Cathedral a Monument To Patience and Purpose
Hilda Griffith, an Arlington widow, has loved the Washington Cathedral since her father took her and her sister, Cora, to see the first stone laid 83 years ago. Holly Tabor, a Rockville pediatrician's daughter, has loved it for only seven years.</br></br>But differences of generation, geography, even income hardly matter when each catches a glimpse of that English Gothic edifice towering over the nation's capital from a hill in Northwest Washington. Like few other monuments in this city, it aspires to be a uniting presence, to challenge people to take a minute and reflect on the virtues of patience and beauty.</br></br>After decades of building in fits and starts, the nation's second largest cathedral (after St. John the Divine in New York) will be completed today. Several thousand people, including President and Mrs. Bush, are expected for the placing of the final pinnacle at noon.</br></br>It is no mean celebration, given the rocky construction history of the Cathedral of SS. Peter and St. Paul, the official name given by the Episcopal Church USA. A cathedral is built as much on faith as on stone, and when money ran short and critics questioned whether scarce dollars would be better spent somewhere else, faith faltered. The stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression slowed construction; building stopped altogether from 1977 to 1980.</br></br>The Right Rev. John T. Walker, Washington's Episcopal bishop from 1977 to 1989, eventually raised enough money to repay an $11 million debt and finish the financing before he died last fall. He also pressed the church to truly become "a house of prayer for all people," serving with programs and resources more than the upper-income membership historically associated with the Episcopal Church.