Just before Mass on Sunday, parishioners at St. Boniface Roman Catholic Church in Pittsburgh’s North Side got a visit from Zeus, as the dome of the large Catholic church was struck by lightning.

The Rev. Larry DiNardo said a lightning bolt hit the dome of the church on East Street around 8:55 a.m. He said there were about 150 people in the church preparing for Mass to start when the bolt hit and caused a thunderous, crashing sound.

“It sounded like all the windows crashed,” DiNardo said. “If you think about what it’s like being in a building with all the windows blown out, it was like that.”

DiNardo said the strike damaged some tiles on the roof of the dome and caused part of the church’s electricity, phones and internet to stop functioning temporarily.

But no one was hurt.

DiNardo said it shook him and the parishioners a bit, but they proceeded with Mass shortly after.

“Everything was OK. Everyone was OK,” DiNardo said.

He said after the rains clear out, the church likely will have crews fully inspect the damage to the roof. DiNardo said some tiles on the roof are visibly broken.

One parishioner told DiNardo she saw lightning hit the dome while she was parking her car.

St. Boniface Roman Catholic Church is nearly 1oo years old and is on the National Register of Historic Places. A Guastavino tile system covers the church’s large pendentive dome. It is part of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Rich Kielar, an usher, said he was standing in the doorway and greeting parishioners when the lightning bolt hit the roof.

He looked up after the strike and said it looked like the bolt fractured and deflected off the roof.

“It almost looked like a spider web of lighting and bright lights,” Kielar said.

The sound was loud and the crowd was a bit shocked, according to Kielar, but everything returned to normal rather quickly. He said the sun was out by the time Mass ended.

Kielar said the church seems to be in solid shape after the strike. He said the church is a concrete structure, and he expects it to be largely unscathed after further inspection.

“That church is a like a bomb shelter. You aren’t gonna damage it too easily,” he said.

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