Cathedral of the Sacred Heart: built with concrete Gothic arches by Jesuit brothers and African builders

In Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, then Salisbury, in colonial Rhodesia, Jesuit missionaries opened a small chapel for 40 people in 1893, at the Dominican convent of the city. A larger church, designed by Father Aloysius Leboeuf, opened on the day of the Annunciation in 1900. The first stone of the present cathedral was laid by Monsignor Brown, on 28 June 1924 according to Wikipedia, although another source gives a date inconsistent in itself, «Saint Patrick’s Day, in May 1924», since Saint Patrick falls on 17 March. The building was completed and opened on Sunday 2 August 1925. The design is attributed to Father Leboeuf himself, with no separate professional architect documented in the sources. The construction was carried out by French and German Jesuit and Mariannhill missionary brothers, with the help of African builders, an unusual circumstance, since the skilled building trades in colonial Rhodesia remained dominated by European labour until the Fifties. In Gothic Revival style, the cathedral is 40 metres long and 19.5 wide, with two towers flanking the west entrance and a choir gallery above it. The walls are of brick faced with artificial stone, while the windows and the pointed Gothic arches were made of concrete, an innovative choice for the time and the place, with fine woods imported from Beira, in Mozambique, and saligna timber from the Driefontein mission. The craftsmanship includes the wrought iron of Brother Schönbrod, the soapstone carvings of Brother Krechel, the carved wooden elements of Brother Göll and stained glass imported from Austria; in 1970 extensions were added on the south and east sides. The diocese, whose origins go back to the mission sui iuris of the Zambesi established on 2 July 1879, became the apostolic prefecture of the Zambesi in 1915, was renamed the apostolic prefecture of Salisbury in 1927, raised to an apostolic vicariate in 1931 and finally to the metropolitan archdiocese of Salisbury on 1 January 1955, renamed the archdiocese of Harare on 25 June 1982, after the independence of the country. The Jesuits administered the cathedral parish until 31 December 2008, when it was entrusted to the diocesan clergy. Pope John Paul II visited the cathedral on 11 September 1988, in the course of an apostolic journey that also took in Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini and Mozambique, praising on that occasion the century of Jesuit contribution to the Church in Zimbabwe. The year 2025 marked the centenary of the opening of the building. The present archbishop of Harare is Monsignor Robert Christopher Ndlovu, installed in 2004; the sources differ on the exact date, giving variously 10 June or 21 August. In the sources consulted there is no record of the cathedral being listed in the register of national monuments of Zimbabwe.