ST. LOUIS – For the first time in nearly a century, a month-long cleaning project inside the Cathedral Basilica in the Central West End concluded this week.
A month-long cleaning project wrapped up this week inside the Cathedral Basilica in the Central West End for the first time in nearly a century.
“Even the statues of the evangelists that sit on either side and the splendor of their faces,” said Monsignor Henry Breier. “The whiteness in the marble, which again I thought was grey marble, is just so much beauty that shines forth.”
He said he’s noticing new details for the first time since the cleaning.
“The detailing there on the baldacchino—the little lion heads—I saw them for the first time now that they were clean,” Breier said. “So you can definitely see the detailing, and it just kind of jumps out at you.”
He said parishioners are noticing changes too.
“When we got to cleaning the baldacchino, half of it was clean, and half of it wasn’t,” Breier said. “And you could see the marketed difference, and they were all talking about they could visibly see what it looked like before and after.”
The deep cleaning isn’t the only noticeable change.
“Those large angels, the beatitudes—those were largely not lit. All those walls were not lit, and we lit them,” Breier said.
Over 100 new lights are illuminating a masterpiece that may have escaped your eye until this moment.
“You are certainly going to see colors you haven’t seen before in mosaics and scenes that are just going to pop out at you, and it’s stunning to me to see it now,” Breier said.