The Churches of New York XXIII: The Actor’s Chapel

St. Malachy

239 West 49th Street

Catholicism and the arts – a perennial topic once again in the limelight. Recent years have seen intensified efforts both global (initiatives of the Vatican and of Pope Benedict personally) and local (New York’s own Catholic Artists Society) to reestablish the bond between the Catholic faith and the arts. A link that previous ages regarded as obvious. And if that connection had grown not so obvious by the middle of the twentieth century, there were still many brave souls who made the presence of the Christian faith felt in the “creative” world. They did so even in fields like popular stage and film entertainment whose relationship with the faith, even then, appeared tenuous indeed.

Starting in the 1920’s a succession of New York priests arose able to bridge the gap between the faith and the media/entertainment/sports world – while still remaining Catholic priests. The line later reached its culmination and conclusion with Archbishop Fulton Sheen. We have seen how, earlier, Fr. Duffy at Holy Cross parish at West 42nd Street through, among other things, his ministry to entertainers of every kind, became a celebrity in his own right. The pastors of St. Malachy’s were of this almost vanished breed. For St. Malachy’s parish, at West 49th Street immediately to the north of Holy Cross, is – at least in the popular memory – the church most most representative of this era. St. Malachy’s was the “Actor’s Chapel”: the former “commuter church” of the Broadway crowd.

Despite its nickname, St. Malachy’s is and always has been a parish. It was split off from that most iconic Hell’s Kitchen parish of Sacred Heart to the north in 1902. The basement church – which became the original “Actor’s Chapel” in 1920 – was finished by 1904, the upper church in 1911. 1) The style of the modestly – scaled church is French Gothic; the architecture and decoration exhibit the same high quality found almost everywhere at that time in the parishes of Catholic Church in New York City.

What had been a ordinary parish, whose congregation was recorded in 1914 already as diminishing, suddenly moved into the media spotlight in the 1920’s. The city’s entertainment district had now completed its relocation to Broadway. The old Madison Square Garden opened nearby. St. Malachy’s was ready, opening its Actor’s chapel in the lower church with very late or early mass times adapted to the exigencies of Broadway showbusiness. The celebrity of the parish went national with the requiem of Rudolph Valentino in 1926 and the marriage of Joan Crawford to Douglas Fairbanks Jr, in 1929.

“George M. Cohan, Spencer Tracy, Perry Como, Irene Dunne, Hildegarde, Florence Henderson, Elaine Stritch, Lawrence Luckinbill, Rosiland Russell, Danny Thomas, Bob and Dolores Hope and Ricardo Montalban, all worshipped at St. Malachy’s. Fred Allen, Don Ameche, Cyril Ritchard, Pat O’Brien and Jimmy Durante served many a mass….” 2) As late as 1968, this small church had a monthly attendance of 16,000. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see cracks in the mirror even in the golden age. The marriage of Crawford and Fairbanks – whose Catholicity was never totally clear in the first place – lasted only a few years. And then there were brothers George M. Cohan and Danny Thomas (33rd Degree). Yet at least an honest attempt was made by all to maintain channels of communication between the faith and the performing arts, to foster some mutually enriching interaction.

We note that the above catalogue of greats – with the exception of Mr. Luckinbill – comes to an end with the 1960’s. We don’t have to remind our readers of a certain event in Rome 1962-1965. And at the same time, seemingly as part of a worldwide cultural revolution, St. Malachy’s Broadway neighborhood started its rapid descent into crime, drug abuse and madness. The resident parishioners of St. Malachy’s who could moved away and outside visitors feared to come. The products of the commercial stage – and the artistic community participating in them – became increasingly hard to integrate into even the most nebulous notion of Christianity. The “core competency” of St. Malachy’s was no longer care for performing artists but for the elderly urban poor besieged in their pitiful apartments. 3) Perhaps the last major event associated with the arts was the funeral here of Tennessee Williams in 1983. 4)

St. Malachy’s façade is in an elegant French Gothic mode. The interior, a Gothic basilica, is modest in size – in this respect St. Malachy rivals the Yorkville parish of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. One unusual feature, perhaps attributable to the site, is the asymmetrical architecture: there are two aisles on the west but only one on the east side of the church. One of the western aisles leads to a magnificent but now apparently unused altar dedicated to the Sacred Heart. The chapel – like interior is wrapped in a prayerful darkness from which emerge the colors of the jewel-like windows. The style of the decoration of the sanctuary – paintings, marble altars and mosaics – is very similar to that of the sanctuary of St. Bernard (now Our Lady of Guadalupe) executed at the same time.

St. Malachy’s has had the misfortune to undergo one of the more radical conciliar updatings you can find among New York parishes. Essentially an attempt was made to convert the “processional” basilica into a centralized Novus Ordo space – with the baptismal font stuck in front of the entrance doors. Rows of movable chairs have even replaced some of the pews – like some chapel of a Jesuit university. The outer aisles have become a repository of all kinds of equipment (and junk). Fortunately the mysterious obscurity of St. Malachy’s conceals many of these sins. Indeed, this religious atmosphere of darkness is the exact opposite of the brilliantly lit conciliar interiors. There are always a few souls praying here in the quiet, congenial surroundings.

No TLM at this high altar anytime soon!

St. Malachy, 12th century Archbishop of Armagh, is one of the few Irish national saints – other than St. Patrick of course! – commemorated in the so very Irish Archdiocese of New York.

The window of St. Genesius, patron saint of actors, donated by the Catholic Actors Guild. The relatively few windows of St. Malachy, by various hands, are of magnificent quality.

The shrine of the patrons of the various arts, with the icon of St. Genesius at the center.

The prodigal son. Perhaps actors – living on the edge of life, so to speak, and sometimes over it – have a greater sense of the real and of the need for forgiveness than do their “bourgeois” co-religionists self-imprisoned in the suburban bubble.

St. Malachy’s seems to be a parish on the rebound. The economic situation has been transformed – what had been a ”no-go” zone has become since 1990 the center of growing commercial and residential activity. The parish also seems to have rediscovered its Catholicity compared to a couple of decades ago – even though many of the forms of the revival are unlikely to appeal to most readers of this blog. The pretty church has become a popular location for weddings judging by the elaborate guidelines in the parish website.5) A nice shrine to the patron saints of the various arts – with an icon of St. Genesius in the center- has been installed in the rear of the church. The latest project is a new organ. So in various ways this parish is seeking to reconnect with the glory days of the past. We would hope the rediscovery will extend soon to the Traditional Mass – which inspired both the creation of what is beautiful about this church and the “active participation” in its divine services of so many entertainment notables of days gone by. A rediscovery that for a while now has been taking place in the acting community itself…6)

1) The Catholic Church in the United Staes of America Vol 3 at 344 (New York, The Catholic Editing Company, 1914)

2) The Church of St Malachy (with historic photographs) at: http://www.nycago.org/Organs/NYC/html/StMalachyRC.html

3) History page at Parish Website: http://actorschapel.org/history

4)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Malachy’s_Roman_Catholic_Church

5)http://www.actorschapel.org/sites/default/files/Guidelines.Marriage%20Celebrations.2012.REVISED.2.7.13%20%281%29.pdf#overlay-context=weddings

6) Dare I mention “The Passion of the Christ”?