The architect was E.F. Baldwin (1837-1916), based in Baltimore. He was a faithful Catholic man who had nine children. Baldwin designed many Catholic churches and schools. About 150 of his buildings still stand. For is work on the construction of Caldwell Hall, he was awarded the Bene Merenti medal from Pope Leo XIII.
Cardinal John Gibbons, the Archbishop of Baltimore, dedicated the building with the President of the United States, Grover Cleveland on May 24, 1888. The chapel was added later. The outward design was intended to convey a sturdy sense of fidelity to Church and secular society.
The building was named for Mary Gwendolyn Caldwell (1863-1909), the first donor to the Catholic University. Sealed in the cornerstone is the original latter from Pope Leo XII approving the founding of the University. It is dated April 10, 1887.
Mary donated the land for the University (88 acres), perched on the edge of Washington, D.C. She financed Caldwell Hall, the largest of the original buildings, as well as two other buildings. She also endowed the maintenance of the university for three years.
In gratitude, Pope Leo XIII bestowed upon her a diamond-studded medal, which had been made especially for her. In addition, he conferred upon her the Order of the Rose, the first time a woman had received this distinction.
The chapel was dedicated to St. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles. Mary Gwendolyn's sister, Baroness von Zedtwitz (Mary Elizabeth), later donated the funding to finish and decorate it. It is located on the mezzanine level of Caldwell Hall, in the heart of the building, reached by a staircase that brings to mind the rise to enter Roman temples.
Incorporated structurally into the building, it is the original chapel of the Catholic University of America, from long before the National Shrine was built and dedicated. Many great ones visited here, stayed in this building as guests, and celebrated Mass here. Including pioneer bishops such as Archbishop John Ireland of St. Paul, Minnesota.
The entrance to the chapel has a lovely statue of Our Lady under the Immaculate Conception, patroness of the United States and of the Catholic University of America. How fitting next door is the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Under the statue, are these words carved in Latin: "MARIA IMMACULATA, UNIVERSITATIS PATRONA, ORA PRO NOBIS.
The chapel seats 70-80 souls. Thankfully the chapel in Caldwell Chapel was never "wreckovated" during the turbulent sixties or its shaky aftermath The altars remain intact, a veritable miracle given all the other historic chapels across our land that have been gutted and ended up in dumpsters.
That being said, it would be nice to see the original restored with fresh and colorful Gothic Revival stencil work. That would take a generous donor and the help of experts, the Conrad Schmitt. Studios of New Berlin, Wisconsin.
The original imported Daprato high altar has survived, with its stunning Romanesque Revival design, and Carrara marble intact. With its golden mosaic and marble scenes of the life of St. Paul, above the altar gradine. Above the ceiling is a lovely barrel vault, faithful to classical canons of construction that favor acoustics.
Bishop Sheen Connection
Fulton Sheen had been a student at C.U.A. for two years of graduate study. Soon after his ordination in 1919 he came to study Canon Law, earning his JCB, a pontifical degree in Canon Law. In those years he was chaplain at St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum where he would celebrate daily Mass (the school closed in 1967). He recounts in his autobiography:
"During my student days at the Catholic University as a young priest, I was chaplain at St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum. I would read Mass every morning about six o'clock for the Sisters and the young girls. The orphanage was about a mile from the university and I would spend the time on the journey peaching to the telephone poles and the trees" (Source: Treasure in Clay, p. 304).
He was later appointed by the rector, Bishop Thomas Shahan, to teach in the School of Theology, assigned to the Chair of Apologetics. He thus began his teaching career at the Catholic University in 1927. He was soon after transferred to the School of Theology where he taught for over twenty years.
Due to Sheen's popularity as a gifted speaker and retreat master, even as he arrived to teach, demands were piling up with invitations and requests for him to speak. Therefore, Fr. Ignatius Smith, head of the department, decided Sheen was likely to do more good as a public speaker and author than in the classroom and so he cut his teaching load accordingly.
