Doctors in the House

 

Saint Francis de Sales

Saint Therese of Lisieux statue

Saint Anthony statue at St. Francis de Sales, probably in the 1940s

In 1908, when architect Henry Dagit wrote about the church he was starting to build at 47^th and Springfield, he mentioned that its dome would be supported inside on four Columns topped with “marble mosaic emblems of the four Evangelists…and under them in sculptured niches will be statues of the four Doctors of the Church.”

The statues were absent from descriptions of the finished interior in 1911, but they crept back into church descriptions written in 1928 and 1938, before vanishing again in 1940.

Who were the “Doctors of the Church” and why did they come and go?

Wikipedia defines the term as “a title given by the Catholic Church to saints recognized as having made significant contribution to theology or doctrine through their research, study, or writing.” A document from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) notes that “The title was first given in the Middle Ages, and originally, there were four great Doctors of the Church: St. Ambrose, 4th century bishop of Milan, St. Augustine, 5th century bishop of Hippo, St. Gregory the Great, who was pope at the start of the 7th century, and St. Jerome, the 5th century biblical scholar and translator.”  The Oxford Dictionary of Christian Art identifies these as the four Latin Doctors and also lists four important Greek Doctors: St. Basil, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. John Chrysostum, and St. Athanasius, who appear more often in mosaic artwork. Which doctors would have been most suited to our mosaic-filled Byzantine-styled church? Maybe that was the problem!

So many doctors! So many choices! And the list kept growing. The 2015 USCCB document notes that “Over the years the church has added about 30 (now 36) additional saints with the title ‘Doctor of the Church’… Since 1970….women have also been declared ‘Doctors of the Church’: St. Teresa of Avila; St. Catherine of Siena; St. Thérèse of Lisieux…, and St. Hildegard of Bingen.”

  In the end, the references to the Doctors in our church in 1928 and 1938 are likely mistakes from hastily recopying outdated text: the interior niches do not exist and we have no evidence that the statues were ever commissioned (though there are two full and two partial never-used niches on the 47th Street exterior!). We do have at least three Doctors “in the house,” though: our own patron Saint Francis de Sales was declared a Doctor in 1877. Saint Anthony of Padua (statue behind the mesh on the St. Joseph side of the church), became a Doctor in 1946; and St. Thérèse of Lisieux (statue in the former confessional by the parking lot door) was named in 1998 – both receiving the title long after our church was built. Our Saint Anthony statue – the patron of lost things — arrived in 1916 as a gift from Mrs. Elizabeth Lippe, who also bequeathed our bells (ironically, his correct pedestal is under St. Anne). St. Therese arrived near the time of her canonization in 1925 and was accompanied by a relic, venerated regularly through 1937.

In addition, parish records indicate that our church, located near several universities and medical centers, has always had a few medical doctors, PhDs, and probably some honorary titles among its congregation!

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Cardinal Dougherty’s Scrapbook

Deep mysteries sometimes have surprisingly straightforward solutions.

Many years ago, Father Roland Slobogin (Pastor of St. Francis de Sales  1999-2004), was puzzled to find a meticulously compiled scrapbook of photos of Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty, Archbishop of Philadelphia 1918 to 1951, tucked away at the Rectory. None of the pictures seemed to have anything to do with our parish. He wondered where did the book come from and why was it there?

Along with it was another fragile old scrapbook, in much need of conservation (and now missing in the Rectory), filled with press clippings relating to Bishop Crane, our second Pastor. Were the two books related? Bishop Crane was Assistant Bishop to Cardinal Dougherty. They had known each other all their lives: both came from the Ashland region of Pennsylvania, and they attended St. Joseph’s parish together – just a grade or two apart. When the future Cardinal was still Bishop Dougherty of Nuevo Segovia in the Philippines, he used to stay at the de Sales Rectory when he visited Philadelphia. As Archbishop of Philadelphia, in 1920, he presided at the Solemn Consecration of our Parish, and as Cardinal, in 1921, he consecrated Bishop Crane. Was Bishop Crane keeping track of his childhood acquaintance’s career?

But wait: the Dougherty scrapbook contained only photos, no articles, and half the pictures were taken in the 1930s and 1940s. Bishop Crane died in 1928 and the Cardinal presided at his funeral! Someone else must have compiled that album, but who and why?

Cardinal Dougherty was back at de Sales in 1940 to celebrate the Solemn Pontifical Mass of Thanksgiving marking our Parish fiftieth anniversary. Was the book prepared for his visit? But some of the pictures were later, and no references to de Sales appeared in its pages. The question lingered: who had a strange Cardinal fascination?

The answer arrived unexpectedly a few weeks ago, with a stack of St. Francis de Sales memorabilia, found in a collection of books purchased at an estate sale, and mailed to us for our archives.

We were thrilled to receive the surprise package of de Sales Night programs from the 1940s and 1950s, a 1913 event program, another from 1928, jubilee books, and more. Then, somewhere in the middle of the pile, a booklet slid out that didn’t seem to relate to our parish.

Titled, simply, “His Eminence Dennis Cardinal Dougherty,” it was well-illustrated with photos from the life of “The Great Builder” who established 106 Philadelphia parishes. The accompanying text was a sermon – the eulogy for the Cardinal’s funeral — by the Most Reverend Hugh L. Lamb , D.D.

Suddenly, everything fell into place: our fourth Pastor, Bishop Lamb (at SFDS from 1936 to 1951), was Archdiocesan Apostolic Administrator for a few months after the Cardinal died in 1951. As such, he would have supervised the layout of the official Archdiocesan funeral booklet – probably at de Sales rectory – and then somebody filed all the photos.