Archbishop of New York offers surprise sermon while stranded in Newfoundland for days

Cardinal Timothy Dolan attends the 79th annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, in New York. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Julia Demaree Nikhinson

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — The Archbishop of New York delivered an unexpected sermon at the cathedral in St. John’s, N.L., last week after his flight to Dublin was grounded at the city’s airport, stranding him and 259 other passengers for days.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan opened his address on Saturday at the St. John the Baptist Cathedral Basilica by thanking parishioners and other city residents for taking such good care of him and his fellow passengers aboard the United Airlines flight.

Anne Walsh, chair of the Basilica Heritage Foundation, said it was deeply meaningful for her to show Dolan and other passengers the basilica and the capital city of Newfoundland and Labrador.

“I hope they felt a sense of welcome,” she said in an interview Friday. “Because I think that sense of welcome, and of hands reached across boundaries in peace, is a real message for today.”

Dolan left Newark, N.J., aboard United flight 23 to Dublin on Feb. 13. The plane had flown past Newfoundland when a medical emergency on board forced the pilots to turn the plane around and land in St. John’s, he said in a video posted to social media on Thursday.

Bad weather kept him on the ground for four days before he was able to return to New York, he said. Those who decided to carry on to Dublin managed to get out on Sunday morning, a United spokesperson said in an email.

There were 260 passengers and 12 crew on the grounded plane, the spokesperson said. The person in medical distress was taken to a hospital.

Among those stranded was a group of Grade 8 students from Oklahoma who were heading to Ireland to learn about its culture and farms, said Michael Holden, who works with EF Educational Tours Canada in St. John’s. Holden enlisted several friends and colleagues, including Olympic curler and Liberal politician Jamie Korab, to show the students around the city and keep them entertained until they left.

Newfoundland is probably the best place get stuck on a trip to learn about Irish culture, Holden said in an interview.

“I think Newfoundland is probably the most Irish place you can get outside of Ireland,” he said.

At the basilica, parishioners were delighted by Dolan’s sermon, Walsh said. His visit cemented a centuries-old connection between Catholics in Newfoundland and New York City, she said.

John Hughes, the first Archbishop of New York, travelled to St. John’s in 1855 to attend the dedication of the cathedral, a massive Romanesque building whose twin bell towers look out over the city’s harbour. Hughes is said to have been inspired by the cathedral’s majesty, and by the immense work done by Irish and other immigrants to build it, Walsh said.

“The story goes that he went back to New York and said, ‘Now folks, if people in Newfoundland can create this wonderful monument to their faith, to their sense of place in a new world -- really, a testament to hope -- why can’t we do that here?”’ she said.

So began the construction of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the much-photographed Gothic Revival church across from the Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan, Walsh said.

Dolan recounted the same story in his sermon. “There’s a bond,” he said, between the parishes at St. Patrick’s in New York and the basilica in St. John’s.

“I hope yours is paid off,” he said to the laughing congregation about the basilica. “We’re still working on ours.”

His delay in Newfoundland has attracted media attention around the world. People in Newfoundland have been sharing some of the headlines on social media, chuckling at their descriptions of Newfoundland as a “freezing Canadian island.”

It was pretty cold out when United passengers were in town, Holden admitted.

“But I don’t think the people I met would have called this a frozen Canadian wasteland,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press' Sarah Smellie was first published Feb. 21, 2025.