From 1927-1935, Sheen taught for our five hours a week to graduate students (mostly priests), devoting the rest of his time to writing and speaking. In 1935 his classroom schedule was cut to two hours a week, every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon at 4:00 PM. The two hours were a single course, taught in McMahon Hall. Sheen would come early to meet with students who had questions.
 |
| French style altar of St. Joseph |
Sheen reminisces in his autobiography:
"When first ordained and a student at the Catholic University in Washington, I would never go to class without climbing the few stairs to the chapel in Caldwell Hall to make a tiny act of love to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Later, at the University of Louvain in Belgium, I would make a visit to Our Blessed Lord in every single church I passed on the way to class. When I continued graduate work in Rome and attended the Angelicum and Gregorian, I would visit every church en route from the Trastevere section where I lived" (Source: Treasure in Clay, p. 198).
Sheen was a very popular teacher. A former student recalled:
"You'd no more think of raising a hand in one of his classes," said a former student, "than of telling the sun to stop shining for a minute. Nor can I honestly say you'd want to. He was that spell-binding a teacher" (Source: The Bishop Sheen Story, p. 26).
Another example is also recorded of his immense popularity:
"His courses always commanded the top enrollment among candidates for a graduate degree - 75 or so each year. They filled the room where he lectured, right next door to the department head's office, and no visitor was ever allowed to sit in on one of Sheen's classes. He drew his group close to him with such force and intimacy that any outsider would have been like a fistful of sand in a jet engine" (Source: The Bishop Sheen Story, p. 26).
And one more insight into the Irish wit and wisdom of Professor Sheen's style:
"For the spring oral examinations in philosophy Sheen sat regularly with his colleagues to grill students up for the grueling boards. he was rough but fair. They say he almost never smiled while questioning you, but if you looked back just before closing the door on your way out, the start of a grin on his lean face as a sure sign you had made it" (Source: The Bishop Sheen Story, p. 26).
Sheen's Builds His own House in DC
As a student Sheen lived in McMahon Hall. As a professor, he had built his own home off Foxhall Road NW in the newly developed Spring Valley neighborhood of the city. The address was 4646 Hawthorne Ln NW. Sheen loved this home. He had it designed by local architects who were friends. An outdoor statue of Our Lady remains in the front yard to this day.
Sheen was able to pay for this after his parents sold their family farm in Peoria, and his brothers bought him out, giving him some extra cash to build and own his own home (he later sold it in 1950 when he was appointed to the role of the National Director of the Propaganda Fide in NYC.
The main architect was Professor Frederick Vernon Murphy, who founded in 1911 the Catholic University's School of Architecture and Planning. Murphy had studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and had become friends with the University's fourth rector, Fr. Thomas Shahan.
Shahan hired Murphy, who moved his office into unused attic space in McMahon Hall. Thus was born the Department of Architecture with its storied history. The two men collaborated together to build the campus. This included Gibbons and Maloney Halls, the new gym (where the Department moved after World War I), the University Center, and the stunning library that helped make the architect even more famous.
The pivotal role of the architect led him to friendship with the young Rev. Dr. Sheen. Sheen worked closely on the house with two architects: Murphy and (later Cooper Lighbound). The end result was a whimsical 1920s home that included a custom designed house chapel. In fact, Murphy helped design many custom-designed homes in D.C., including the manse of the Apostolic Nunciature, his most well-known creation.
Sheen lived here with a couple other priests and his dog. Sheen loved dogs and he had a large backyard that was fitting for such a pet. The home was like a retreat for the hard-working writer-preacher-teacher. He was eminently happy there and always admired the cool efficiency of the design he felt the house showed. His neighbor was the lawyer of Roosevelt, Thomas "Tommy the Cork" Corcoran. He also entertained many personages who were his dinner guests, including Loretta Young, whom he helped return to the Church in the 1940s.
The house had an Art Deco chapel built in a room near the main entrance, seen here (a reflection of the Liturgical Movement, gaining traction in the U.S.):
Sheen writes further in his autobiography:
"Later as a teacher at the Catholic University in Washington, I arranged to put a chapel immediately at the entrance of the front door of my home. This was in order that I might never come in or go out without seeing the sanctuary lamp as a summons to adore the Heart of Christ at least for a few seconds. I tried to be faithful to this practice all during my life" (Source: Treasure in Clay, p. 198).
Sheen celebrated his daily morning Mass in his house chapel, after his daily Holy Hour. He traveled a lot on weekends, including NYC when he began his increasingly busy radio broadcasts in 1928. In past years the exterior of the home has been altered and a pool was installed in the backyard. It has formerly been a white brick and limestone exterior.
