SS Peter and Paul is the Italian National church and not a cathedral. In the San Francisco archdiocese, the cathedral, i.e., the church with the bishop's throne, is St. Mary of the Assumption, i.e., the archbishop's bendix. San Francisco has had a great number of national churches because between, bishops Alemany and Levada, all were Irish. The other Catholics were upset that these Irish bishops, as Riordan, Hannah, Mitty, McGuckin, and Quinn imported so many Irish priests. We even had a Maltese National Church [St Paul of the Shipwreck, now no longer the Maltese national church but a parish church] as well as German, Serbian, Italian [see above], Mexican, etc. We even had an Irish National Church - St Patrick's - with Celtic faces on the stained glass windows representing the stations of the cross.
