Fr. Phillip Bernier Interview, 9 August 2007

Abstract

Fr. Phillip Bernier, a Capuchin Franciscan Friar, discusses the history and role of the Church of the Conversion of St. Paul in Cleveland's Midtown Corridor. Located on the corner of East 40th Street and Euclid Avenue, the parish was originally conceived under the auspice of Archbishop Joseph Shrembs in 1930. Fr. Bernier, the pastor to the shrine of the Conversion of St. Paul, discusses his life history, the needs of the Midtown Corridor community, outreach, and various restoration projects. Other topics include symbolism, Franciscan orders, and Church architecture.

Interviewee

Bernier, Fr. Phillip (interviewee)

Interviewer

Souther, Mark (interviewer)

Project

Midtown Cleveland

Date

8-9-2007

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

32 minutes

Recommended Citation

"Fr. Phillip Bernier Interview, 9 August 2007" (2007). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 910014.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/305

Related Resources

Midtown Cleveland @ Cleveland Voices

Transcript

Mark Souther [00:00:00] Today is August 9, 2007. My name is Mark Souther, and I’m here today interviewing Father Phil Bernier.

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:00:09] Bernier. We’ll do it the French way. [crosstalk] My name is Father Philip Bernier. I am a native of Lakewood, Ohio, and I am a Capuchin Franciscan friar of the Province of St. Augustine in Pittsburgh, and am also now the pastor at conversion of St. Paul Shrine, which is located at the corner of East 40th and Euclid Avenue in the middle of Midtown Cleveland.

Mark Souther [00:00:37] I’d like to start by asking just some questions about how you came to be involved with the church. And then I’d like to get to the history of the church itself. How did you become the pastor at the church?

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:00:50] It’s sort of an interesting story. I came to the church as a parishioner, as a layperson in 1990, joined that parish, and in the midst of that joining, my life took some radical change and shifts. I was working for Ryder Systems at the time in logistics and transportation distribution, and in 1994, as a matter of fact, decided that God was calling me to live differently. And I entered the process of formation as a Capuchin Franciscan friar here in Cleveland, traveled on to Pittsburgh, and then ultimately for graduate studies in Washington, DC. And after spending four years at a parish in western Pennsylvania, my province assigned me here in August of 2004 to be the pastor of the shrine. And I also work as an assistant pastor in Lakewood, at St. Luke Parish in Lakewood as well.

Mark Souther [00:01:51] When you first started attending St. Paul’s shrine, how did you find out about it? Did you attend it specifically because it was a Franciscan church, or did that not enter into it at first and you only then learned?

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:02:05] I knew of the church all my life. We drove by it as a child growing up, visiting family in Cleveland Heights and things, but I never stopped in. And I met someone one evening who was a parishioner, actually a parishioner of the church at the time, and he offered an invitation to come and join the Sunday worship, because it’s a small congregation, it’s downtown, and I had been engaged in church work earlier in my life, so I was very familiar with it. I certainly knew of Franciscan friars. I didn’t know anything about Capuchins. And there’s also a unique part of our church is there’s an enclosed monastery of poor Claire’s of perpetual adoration. There are 2020 Poor Clare nuns in residence at the shrine. So that’s sort of an interesting aspect. That was another draw of sort of a fascination just to see what it was all about. And I found it was a place of great welcome and a fine, small community that I could engage in. And it was very appealing. And the friars and the sisters were most welcoming. And that began a journey that completely changed my life. Happened right at St. Paul’s.

Mark Souther [00:03:11] What prior church experience have you had? You had some church experience?

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:03:17] I was in music ministry. I began that actually in junior high at St. Luke, where I’m now helping out. So sort of a double opportunity here. I’m assisting at my home parish and pastoring the parish that brought me into religious life. So I worked through music ministry, through high school and in college as well. And so that was my introduction, really, to ministerial life in the church. Was through to be a choir director and an organist.

Mark Souther [00:03:47] Let’s turn for a few minutes to the history of the church. I first learned about St. Paul’s because I lived in Cleveland Heights, and I remember seeing that the church moved out to Fairmount. So you take us back a little before that. Take us back to when the church was built and tell me what you know about its history and what makes it special as a building first.

