Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral

Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral is a minor basilica in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and the seat of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Montreal. It is the third largest church in Quebec after Saint Joseph's Oratory and the Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré east of Quebec City. The building is 101 m in length, 46 m in width, and a maximum height of 77 m at the cupola, the diameter of which is 23 m .The church is located at 1085 Cathedral Street at the corner of René Lévesque Boulevard and Metcalfe Street, near the Bonaventure metro station and Central Station in downtown Montreal. It and the connected Archdiocese main buildings form the eastern side of Place du Canada, and occupies of dominant presences on Dorchester Square.The sacrament of baptism is celebrated in the small chapel. The marble baptismal font is surmounted by an impressive stucco crucifix sculpted by Philippe Hébert. The crucifix is one of the most important pieces of religious sculpture in Quebec.HistoryThe construction of the cathedral was ordered by Mgr. Ignace Bourget, second bishop of Montreal, to replace the former Saint-Jacques Cathedral which had burned in 1852. His choice to create a scale model of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome was in response to a rivalry with the Sulpician order who had been the feudal seigneurs of Montreal, and with the Anglican Church, both of which favoured the Neo-Gothic style instead. The site also sparked controversy due to its location in the western part of downtown, in a then predominantly English neighbourhood far from the homes of the French-Canadian church-goers.