The Churches of New York XCIII: “The Union of Catholicism and American Civilization” part I

St. Paul the Apostle

8 Columbus Avenue (or 9th Avenue)  and West 60^th Street

A major Catholic religious order arising in a modern-age, Protestant and secular city’s streets?  Such was the “Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle” of Isaac Hecker, founded in 1858. An order conceived because Hecker wanted to “convert the Americans” but considered his own order of Redemptorists  “too European” for the purpose (although he himself was of German background). The Paulist order therefore had as its specific mission to evangelize Protestant America.

The first Paulists –  all converts and all former Redemptorists– were initially pressed into the main task of the New York Archdiocese in that era – caring for the vast numbers of immigrants flooding in from Europe.  Archbishop  Hughes laid the foundations of the first Paulist church on June 19^th, 1859. The parish territory  covered a vast area on the West Side of Manhattan comprising much of what is now the Upper West Side – up to Manhatanville – and Hell’s Kitchen. 1)  As time went on,  parish after parish was hived off – yet the influx of Catholics was such that the number of parishioners at St. Paul’s continued  to increase – it reached some 12,000 in 1914. By then 2,000 students attended  the parish’s parochial school. 2) The first church had to be repeatedly expanded.

Now Hecker and the Paulists were of course later tarred with the “Americanist,” even “modernist” label. Yet the early Paulists evidenced a spirituality which we would not at all associate with such tendencies.  For example, John Gilmary Shea wrote in 1878 regarding the role of liturgy and music at St. Paul’s:

An unusual portion of the room (of the first church) is occupied by the sanctuary….the use of so much room is demanded by the choral arrangements and the imposing ritual ceremonies for which this church has always been remarkable, and particularly since the year 1870, when the Gregorian chant was adopted by the Fathers as the ruling melody for all their church services.

There are perhaps but few churches in the United States, or even in Europe, where the ceremonial of the sacred rites of the Catholic Church are more closely observed or more decorously performed than in this unpretentious edifice. Indeed, it is a special point of the role of the Paulist community, that in all churches over which they may have control, the Roman ritual shall be observed in the very letter.3)

Later, in 1912, we find this description of the Paulists’ music:

The fathers have had for a generation no other music in their divine offices than that prescribed by the present Holy Father in his Motu Proprio on ecclesiastical music  – the Gregorian chant, varied with an occasional piece of figured music in the chaster style. The choir, made up of boys and men exclusively, and all vested in cassock and surplice, is placed with the great organ in the large and noble sanctuary of the church (the present day church – SC)… When that famous Motu Proprio was promulgated the Church authorities in America could point to the Paulist church in New York  as a living evidence of how true ecclesiastical music could be introduced and maintained, yes, and be made popular and attractive.  ….Congregational singing has (also) been sedulously cultivated by the fathers from the beginning.4)

(Above) The “Paulist Choristers”  of St. Paul’s in the sanctuary of the new church around 1940. (From Malloy, Guide, at 46)

The order now undertook to build a grand “mother church” for their congregation to show to the city what Catholicism in action could be. Fr. Hecker was deeply involved in all aspects of the planning of the present church building. The idea was to erect, not a copy of a meeting house in order to adapt to the “natives,”  but a grand but sober Gothic edifice.  A local architect, Jeremiah O’Rourke, drew up the plan, but left at an early stage after differences over engineering issues with the Paulists. Fr. Deshon, one of Fr. Hecker’s companions and trained as a military architect, finished the structure – the resulting forbidding exterior acquired the nickname “Fr. Deshon’s fort.”5) Salvaged material played a considerable role in the construction. The builders of St Paul’s thriftily reused stone from a demolished aqueduct. And the steps outside of the main doors are from a demolished theater. 6) Poor Jeremiah O’Rourke! Later he would be also be dismissed from his other grand Gothic project in the New York area: Sacred Heart Cathedral in Newark.

(Above) Depiction in 1878 of the Gothic church of St. Paul that was never built. (From Shea, The Churches of New York).

But in the course of these changes of direction the interior of St. Paul’s evolved into an entirely new structure that resembled more closely the Roman basilicas of the Jesuits or of the Oratorians  – while retaining  some residual Gothic elements. We are not surprised to read that Fr. Hecker wanted a building where everybody could see the altar and which was well adapted to preaching. Such also was the tradition of the Oratory or of the Jesuits. But, as in the Paulists’ first church,  Fr. Hecker also required a huge sanctuary to accommodate the elaborate liturgy and the choir.  All in all, like the churches of St. Francis Xavier, Corpus Christi, Holy Family, and the second St. Agnes, St Paul the Apostle was one of that minority of New York Catholic churches explicitly intended to make a liturgical and theological statement.

(Above) Fr. Deshon, the  architect of St. Paul’s.(From The Catholic Church in the United States vol 1 at 339)

The church as completed – but not surrounded by high buildings as it is today. Note the 9th Avenue El in the foreground. (From The Catholic Church in the United States vol 1 at 341)

A view of  “Father Deshon’s Fort” around 1940. (From Malloy, The Church of St. Paul the Apostle in New York)

(Above) The musical forces of St. Paul’s seated in the sanctuary on Palm Sunday, 1939. Note, for the liturgically inclined, the folded chasubles of deacon and subdeacon. (from Malloy, The Church of St. Paul the Apsotle in New York at 48)

But what was truly unusual was that the patronage of the arts would become a crucial element of the Paulists’ apostolate.  For it seems that  the early Paulists has a vision that beauty too should have a role in evangelization – an idea so dear to Traditionalists today! Fr. Hecker was advised by three of the foremost American  artists of that day on the decoration and furnishings of St. Paul’s church: Augustus St. Gaudens, John LaFarge and Stanford White. 7)

1. Shea, John Gilmary, The Catholic Churches of New York City at 573 (Lawrence G. Goulding & Co., New York,   1878)
2. The Catholic Church in the United States of America, Vol. 3, at 364. (The Catholic Editing Company, New York, 1912)
3. Shea, op. cit. at 575 -76
4. The Catholic Church in the United States of America, Vol. 1 at 340.
5. Malloy, Joseph I. The Church of St. Paul the Apostle in New York at 5-6 (Paulist Press, New York 19__)
6. Landmark Designation, Church of St. Paul the Apostle at 5-6 ( Designation List 465 LP-2260(June 25, 2013)). Some claimed to discern a spiritual significance in this reuse of native materials in a Catholic church.
7. Malloy, op. cit. at 11.

Continue to Part 2