Saint Joseph's Oratory Oratoire Saint-Joseph
Religion
Affiliation	Roman Catholic
District	Archdiocese of Montreal
Ecclesiastical or organizational status	Minor basilica
Leadership	Father Claude Grou
Location
Location	3800, chemin Queen Mary Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Shown within Montreal
Geographic coordinates	45°29′30″N 73°37′00″W / 45.491667°N 73.616667°W / 45.491667; -73.616667
Architecture
Architect(s)	Dalbé Viau, Alphonse Venne, Lucien Parent and Dom Paul Bellot
Type	Oratory, domed basilica
Style	Italian renaissance
Completed	1967
Specifications
Direction of façade	NNW
Capacity	10,000 / 2,400 sitting
Length	105 metres (344 ft)
Width	65 metres (213 ft)
Width (nave)	37 metres (121 ft)
Height (max)	129 metres (423 ft)
Dome(s)	1 (double shell design)
Dome height (outer)	97 metres (318 ft) (from nave floor)
Dome height (inner)	60 metres (200 ft) (from nave floor)
Dome dia. (outer)	39 metres (128 ft)
Dome dia. (inner)	26 metres (85 ft)
Materials	Canadian granite, copper
National Historic Site of Canada
Official name: Saint Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal National Historic Site of Canada
Designated	2004
Website
www.saint-joseph.org

Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal (Template:Lang-fr) is a Roman Catholic minor basilica and national shrine on Mount Royal's Westmount Summit in Montreal, Quebec. It is a National Historic Site of Canada and is Canada's largest church with one of the largest church domes in the world.^[1] It is also the highest building in the city of Montreal with the cross atop its dome capping at 263 meters above sea level,^[2] more than 30 meters higher than Mount Royal's Summit. It is one of the only buildings that violates the height restriction under the municipal building code of Montreal,^[3] which limits the height of any building in the city to the height of Mount Royal's summit, or 232.5 meters above sea level.

The basilica is also famous due to its association with Brother André Bessette who was believed to possess healing powers. A reliquary in the church museum contains Brother André's heart, which he requested as a protection for the basilica. More than 2 million visitors and pilgrims visit the Oratory every year.

It is located at 3800 Queen Mary Road, at Côte-des-Neiges (between the Côte-des-Neiges metro station and the Snowdon metro station).

Saint André Bessette, C.S.C. (1845-1937), more commonly known as Brother André, was a monk and a member of the Congregation of the Holy Cross who became internationally renowned as a miracle healer. Due to his reputation, in 1904 he was given funding to construct a small chapel on Mount-Royal across from Notre Dame College^[4] to operate out of. The small, Gothic Revival style chapel expanded four times over the next decade with the growing of Brother André's fame and the Congregation decided to fulfill his request to build a basilica in his patron saint, St. Joseph's honor. The original chapel, measuring 4.5 meters by 5.5 meters still stands today, though it has since been relocated about a hundred meters away to make room for the massive basilica that stands today.

The first phase of the basilica’s construction involved architects Dalbé Viau (1881- 1938) and Alphonse Venne (1875-1934) who had previously done work for the Congregation. From 1914 to 1916, Viau and Venne constructed the crypt church, with seating for 1000, which still stands today and forms the base of the basilica where the massive collection of stairs ends. Between 1924 and 1927, the crypt and building up until the roof were completed in the Renaissance Revival style. Viau and Venne had wanted the dome of the Oratory to resemble that of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and to be smaller than it actually is today, however they never had the chance to see those plans through as construction was halted with the Great Depression.

In 1937, Dom Paul Bellot (1876-1944), born in France, was hired to work after the death of Venne, however he was required to work through Canadian Lucien Parent (1893-1956) due to not being a registered architect in Quebec.^[5] He redesigned Viau and Venne's roof and dome entirely, making the dome significantly larger and modelling it to resemble the dome of Florence Cathedral. The construction of his large Oratory dome lasted four years and was completed in 1941 after involving thousands of workers.

From 1949–1951, architect Gilbert Moreau carried out alterations and improvements to the interior of Saint Joseph's Oratory, as well as to the adjacent monastery, and rearranged the sacristy in the basilica.^[6]

The basilica is dedicated to Saint Joseph, to whom Brother André credited all his reported miracles. These were mostly related to some kind of healing power, and many pilgrims (handicapped, blind, ill, etc.) poured into his Basilica, including numerous non-Catholics. On display in the basilica is a wall covered with thousands of crutches from those who came to the basilica and were purportedly healed. Pope John Paul II deemed the miracles to be authentic and beatified Brother André in 1982. In October 2010 Pope Benedict XVI canonized the saint.

Composer Émilien Allard was the church's carillonneur from 1955 to 1975. For RCA Victor he released the LP album Carols at the Carillon of Saint Joseph's Oratory for which he wrote the arrangements.^[7]

The basilica enshrines a statue of Saint Joseph, which was authorised a Canonical coronation by Pope Pius X on 19 March 1910 via Cardinal Vincenzo Vannutelli, previously enshrined at the Côte-des-Neiges Chapel. The image moved to the new modern basilica and was recrowned on 9 August 1955 via Cardinal Paul-Émile Léger now located within its oil chapel department.

