STA Holds 50th Jubilee Celebration - 1973

St. Thomas Aquinas Holds 50th Jubilee Celebration

CHICAGO -- St. Thomas Aquinas Church will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its dedication with a solemn high Mass Nov. 11, 2 p.m.  Auxiliary Bishop Michael R. Dempsey, vicar delegate of the West Side for John Cardinal Cody, will be the principal celebrant of the Mass, with Father Peter Frazen as homilist.

Concelebrants will be the present members of the parish staff, some former assistant pastors, and priests ordained from the parish.

Father Edward McKenna, a recent master's degree graduate of the University of Chicago in music composition, has composed the music especially in honor of this festival.  The work is dedicated to John Cardinal Wright, perfect of the Vatican's Congregation for the clergy.  It is a musical setting of the complete, revised Order of Mass for chorus, vocal soloists, organ, and several musical instruments including brass, woodwinds, strings and percussion. It is composed in such a way as to incorporate full congregational participation, both sung and recited.

The First Mass said in the church was the funeral Mass for the founding pastor, Msgr. Daniel Luttrell.  Although the parish was officially founded 65 years ago, work on the church did not begin until 1923.

The massive solidly built Tudor Gothic church was designed by Karl Vitzthum, who lived in the parish until his death in 1967.  Mr. Vitzthum was also responsible for the mural behind the high altar, a copy of the "Apotheosis of St. Thomas Aquinas," by the Renaissance Spanish master Zurbaran.

The church was not finished and opened for use until December, 1924.  Much of the artistic finery of the church was purchased by the second pastor, Father Edward L. Dondanville.  The stained glass windows were made in Munich.  The terra cotta main altar, installed in 1929, and the Kilgen pipe organ, purchased from the Swiss pavilion of the 1933 Century of Progress, were all purchased by the second pastor.

In redecorating the church 20 years ago, Msgr. William Long replaced the Gothic line of the church with paintings which turned the ceiling into an array of brightly mottled colors.

Father Lawrence Fitzgerald is said to be the best administrator the parish has ever had, according to Father Edward McKenna, the present administrator.  At his retirement in 1968, the church was in excellent condition spiritually, physically, and fiscally with all the parish records carefully catalogued.

Father Peter Frazen's brief pastorate, cut short by two heart attacks, was marked by the entry of the parish into a transitional, more community oriented phase, both as to mission and renewed dedication to the people.

Following the Mass there will be a banquet at the Mar-Lac House, 104 S. Marion.

The New World, October 26, 1973, page 6.