When former President Woodrow Wilson died in February 1924, he was buried at Washington National Cathedral. A contemporaneous New York Times Magazine article analyzed the building’s potential role as a “national sanctuary.”

Whether or not the cathedral at Washington will become a national sanctuary time will show. Most certainly, however, it will be a treasure spot of the capital.  There will be much within its boundaries to draw the layman as well as the churchman. As an example of pure Gothic architecture alone, it will be without equal in the country, it is said.

Technically, the building wouldn’t be completed until 1990!

Why is there a “national cathedral” at all, despite the ostensible separation of church and state? Because it’s only unofficially a national cathedral. Officially, it’s called the Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul.

The 1924 article also explained this distinction:

Strictly speaking, America, or rather the United States, can have no national cathedral by virtue of the fact that we have no national religion. Westminster Abbey represents the Church of England, Notre Dame the Church of France. The same is true of all national cathedrals in all national capitals. That is the only reason and the best reason that for a century and more Washington stood as the only capital without the grace of this symbol of religious unity.

Still, when a major governmental figure of Christian faith dies, their funeral service is often held there. In recent years, that’s included former President George H.W. Bush, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, and former Sen. John McCain.

Why is Wilson still the only president buried in D.C.? Arlington National Cemetery houses the remains of both Presidents John F. Kennedy and William Howard Taft, but while it’s located the “greater D.C. area,” it’s still technically in Virginia.

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Cathedral Overlooking Washington

Published: Sunday, March 23, 1924