Today, the Oratory remains a basilica and place of worship, as well as a major tourist site, attracting over 2 million visitors each year. The crypt church, originally designed by Viau and Venne, measures 63.39 by 36.5 by 13.1 m (208.0 by 119.8 by 43.0 ft), has a seating capacity of 1000 people and is designed in a neoclassical style. The ceiling is supported using the barrel vaulting of large steel arches which are then covered in concrete. The church is called a "crypt" due to its flattened arches as well as its position beneath the basilica.^[8]

The interior of the basilica, designed using concepts by Dom Bellot as well as Canadian architect Gérard Notebaert, uses a Latin cross layout with a dome at the crossing and has an overall length of 105 m (344 ft). The nave, which contains pews to seat 2028 people (with a maximum capacity of 10,000 people), measures 37 m (121 ft) in width, while the transept measures 65 metres (213 ft) and connects to the shrine of Brother André. The apse, as well as the rest of the interior, is designed in Art Deco style, an architectural style that was very popular in Montreal during the 1930s, and contains sculptures, bas-reliefs, mosaics and stained glass of religious imagery. The roof of the basilica is held up using multi-angle arches iconic of Dom Bellot’s style made of reinforced concrete.

The exterior of the Oratory is constructed using large blocks of granite from Lac Mégantic quarries in Quebec. The colonnade at the front façade of the building consists of four 18 m (59 ft)-tall, 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in)-thick Corinthian columns and these provide the structural support for the entablature of the front portico.

The dome of St. Joseph’s Oratory is the largest dome in Canada and among the largest in the world, and this is a result of Dom Bellot’s very inspired and ambitious designs. His plans for the dome are very similar to those of Florence Cathedral, being of a “double shell” design, which means it consists of two domes, one on the interior and one on the exterior with empty space in between. Like the Cathedral in Florence, the outer dome of the Oratory consists of eight pointed arches laying atop an octagonal drum, with a lantern and cross.

The outer dome of the Oratory measures only 17.78 cm (7.00 in) in thickness and the inner dome measures only about 12.7 cm (5.0 in) in thickness, which is approximately 18 times thinner than the dome of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. The concrete shell of the Oratory's dome is so thin in fact that when related to its overall size, it is akin to an eggshell.^[8]

The two domes vary immensely in size, with the outer dome measuring 39 m (128 ft) in diameter and rising 97 m (318 ft) from the nave floor and the inner dome measuring 26 m (85 ft) in diameter and rising 60 m (200 ft) from the nave floor.

There are 16 steel buttresses along the inner walls of the drums that provide the structural support for the dome. They serve to brace the inner dome against the outer dome, thus making the supporting walls for both domes more rigid.

On October 19, 2004, the Oratory held its centennial. All the bells of all the churches on the island of Montreal were supposed to ring at 9:00 a.m., though not all churches participated. At 9:05 a.m., the basilica rang its bell in response and celebration.

In 2004, the Oratory was designated a National Historic Site of Canada on the occasion of its 100th anniversary.^[9][10]

On 2 April 2004 Canada Post issued 'Saint Joseph's Oratory, Quebec' in the 2004 Tourist Attractions series. The stamp was designed by Catharine Bradbury & William Stewart based on a photograph by Bernard Brault. The 49¢ stamps are perforated kiss cut and were printed by Lowe-Martin Company Inc.^[11]

On October 30, 2007, Father Charles Corso, a priest at the Oratory, was faced with a disorganized and depressed man who threatened to kill himself with a handgun.^[12] The priest talked with the man and managed to calm him down before police arrived on scene. The man was brought to hospital to undergo psychiatric evaluation.^[12]

On March 22, 2019, a 26-year-old man wearing a dark winter coat and light-coloured baseball cap entered the Oratory during the Friday morning mass, rapidly walked up to the centre, and stabbed the celebrating priest, Father Claude Grou.^[13][14][12] Of the fifty people attending mass, several intervened to neutralize the assailant, before security guards responded. Police officers from the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal quickly arrived on scene and arrested the assaillant who was already detained by security personnel.^[15] The assaulted priest suffered only minor injuries, a single stab wound to the chest.^[12] That same evening, upon being wheeled out of the Montreal General Hospital, he said, "My health is fine. I’ll take a little rest and I will be back to work when my rest is taken. And the Oratory will remain a place where people can be welcomed. A place of prayers, and a place of calm, and a place of peace - even if there are some moments like that."^[12]

In 2018, the architectural firms Atelier TAG and Architecture49 won a competition to renovate the inside of the dome of St. Joseph's Oratory and its observatory. The project is estimated to cost around $80 million CAD and will also include a complete renovation of the building's museum and the construction of a new welcome centre on Queen Mary road. The lantern will have space for up to 17 visitors at a time and will offer the only 360-degree view over the mountain in the city. As of 2019, renovations are underway.

• List of basilicas in Canada

• Official website
• Saint Joseph's Oratory - Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops
• CBC Digital Archives - The Miracle on Mount Royal: 100 Years of St. Joseph's Oratory
• Saint Joseph's Oratory: Photo Gallery by The Catholic Photographer
• [1] Les Merveilles de L'Oratoire: L'Oratoire Saint-Joseph du Mont-Royal, 1904–2004 By Denise Robillard
• Saint Joseph's Oratory in Canadian Encyclopedia