Priest recycled tin cans to create statues

Fr. Antonio Ravalli improvised as he built his Idaho church in 1850

The Sacred Heart – June 15

- WCR photo by Ted Fitzgerald Sacred Heart Mission Church contains hand-crafted altars, tabernacles, statues and paintings fashioned by Father Antonio Ravalli.

By TED FITZGERALD
Special to the WCR
Cataldo, Idaho

Many travellers along I-90 between Coeur d'Alene and Kellogg can't resist stopping at the attractive Old Mission State Park. It's the setting for Idaho's oldest surviving building, the unusual church of the Mission of the Sacred Heart at Cataldo.

Father Antonio Ravalli in 1850 had a keen eye for composition when he selected the site for the church on a knoll overlooking the Coeur d'Alene River, its waters calmly sliding by on their way to the nearby lake.

Jesuit missionaries

The history of the place is a who's-who of the early Jesuit missionaries to the Inland Northwest. It began when a delegation of Flathead people from Western Montana travelled to St. Louis, Mo., seeking Catholic missionaries. Their request was enthusiastically fulfilled by Father Pierre Jean DeSmet who travelled west in 1841 and met the Coeur d'Alene people the following year and promised to send a missionary to them.

Father Nicholas Point, best known for his remarkable drawings and paintings of the area's inhabitants, founded a mission in 1842 for the Coeur d'Alenes dedicated to the Sacred Heart.

Thirteen years later, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was extended to the Universal Church by Pope Pius IX. It had originated in visions experienced by Sister Margaret-Mary Alacoque at the Visitation Nuns Monastery at Paray-le-Monial in France. Jesus had asked her in 1675 that the first Friday following the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ be observed to particularly venerate his Sacred Heart.

Unfortunately, the mission on the St. Joe River was subjected to repeated flooding and was soon abandoned in favour of the present location.

Creative construction

The new site for the Idaho centre was selected by DeSmet at the head of navigation on the Coeur d'Alene River. Assigned as pastor was Father Antonio Ravalli, active among the area missions since his arrival in the West in 1844.

He began supervising construction of the church in 1850 and, unable to find familiar European building materials, proved to be a master of improvisation.

What is remarkable about the church, and what must have amazed all who saw it, was the fa‡ade, actually a false-front, a concession to pioneer Western designs. This boomtown Baroque face includes the remarkable Tuscan portico, its roof supported by six log pillars.

During his 16-year tenure at Sacred Heart, the ingenious pastor used recycled newspapers and tin cans to replicate the interior d‚cor of a European church and adorned altars with imitation gold trim and faux-marble fronts.

Then, in 1877 the people lost their parish church when they were moved by the U.S. government to a reservation to the south where, at a site named DeSmet, a new church was built to serve the faithful Coeur d'Alenes.

The Cataldo site became headquarters for the superior of the Rocky Mountain Jesuit Missions, Father Joseph Cataldo who had worked in the area of the Coeur d'Alenes since 1865.

A period of stagnation followed, with several attempts at preserving the buildings until in 1961 when the site was designated a National Historic Landmark. After it was named an Idaho State Park in 1975, restoration of the remaining buildings and grounds began..

Inside, the old church and priest's house look much as they did in Ravalli's day. Many examples of his work remain in the form of hand-crafted altars, tabernacles, statues and paintings as testimonials to this most dedicated pastor.

Visitors leaving Sacred Heart usually can't resist a last stop for another photo of the curious little church reflected in the placid river of the Coeur d'Alenes.

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