Chapter Thirteen
A Monastic Presence
In Lawrenceville

By James Wudarczyk

By the early 1860’s there was a substantial German immigrant population in Lawrenceville to prompt the creation of Saint Augustine Roman Catholic Church on 37th Street. Although the Capuchin Franciscan friars have faithfully served the spiritual needs of the Lawrenceville Catholic community since 1873, they were not the first priests assigned to Saint Augustine parish. Because of the need for German speaking priests, the Redemptorist fathers were first assigned the task. However, this Catholic order was of a missionary persuasion, and would serve a congregation until the bishop could assign diocesan priests or another religious order to the parish.

In order to provide the priests with a residence, the Teese house was secured. According to the Saint Augustine Parish History 1863-1938, the house “stood on a hill thirty feet high.” Therefore, it was too inconvenient because of apparent health reasons for the pastor, Father Tamchina, in his first pastorate, so he rented a house from Mr. X. Loeffler. Apparently the house stood next to the first church, which was located on the corner of the present 37th and Butler Streets.

However, when Father Tamchina assumed his second pastorate of the parish in 1872, he made a priority of making extensive repairs to the old Teese house. He built a kitchen, leveled the hill on which it stood, and put a basement under the structure. The house was thoroughly repaired at a cost of $8,000. According to the parish history cited above, “ The money was obtained partly by selling a lot which the parish had purchased from a certain Dr. Bundschuh. The lot was auctioned and brought $4,575.00. A collection, a concert, a picnic and sundry other sources enabled the pastor to remodel the rectory without drawing on the treasury or adding to the church debt.”

In Germany in 1873 certain political events created a climate that was very unfavorable to certain religious orders. In May of that year, Bismarck decided to push the passage of the infamous May Laws, which threatened to expel all religious orders not actually engaged in the care of the sick. Although the threat was never actually carried out, the Capuchin Franciscan friars of Bavaria made plans to release some of their members to the mission fields. The provincial, the Very Reverend Francis Xavier Kapplmayr, had been corresponding with the Right Reverend Abbot Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B. of Saint Vincent’s Abbey in Latrobe, and had the assurance that the Most Reverend Michael Domenec, Bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, was willing to offer the Capuchins a parish in Pittsburgh. Domenec, like his predecessor Michael O’Connor, was eager to recruit missionary priests for the diocese because he faced a growing Catholic population and a critical shortage of priests.

The first three Capuchins assigned to Lawrenceville were Father Hyacinth Epp, O.M.Cap., Father Matthew Hau, O.M.Cap., and Brother Eleutherius Guggenbichler, O.M.Cap. The three Capuchins landed in New York City on October 12, 1873, where they stayed briefly with the Capuchin Fathers of St. Joseph Province in New York. Afterwards, they proceeded to Latrobe to confer with Abbot Wimmer. According to the 1938 history of Saint Augustine parish, the friars confessed to Wimmer that they really had hoped for a monastery on the outskirts of the city, from which they could direct their missionary activities. However, they took Abbot Wimmer’s advice, “Take the parish of Saint Augustine’s as offered by the Bishop and the other will come later.”

When they arrived in Pittsburgh, the Capuchin’s were assigned to assist Father Tamchina.

According to the same source, “When the Capuchin Fathers assumed the pastorship of St. Augustine Parish in 1874, they found the old rectory a very poor substituted for a Capuchin cloister. . . Hence when enlarging the church, it was decided to remodel the rectory in keeping with the Capuchin requirements. Accordingly, two three-story wings were added, one to the right and one to the left, with the original building in the middle. Since it would have been unfair to burden the congregation with this added expense for the friary, the Capuchin Fathers, through contributions from abroad and through the fruits of their labors, contributed the sum of $3,000.00 toward the enlargement of the friary.”

This friary served the religious community of men between 1875 and 1889. By 1889, however, the structure became obsolete as a result of the large number of Franciscan priests who came from abroad to serve as chaplains to various religious communities and assistants to diocesan clergy. During the week of March 31, 1889, the friars vacated the friary and took up residence in a brick house on the north side of the school, where they continued to live until the monastery was completed late in November of 1889.

According to the 1938 parish history, the friary was open to the public so the people could see “the utter simplicity of this large convent, with its bare wooden floors and utter lack of anything superfluous. There was the Capuchin choir or chapel, with simple brown altar and curious stalls where the friars would assemble five times daily for chanting the office, the canonical prayer of the Church; there, too, was the refectory with long monastic tables running along the wall, and there were the cells, the little rooms measuring seven by twelve, with bed, desk, chair and crucifix, where the individual friar would work and pray in silence.” Father Hyacinth blessed this monastery on November 21, 1889. The total cost of the Capuchin monastery was $35,000.00, of which $25,000.00 was contributed by the Capuchins “who through parsimonious living and through donations of friends were enabled to raise this money. The other ten thousand dollars were the contributions of the parish toward its rectory. The Capuchins moved into their monastery on November 26, 1889.”

Prior to the erection of the 1889 monastery, in 1882 the Province of Saint Augustine was established and the Lawrenceville friary became its headquarters.

After a century the 1889 monastery became obsolete, and it 1991 it was replaced with a new structure that was designed to accommodate between 20 and 25 priest and brothers, who serve the Greater Pittsburgh area. The new structure also had an infirmary for the sick and elderly friars. Bishop Donald Wuerl dedicated the new headquarters on August 28, 1991.

In an account of the dedication services by the Pittsburgh Catholic, “The Saint Augustine Province includes Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and the District of Columbia.” This account also noted, “The Capuchins are a brotherhood of men who follow the way of life begun by St. Francis of Assisi in the 13th Century. The Capuchins are the fourth largest order of men in the Church with over 12,000 members. Their international headquarters are in Rome and they have six provinces in the United States.”

Writing in The Augustine of the dedication ceremonies, Father Paul Kuppe, O.F.M.Cap., stated, “The Feast of Saint Augustine was beastly hot, hazy, and humid; but over 300 people, including bishop Wuerl, turned out to dedicate the new St. Augustine Friary. A similar experience took place over one hundred years ago when the original Capuchin Friary was blessed.

“Think of it-all the people and friars who passed through those doors. In the recent dedication ceremony the Bishop prayed ‘that the Friars will be a sign in Lawrenceville and throughout the Pittsburgh area; that the Church is a praying community; and that, led by the Spirit, they will be faithful to their vocation, so that Christ may always dwell in us.’ What a blessing to our parish and our neighborhood to have this powerful prayer tower in our midst for over a hundred years and always.”

The new building cost $2.2 million, which was paid for by private contributions.