Pope Leo XIV has designated St Mary's Pro Cathedral in Dublin as the city's official Catholic Cathedral, becoming the first in the capital for 500 years.
Located on Marlborough Street, the cathedral was built 200 years ago in 1825 as a temporary arrangement, with plans to replace it with a dedicated cathedral at a later date.
The 'Pro' stands for Pro Tempore - or temporary, and as part of the designation this will be dropped and the cathedral will be known simply as St Mary's.
Pope Leo had been asked to grant the new status as the cathedral celebrates its bicentennial.
The cathedral has "major plans" for restoration having recently received planning permission from Dublin City Council.
The loss of a Catholic cathedral goes back to the Reformation. Before then the Catholic cathedral was Christ Church, but when Protestants broke away from the papacy, both Christ Church and St Patrick's cathedral became the property of the Church of Ireland.
It was 300 years before Catholics got their temporary cathedral with the building of St Mary's being completed in 1825.
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Its status was one of the outstanding issues of the Reformation which has affected Dublin for 500 years.
The Catholic population of Dublin has not had a dedicated cathedral in that time following the start of Protestantism and subsequent Penal Laws.
St Mary's crypt contains the final resting place of nearly 1,000 people, including former archbishops, prominent Catholics, such as members of the Corballis and Sweetman families, as well as local people.
The biggest occasion was the funeral of Michael Collins in 1922. It also hosted the funeral of Fenian Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, as well as State funerals for former presidents.
Pope Francis also made a special request to visit the cathedral during his visit to the 9th World Meeting of Families in August 2018.
The Archbishop of Dublin made the announcement during his homily at today's mass to mark the bicentenary of the cathedral on the Feast of St Laurence O’ Toole.
Dermot Farrell told massgoers it was with "great joy" that Pope Leo consented to his request and designated St Mary’s as the Cathedral Church for the Archdiocese.
Speaking afterwards, he said it was a "big transition", and "very important" that Dublin now has an official, permanent Catholic Cathedral.
"The fact that we are making this cathedral the centre of the archdiocese of Dublin, the mother church of Dublin in one of the poorest areas of Dublin, I think that's significant," he said.
He also said parishoners won’t see any great difference but noted the dropping of ‘Pro’ might take some time to adjust to.
"It’s always been known as the Pro, and you know, that would be hard to move to just calling it St Mary's Cathedral rather than the Pro cathedral. But you know, it's been called the Pro for 200 years, so I don't expect it to change overnight," he said.
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