the Triceratops and the Cathedral

Guess who saw the most complete Triceratops skeleton in the United States this morning?

This guy, that’s who.

There’s a special exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Minnesota Science Museum, so I made the long trek to St. Paul to see them (more on that later). Now, I’ve been to Minneapolis several times for conferences, but never to St. Paul itself, and I noticed that no matter where you go in downtown St. Paul, you see this…this dome hovering over the city, like the dome of Hagia Sophia over Constantinople. It draws the eye, and I couldn’t help but admire the artistic and architectural power of the thing:

After I finished with the Science Museum, I decided that I wanted to see that dome, whatever it was. So I set out on foot to see it. Turned out to be a mile and a half walk, uphill, in 85 degree heat, but as I got closer, it was worth it:

The dome was attached to the Catholic Cathedral of St. Paul, and the Cathedral isn’t named after the city – the city is named after the Cathedral. (Apparently the original name of St. Paul was the somewhat less-dignified sounding “Pig’s Eye”.) I went inside, and it was one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen:

Seriously, I don’t care if you’re Catholic or atheist or whatever. If you’re in the St. Paul-Minneapolis area, you need to stop by and see this place. Modern churches tend to look like suburban conference centers or abominations of modernistic art. Not so the Cathedral of St. Paul – the artistry, the statues, the stained glass, the paintings, the metal reliefs, the woodwork, all of it is superb. It is, in all candor, a magnificent building.

I felt a little bad wandering about snapping pictures – a bunch of people were praying at the various shrines (complete with amazing statues of the Four Evangelists and the patron saints of the various immigrant groups that wound up in St. Paul), and a couple of guys were earnestly doing the Stations of the Cross.

But if the Catholics didn’t want tourists, then frankly they should not have built such an impressive building!

-JM