By Gabriela Resto-Montero
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
LITTLE ITALY — Now that St. Patrick's Old Cathedral is in the company of basilicas like St. Peter's and St. Francis of Assisi, it's trying hard to live up to its new status.
St. Patrick's Old Cathedral is looking to spruce up its facilities in Little Italy to reflect its new
place in the community after it received the designation as a basilica by The Vatican on Dec. 5, elevating its status above other churches and making it the pope's home church when he's in town.
"More important, frankly, is the spiritual vision and seeing ourselves as a Basilica," said Msgr. Donald Sakano, the church's pastor, of restoration plans.
"We're seeing ourselves more and more as a gathering place for people not only in our neighborhood but internationally," Sakano said of the plan to reintegrate the Mulberry Street church into the neighborhood's life.
Last June, the New York Archdiocese drew protests from parents after it closed the St. Patrick's Old Cathedral Parish School, citing low enrollment numbers.
But the school's closure reflected a change in the neighborhood's population that has brought an opportunity to minister to a different group of people, Sakano said.
"One chapter in the book closes and another opens," he said. "The church school now needs to change to address a different population, it's obviously not family based."
Parishioners of the church mounted a 200th anniversary campaign to restore the church's Parish House on Mulberry Street, reinforce the cemetery wall and fix the bell tower, in 2009.
The group estimated that the first phase of the project would cost around $250,000.
Other changes would include adding a public garden, illuminating the cathedral walls at night and installing transparent doors in the courtyard so visitors can look into the historic crypt below the church.
The plans are still in still in the early stages, Sakano said.
Eventually, the pastor said he'd like to open up the courtyards facing Mott and Prince Streets to lunchtime music and to create a pedestrian greenway on Mulberry Street between Houston and Prince Streets.
"We'd like to create an atmosphere that is welcoming," he said. "Our real work is not being a museum, it's being a living, breathing forum for interacting with God."
