St. Patrick Catholic Church - St. Raphael Cathedral Parish — Attraction in Madison

Tourists and Visitors Need To Read This!!! I am from out of town on a business trip. Here in Madison on a Sunday. Being Catholic, I looked for a church to attend for Sunday services. Found St Patrick Church. Went to the posted website on google maps and it took me to some Cathedral of St Bernard of Clairvaux that wanted donations. Could not find any mass times. Figured it was a mistake. So, after a google search, I found the mass times for Sunday. Walked to St Patrick Church from the hotel. The place was locked up tight with nobody around. Tried calling the phone number and it was just a recording. It did list the correct mass times though. Found Holy Redeemer Catholic Church nearby. Their website took me to the same website as St Patrick. But, they had a 10:30 mass also just like St Patrick. So, five minutes before the supposed mass times, I walked to Holy Redeemer Catholic Church. I was going to be about 10 mins late for mass, but figured God would understand. Arrived at Holy Redeemer and it was also locked up tight with nobody around. What is going on here in Madison??? Apparently there are no Catholic Churches in the downtown Madison area that have Sunday masses. I gave up and went back to my hotel. I will just go to mass during the week when I get back home! I’m sure God...

So, I go here every Sunday and I love it. I and my family just became Catholic last Easter and my wife and I went through RCIA here (which is one of the church buildings that makes up Madison's Cathedral Parish. The other is Holy Redeemer.). We chose St. Patrick's because the RCIA class was super solid (and we had some super serious questions) and we stayed because the Mass is so beautiful and reverent. There are two things that are drawbacks for us, though. 1. It's not close to our home on the West side, which makes for a bit of a commute. There are several other families who have commutes and so it can be tricky to build community, but there are some regular social events that help mitigate that. 2. The Mass is at 11:00. Since I'm teaching Religious Ed for 2nd graders before hand, and we have 4 small kids, by the time we get done with Mass on Sundays, I'm...

Wonderful Parish community that stands strong in an openly hostile anti-religious downtown and state capital no less. Thank God for the 1st amendment. As visitors, the parishioners were welcoming, the Mass was wonderful, and the priest, confident but humble. We went during the Feast of Corpus Christi and we were impressed by the size of the procession. The building is older and appears to need work (water damage, peeling paint), but has a good size hall, and is ADA compliant. The interior is simple, probably from Vatican II, b/c architecturally, the type of ceiling it has, should have murals/frescos. Bathrooms downstairs. They also have a carving of St Raphael and Tobit from the arson-destroyed St Raphael's on the opposite side of the capital. The 4 stars are for the missing frescos/art and for too much incense ( bad for...