“Save the cathedral of St. Joseph!”: that’s the appeal being made by the Catholics of Bucharest, in Romania, whose cathedral, together with the bishop’s palace and Institute of St. Teresa, is being seriously threatened by the construction of a massive 19-storey building (75 metres high), with four basement levels, which will be called “Cathedral Plaza”. The archdiocese of Bucharest has always opposed this project, which it considers “a great blow inflicted on the Catholic Church” in view of the “spiritual, cultural and architectural value that the cathedral represents for the city, for the country and for the local and international Catholic community”. The archbishop of Bucharest, the Most Rev. Ioan Robu, and Monsignor Cornel Damian, auxiliary bishop of the Romanian capital, have written open letters to the President of Romania, Traian Bãsescu, the Parliament, Government and City Council of Bucharest asking for the suspension of the work. The Catholic authorities and the faithful are fearful lest the same happens to the cathedral as happened to an Armenian church in 2000: the construction of an immense building of glass and steel was begun in its vicinity, and its foundations (some 28 metres deep) seriously undermined the solidity of the church, adjoining parish house and other neighbouring buildings. Although legislation to protect architectural monuments exists in Romania, the Ministry for Culture and Cult has failed to intervene in this case. The archbishop of Bucharest, apart from making official appeals to the authorities, has asked the faithful to pray to “save the cathedral of St. Joseph”; with this intention an hour of eucharistic adoration was celebrated in all the churches of Bucharest on 26 April, while a day of fasting and abstinence was held on the following day.
