The Altars

In 1990, during Fordham's Sesquicentennial Year, the University Church underwent an extensive restoration. At this time, a new main altar was created from altars taken from the transepts of the Church. Those altars, in turn, had been made from inlaid marble formerly in St. Patrick's Cathedral. At right, an image of the Lamb of God on the front panel of the new altar.

In 1941, Francis Spellman, Archbishop of New York, FCO '11, offered Fordham the old altar (c. 1879) from St. Patrick's Cathedral. That altar, now standing against the back wall of the church, with new reredos, was erected as a memorial to the Papal Duchess, Mrs. William Babington Macaulay. In 1942 Cardinal Spellman consecrated the new Fordham altar, using the same silver trowel that Patrick Cardinal Hayes had used to lay the cornerstone of the remodeled church in 1929.

The three paintings on the reredos represent Our Lady Mediatrix of All Graces, patroness of the University Church, enthroned and surrounded by saints. The altar panels were painted by Hildreth Meiere. Meiere (1892-1961), a native New Yorker, was at the time the best known artist of murals and mosaics in the United States. Her work includes the design of the Lady Altar at St. Patrick's Cathedral and the crypt mosaics in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. The three altar panels in the Fordham University Church were said to be "designed to impress the undergraduates with several important truths. They emphasize the fact that great saints can be women as well as men; laymen as well as religious; Popes, Cardinals and Lord Chancellors, as well as simple friars; that wisdom and scholarship have characterized the Church in every age and every land, and finally, that the oriental churches are a treasured part of our cultural and spiritual heritage." In the center panel, beside the Virgin Mary are (l. to r.): St. Joseph, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. John the Baptist, St. Genevieve, St. Isaac Jogues and St. Patrick. The two side panels feature twelve saints identified with university study. In the left panel, front row (l. to r.): St. Robert Bellarmine, S.J., St. Basil the Great, and St. Thomas More; and in the back row (l. to r.): St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Peter Canisius, S.J., and St. Augustine of Hippo. In the right panel, front row (l. to r.): St. Bede the Venerable, St. Edmund Campion, S.J., St. John Chrysostom, and back row (l. to r.) St. Gregory the Great, O.S.B., St. Columba of Iona and St. Thomas Aquinas, O.P.

On the wall above either side of the main altar are the heraldic devises of Fordham alumni Francis Cardinal Spellman and John Cardinal Farley.

The two iconic paintings on the back walls of the transept (formerly placed in the niches on either side of the sanctuary) represent the Jesuit devotion to the Holy Family and to Saints Aloysius, John Berchmans and Stanislaus Kostka, depicted in the garb of college students.

Credits: Carolyn Farrar (text); James Hentges, O.S.C. (editor)