Cathedral of the Good Shepherd, Singapore: the one colonial landmark spared from convict labor

On Queen Street, in the heart of Singapore, the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd is the seat of the Catholic archdiocese of Singapore. A first temporary chapel of wood and attap was built in 1832-33 through public subscription. The foundation stone of the present building was laid on 18 June 1843 and the church was blessed on 6 June 1847 by Father Jean-Marie Beurel, to a design chiefly by the architect Denis Lesley McSwiney, with the spire the work of Charles Andrew Dyce, modelled on that of St Andrew’s, designed by John Turnbull Thomson. Unlike the nearby Anglican Cathedral of St Andrew, built with convict labour from the Bras Basah penal colony, the plot occupied by the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd was expressly excluded from the area set aside for public works using convicts, according to the National Library of Singapore. The nave was enlarged in 1888, the year the building was raised to cathedral status with the revival of the diocese of Malacca. The full consecration, however, took place only on 14 February 1897, after the debts incurred for the enlargement had been paid off. The archdiocese of Singapore, split from the archdiocese of Malacca-Singapore on 18 December 1972, is today led by Cardinal William Goh Seng Chye, archbishop since 2013 and the first Singaporean cardinal in history, made a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2022. Singapore is among the most religiously diverse states in the world: according to the 2020 census, Catholics make up around six to seven per cent of the resident population, about two hundred and twenty thousand people, within an overall population with a Buddhist majority and sizeable Muslim, Taoist and Hindu minorities. The government actively manages interreligious harmony through the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act, in force since 1992, which allows administrative restrictions against anyone inciting religious hatred or mixing religion and politics. Pope John Paul II visited Singapore for about five hours on 20 November 1986, celebrating a mass at the national stadium before around seventy thousand people, in an organising committee led by the cathedral rector, Father Robert Balhetchet. Whether the pope actually entered the cathedral building on that occasion is not documented. Pope Francis visited Singapore on 11-13 September 2024, the first papal visit to the country in thirty-eight years, and Singaporean faithful gathered in the cathedral to follow the events, though a personal visit by him to the building is not confirmed. During the Japanese occupation, after the fall of Singapore in February 1942, the cathedral was used, according to parish sources, as an emergency hospital and refuge. The building has been a national monument since 28 June 1973.