Cathedral of the Holy Angels

The Cathedral of the Holy Angels is a Catholic cathedral located in Gary, Indiana, United States. It is the seat of the Diocese of Gary, and the home of Holy Angels Parish.HistoryHoly Angels Parish was established by the Rev. Thomas F. Jansen in September 1906 in the Diocese of Fort Wayne. It was the first Catholic parish founded in the city of Gary. The initial Masses in the parish were celebrated in a tavern at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Broadway. The first parish building was a combination church and school. The parishioners were mostly Eastern European, Irish, German and Italian.Holy Angels School opened in 1909 with the School Sisters of Notre Dame as the faculty. The parish grew slowly and by the 1940s there was a need for a larger church building. The Rev. John A. Sullivan was the pastor when the present church was built in the Gothic Revival style. The cornerstone was laid on October 26, 1947 and it was dedicated on January 29, 1950 by Bishop John F. Noll.When Pope Pius XII established the Diocese of Gary on December 10, 1956, Holy Angels Church became the cathedral of the new diocese.In the 1960s the primarily Caucasian parish began to change as African American and Latin American parishioners joined Holy Angels when St. Anthony’s and Sacred Heart Churches closed. The school building and convent were torn down in 1965 when a new two-story facility was built for $1.2 million. The building contained school classrooms, a convent, gymnasium, cafeteria and space for a parish hall. On June 7, 1994 the name of the school was changed to the Sister Thea Bowman School. It is now a charter school named the Thea Bowman Leadership Academy.