south along Mott Street at the Church of the Transfiguration, whose pastor, Felix Varela, was a Spanish political refugee from Cuba. In New York, he served as the chaplain of the Hibernian Universal Benevolent Society. Eventually, the parade moved uptown to pass in front of the new St. Patrick's Cathedral (1879). In 1836, the original cathedral was the subject of an attempted sack after tensions between Irish Catholics and anti-catholic Know-Nothing nativists led to a number of riots and other physical confrontations. The situation worsened when a brain-injured young woman, Maria Monk, wrote a book telling her "true" story – a Protestant girl who converted to Catholicism, and was then allegedly forced by nuns to have sex with priests, with the resulting children being baptized then killed horribly. Despite the book being debunked by a mildly anti-Catholic magazine editor, nativist anger at the story resulted in a decision to attack the cathedral. Loopholes were cut in the church's outer walls, which had just recently been built in 1834, and the building was defended from the rioters with muskets. Afterwards, the Ancient Order of Hibernians established its headquarters across the street from the church. In 1838, the cathedral was the location for the funeral of Lorenzo da Ponte, Mozart's primary librettist, who had fled to America in 1805 fearing bankruptcy. He became a professor at Columbia University and started what eventually became the Metropolitan Opera. The funeral was attended by an enormous number of people. On October 7, 1866, the cathedral was gutted by a fire that spread from a nearby shop. Even though the new St. Patrick's was already under construction, the old cathedral was restored under the direction of architect Henry Engelbert. The first Mass was celebrated in the rebuilt cathedral on April 1, 1867. The new Old Cathedral was reopened in 1868. Since the current St. Patrick's Cathedral opened in 1879, St. Patrick's Old Cathedral has been a parish church, the pastor residing in the old Bishop's House at 263 Mulberry Street. Today's multi-ethnic parish includes the territory of the former Most Holy Crucifix Parish, whose church for a time was the nearby Chapel of San Lorenzo Ruiz and housed the Filipino Catholic Apostolate for the Archdiocese of New York. Cathedral complex St. Patrick's Old Cathedral School at 32 Prince Street, across from the cathedral, predates the church itself. It was built in 1825–1826 as the Roman Catholic