The World’s Smallest Cathedral, formally known as the Cathedral of the Prince of Peace, was a 14-by-17 foot stone chapel with a reach far beyond its modest walls. What it lacked in size, it made up for in spirit. This was the ministry of Bishop Karl Prüter of Christ Catholic Church, begun around 1982 in the quiet town of Highlandville.
Highlandville sits in southwest Missouri about twenty miles south of Springfield and roughly twenty-five miles north of Branson, almost perfectly between two well-traveled destinations. Yet tucked there, in that small Ozark town, was something pilgrims would cross oceans to see.
Mass was offered every day at 11:00 a.m. steady, faithful, and unhurried. The building itself could only hold a handful of souls at a time. You didn’t disappear into a crowd there. You knelt close. You prayed close. You encountered God close.
The cathedral sat on five acres within town, a surprising expanse surrounding such a tiny sanctuary. The grounds featured a Garden of the Saints, Stations of the Cross winding prayerfully across the property, a poustinia, a small hermitage for solitude and silence and gardens upon gardens. It was a place where devotion spilled outdoors, where faith stretched its legs, and walked the land.
People came from around the world, not because it was grand, but because it was sincere. Not because it was large, but because it was alive.
In November of 2010, the Cathedral of the Prince of Peace closed its doors. The stone walls grew quiet. The daily Mass ceased. But places like that do not simply disappear. They imprint themselves on the lives they touched.
It proved something essential: the Church does not measure her strength in square footage. A cathedral can be fourteen by seventeen feet and still minister to the world.