The Cathedral of St Philip the Apostle closes the south side of Parque Central, its pale façade visible from the park's benches and providing the main vertical accent in the city's central streetscape. The current building dates largely from the late 19th century, though there has been a church on this site since the early Spanish colonial period. The exterior is in a restrained neoclassical style, white with modest towers, that fits naturally with the Victorian-era buildings around the square.
Inside, the cathedral is cool and dim, with a high barrel-vaulted nave, painted wooden ceiling panels, and the kind of quiet that makes it a genuinely useful stop in the middle of a warm afternoon. Mass is held regularly and the cathedral draws a cross-section of the city's population, from schoolchildren in uniform to elderly women who seem to have their particular pews reserved by longstanding habit. The building is not a major art-historical destination, but it is a functioning parish church at the centre of Dominican city life, and worth a few minutes inside if you find the doors open.