| St. Paul Church | |
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| Established 1867 | Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh |
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| PARISH MISSION STATEMENT |
| Saint Paul Parish was founded in 1867 by Irish Immigrants. The words of Saint Paul are inscribed above our Church entrance: “stand fast in the faith, be brave and strong”. We live these words by celebrating Mass and the Sacraments, proclaiming the Gospel, and welcoming and serving one another and our neighbors in Butler County. |
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On entering St. Paul's, the eye goes unawares to the noble lines of its nave, the sturdly limestone pillars only momentarily diverting it, until it meets its vanishing point within the sanctuary upon the altar. But as the objects in a darkened room break only gradually upon the vision, so also is the attention here arrested by a glow of color whose charm you can't resist - you are looking at perhaps the best stained glass in any Catholic Church in America. |
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"Chaste,
subdued In lights and shadows; dimming the world beyond And shading the eternal house of God." |
| The very choice of the subjects or motifs
must appeal even to the lay visitor. The large window
above the altar is the first to catch the attention; it charms
the eye and wins us by its mystic light much as a sweet voice,
coming to the ear unsought, weans the attention from all other
things there above the place of sacrifice it tells in its own
exquisite way the story of Golgotha. Above the narthex the
glazer has taken for his theme the patron of the church, St.
Paul preaching to the Athenians; the faces of the listeners,
their garb and the surrounding architecture recall to us the
classic soil of Greece. Here the artist is at his best; he
has caught the spirit of time and place, anticipating all
reasoning and filling us only with joy and admiration.
Soldier and scholar, youth and age from that land of philosophy
and art, are here depicted and their every feature glows under
the spell wrought by the words of him whose thoughts were that
ocean of which God alone is the shore. The north and south
transept windows show respectively the Nativity and the
Resurrection, the Miracle at Cana and Christ blessing little
children; the twelve lower lights being given to the twelve
Apostles. But while the main windows of the church bring
before our mind the great truths of the Redemption and the early
morning of Christianity, the lights in the clerestory present
eighteen great saints who marked the spread of the faith
throughout the entire world in subsequent ages. Ireland is
represented by Saints Patrick, Bridget and Columbkil; Saints
Boniface, Leopold and Elizabeth tell of the faith in Germany,
Hungary and Austria; Gregory the Great, the Blessed Margaret
Alacoque and St. Guy stand for the Catholicity of Italy, France
and the Lowlands; Saints Wenzeslaus, Theresa and John of God
tell of the Church of Spain and Portugal. Saints
Stanislaus of Poland, Catharine of Sweden and Gallus of
Switzerland; Edward of England, Rose of Lima and St. George,
Patron of the Oriental churches; complete the list of champions
who tell the glory of the Church to our own day. The
window in the baptistery represents St. John, while the smaller
lights of the side aisles picture the twelve fruits of the Holy
Ghost. The choice of theme, however, is only one of the minor merits of the Butler windows. They are first and last essentially decorative, neither solely modern nor antique, but rather a happy combination of the two-they are the realization of old ideals worked out with modern means. After the architect has completed the shell of a building there will remain empty wall spaces and stretches of flat color; here begins the work of painter, sculptor and glazer, and they in their single lines must be subordinate to the mind that planned the whole. The easel painter makes a picture for its own sake and confines its interest within a frame; the glazer's work on the contrary must lend itself to the whole wall, to relive its monotony or accentuate its interest. Realism obliterates the wall, perspective destroys it by conveying the impression of distance. Hence to say that a window is decorative means that it has a relative importance, that is remains not so much a thing for itself as a decorated portion of the wall-veil. The windows show this ornamental quality to a marked degree; wherever perspective of any kind is used as in the narthex it is conventionalized and kept within its limitations. Where single figures are introduced all projection is eliminated; pedestals and canopies are conspicuous by their absence and in their place is found a wealth of natural ornament which the writer has sought in vain in hundreds of other places. Architectural designs would have enabled the glazier to fill the space with comparative ease; the purpose of art however is to give us ornament independently of that which the mechanic uses for construction. In all the thirty-one windows of St. Paul's there is not a single instance of structural factors serving as ornamental features; leaves and flowers, angels and birds fill the lights with a naiveté and grace which only consummate art can call into being. The transept windows with their groups are unusual examples of good decoration. After the artist had finished his picture, instead of proceeding to fill the remaining space with beams, pillars and arches that would have given it that oft sought natural appearance, he with a great deal of felicity, omitted all these and put in straight glazing relying on his color scheme for its beauty. This plain background emphasizes the window character, and by its complimentary color quality forms a pleasing value for the group itself. The clerestory windows are decorated with heavy foliage, the apertures of the tracery receiving alternately twigs with the nesting birds, then angels, while in the windows above the main entrance a few odd cherubs peep through the smaller lights. Of more than thirty halos no two are treated in the same way, each one having an interest and beauty all its own. Regarding the truth of representation, these windows reflect in a wonderful way that spirituality which the naive mind of the mediaeval craftsman instilled into his pictures. One man admires the symmetry of line and paints a beautiful body; another catches at some fleeting state of mind and paints a mood; the third gives us a man, the fourth, a saint. And saints there are in the windows of St. Paul's. The insipid faces we almost began to admire in the decadent art of today are not there; the ultra sentimental and crude impressions of the amateur are also absent and in their place we have a good man's artistic conception of God's elect. The faces are those of men and women, but the eyes have the light of sanctity, and the features the stamp of character, the character that comes from the love of God and conquers the world and sin. The windows were made by the firm of George Boos in Munich, and to Leo Thomas a nephew of Mr. Boos is due all credit for their beauty of color and design. Messrs. Boos and Thomas have been comparatively unknown in this country heretofore, but it is safe to say that work like that done in St. Paul's will win for them an international reputation. |
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