Cathedral of Saint Paul, National Shrine of the Apostle Paul

Stand still for a moment at the foot of the steps and look up. The granite is cool and pale under your hand, flecked with tiny grains that catch the light. Above you, a great copper dome rises over the city, weathered to a soft green. On a quiet morning you may hear only traffic below the hill and the wind moving across the stone. This is the Cathedral of Saint Paul. It sits on the highest ground near downtown, and it was built to be seen.

Before we go inside, consider the name of the city itself. In 1841, a French missionary priest, Father Lucien Galtier, built a small log chapel near the Mississippi River. He dedicated it to Saint Paul the Apostle. The little settlement around it soon took the chapel's name. So the city and this church share one origin. A rough wooden building on the riverbank gave its name to a state capital, and to the cathedral you are looking at now.

The building in front of you is not the first cathedral here. Several earlier churches served the growing Catholic community during the nineteenth century, each one larger than the last. By the early twentieth century, the city was full of new arrivals. There were Irish, German, French Canadian, Italian, Polish and many other families. Archbishop John Ireland, a forceful and ambitious church leader, wanted a cathedral that matched this growing city. He wanted something that would announce that Catholics belonged in the American Midwest.

Ireland chose a French-born architect, Emmanuel Louis Masqueray, to design it. Masqueray had trained in Paris in the Beaux-Arts tradition. That is a style taught at the famous Paris art school, built on classical order, symmetry and grand scale. The cornerstone was laid in 1907. The first Mass inside took place in 1915, while much of the interior was still bare. Masqueray died only a couple of years later, so he never saw his building completed.

Now look at the shape of the facade. It does not have the tall pointed spires of a Gothic cathedral. Instead, it has a broad, rounded composition, closer to the churches of Renaissance Italy and classical France. The central dome dominates everything. The exterior is clad in Minnesota granite, quarried in the state. That choice mattered to the builders. They wanted the cathedral made from the ground of the region it served.

Here is a detail many visitors miss. The cathedral took decades to finish. The structure went up quickly, but the decoration inside continued for generations. Mosaics, bronze work, windows and chapels were added slowly as money allowed. The building was formally consecrated only in 1958, more than forty years after that first Mass. So when you walk inside, you are not seeing a single moment in time. You are seeing the work of many decades, layered together.

Step through the doors now, and let your eyes adjust. The first thing most people notice is the space overhead. The dome opens high above the centre of the church, and light enters from windows around its base. Because the plan is broad rather than long, you can see almost the whole interior at once. Sound behaves differently here too. A single cough or footstep travels up and lingers. Even a crowded day often feels hushed.

Walk toward the centre, beneath the dome, and look ahead to the main altar. Above it stands a large bronze canopy on columns, called a baldachin. It frames the altar and draws the eye forward. Then raise your gaze to the great rose windows of stained glass. When the sun is strong, coloured light falls across the stone floor and moves slowly through the day. Come back at a different hour and the interior will look like a different room.

Now for the second surprise. Behind the main altar, around the curved east end of the church, there is a ring of small chapels. These are called the Shrines of the Nations. Each one honours a patron saint linked to one of the immigrant groups who built this city's Catholic community. They are a quiet record of who came here and from where. For many local families, these chapels connect them to grandparents and great-grandparents who arrived with very little.

The cathedral also carries a national title. In 2009, the Catholic bishops of the United States recognised it as the National Shrine of the Apostle Paul. Saint Paul himself was a first-century traveller and letter writer. He carried the early Christian message across the Mediterranean world. It feels fitting that a church named for a restless traveller now stands in a city built by travellers and immigrants. Pilgrims come here for that reason, as well as for the building itself.

This is not a museum. It is a working cathedral, the main church of the Catholic archdiocese. Masses, weddings, funerals and concerts take place here regularly. You may arrive during a service, or while someone is lighting a candle in a side chapel. Please move quietly, keep your voice low, and give people at prayer their space. Photography is often welcome outside of services, but watch for signs, and be especially careful during Mass.

When you step back outside, turn and look at the setting. The cathedral stands at the head of Summit Avenue, a long street lined with large late-nineteenth-century mansions. Walking along it, you can see brick, sandstone and carved wood, with old trees arching over the pavement. From the cathedral steps, you can also look down toward downtown and the State Capitol. The view shows how deliberately this building was placed above the city.

Before you leave, stay at the top of the steps for one more minute. Feel the granite under your feet again, and look across the rooftops toward the river valley. Somewhere down there, close to the water, a small log chapel once stood. It gave this city its name. Above you, the green copper dome carries that name forward. As you walk away, look back once more. From almost every corner of the hill, the dome stays in view.