral photos by Peter Darcy.