It also established a Church Debt Society among working class Catholics; members would donate 50 cents a month for the cathedral construction.

[2] Cardinal Richard Cushing on January 19, 1964, celebrated a requiem mass for US President John F. Kennedy, who had been assassinated in November 1963.

[5] On October 1, 1979, Pope John Paul II held a 38-minute prayer service for 2,000 priests in the cathedral during his first papal visit to the United States.

[8] On April 18, 2013, an interfaith prayer vigil was held at the cathedral in honor of the victims of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

[13] An Attleboro, Massachusetts, man in October 2023 vandalized the large crucifix mounted on the cathedral lawn, causing $20,000 in damage.

[14] The Cathedral of the Holy Cross was designed in the Gothic Revival style by the architect Patrick Keely, who built many churches around the country.

The builders incorporated some brick in the arch over the front door from the Ursuline convent that was burned during the anti-Catholic 1834 riots in Charlestown.

[16] The Cathedral of the Holy Cross owns an opus 801 pipe organ from the E. and G. G. Hook & Hastings Company of Boston that was installed in 1875.

The company also updated the organ wiring[17][18] The Cathedral parish consists of large English- and Spanish-speaking congregations.

The parish also includes three archdiocese-wide congregations: In 1927, Cardinal William O'Connell founded Cathedral High School adjacent to the church.