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:04:10] As a building it is probably one of the most unique church’s histories in the city of Cleveland, in the fact that it served two religious traditions for a number of years. The St. Paul’s Episcopal congregation was originally founded at East 4th and Euclid, where I guess the Martini Bowling Alley is today, right on the corner. In the 1870s, it was their sensed need that they needed to move out of this core area to what was the fringe area at the time. I’m told that in 1875, the horse carts ended at K Street, which is now East 40th, and that East 55th Street, which was Wilson street, was the city boundary. So I, very foresighted pastor at the time, moved the congregation, purchased land in what was growing to be millionaires row at the time, and built St. Paul’s Episcopal on the corner of Case and Euclid. It was built. Construction began in 1875, and the first services were held Christmas eve of 1876. The church was designed by William Lloyd of Detroit, who was also designed Trinity Episcopal Church, which is behind the state capitol building in Columbus, a smaller version of St. Paul’s. The congregation grew. I believe it was the largest church in Cleveland at the time it was built. A number of presidents worshiped in the church during its days at St. Paul’s Episcopal. In the mid 1920s, it became apparent that Euclid Avenue was going through a transition. It was becoming more of a commercial street rather than a residential Avenue. The congregation had moved principally up into Cleveland Heights area, and they felt the church needed to move with the congregation, and they began the building, the present building, at Coventry and Fairmount. They placed the building up for sale in the late twenties. The catholic diocese purchased the building in 1930 under Archbishop Schrembs, which he had hoped to serve as a shrine church of devotion to the Blessed Sacrament in the Catholic Church. It opened on October 2, 1931, was dedicated as a catholic church under the name Conversion of St. Paul Shrine. It functioned that way under the leadership of diocesan priests until 1978, and then Bishop Hickey, at the time, invited the capuchin friars into Midtown in 1978 to minister to the needs of, at the time, a neighborhood that was filled with drug activity and prostitution and was a very unsavory place, and the parish had declined as well.

Mark Souther [00:07:12] Before we get back to that, I definitely want to come back to that very issue, and also just to learn a little bit more about the three orders that are housed at St. Paul, could you describe a little bit more for me? I’ve seen it outside at least. Could you describe both the exterior and the interior of the church and tell us architecturally what’s significant about the building?

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:07:35] The building itself is Victorian, Country Gothic, I believe, is the style. It’s asymmetrical in its form, that there are parallel naves that run side by side of the church, one on the main floor, the other is principally on a second floor. The bell tower is one of the most elaborate in the city of Cleveland, almost looks like a minaret of some kind, and is 120 feet tall. It’s quite slender and narrow. Very, very decorative. The interior of the church is now a combination of the protestant tradition and catholic ownership of late. The ceiling is a wood beamed, I believe it’s mahogany beamed ceiling that is decorative is also functional. They are actually the supporting members of the roof itself, as we found out last summer when we put the new roof on the church. The interior of the church stained glass windows are a combination of the original windows that are in the nave and windows that were installed in 1931 from the Zettler Studio in Austria. There are quite fine stained glass windows that are irreplaceable because Zettler no longer exists. They don’t function in that capacity anymore. There’s a great deal of decorative work, looks to be carved wood in the church. It’s actually a molded formed plaster that looks very, very much like carved wood. It has a style, a Spanish style, that was very bishop Schrembs liked very, very much. And when he was, that was a style he preferred, and that screening now sets off an area behind which the sisters pray and creates a prayer chapel for the sisters and also an opportunity for them to attend daily mass in the church through a screened area in recognition of their cloistered lifestyle. The church has a seating capacity now of about 300. We’re told the original seating capacity was 1,000. I don’t know. I don’t know how they got 1,000 people in that church, but the listed seating capacity was 1,000. It was gas light was beautifully, beautifully done church, very simple. St. Paul’s was a low episcopal church, principally worshipped in a less formal style. So the church was simple, clean lined, but appropriate to the Victorian era. And it’s really quite now and really in remarkable repair, all things being equal, that it’s over 130 years old as a worshipping structure, and it’s in excellent, excellent repair.

Mark Souther [00:10:15] Let me ask briefly about the Zettler studio that you mentioned in Austria. How did the church come to have those windows?

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:10:22] Archbishop Schrembs was of Austrian descent, we believe, and our sisters originally came to Cleveland from Vienna. So Bishop Schrembs would have been very, very well aware of the Bavarian or Austrian craftsmen and artisans. And since it was his church, and he literally seemed to be the principal benefactor of the church, almost in the European style, that he was the bishop, and he had founded and endowed a shrine. And this became sort of a personal endeavor for him as well. So he found the best that he could find. And I think he chose Zettler from his own heritage, his own national personal heritage, and that of the sisters as well.

Mark Souther [00:11:08] I read on your website that then in 1921, the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration came from Austria to Cleveland. I wanted to ask two questions. Why Cleveland? First and secondly, why University Circle? Because I understand that they went to Iniversity Circle before coming to what’s now called Midtown.

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:11:29] They came to America at the express invitation of Archbishop Schrembs, the only way religious communities can enter into a diocese in a foreign country. Invitation, a personal invitation. The bishop, Bishop Schrembs had a strong personal devotion to adoration. We call adoration of the Blessed Sacrament a prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. And it was his intent to establish a monastery in the city whose principal means of prayer would be a prayer to support the life of the city. And that was his hope and dream. He brought the sisters with no place actually to put them initially, and they came and they purchased a home near which is right now would be across from Severance Hall on Euclid Avenue, which is now part of the Case campus. They later outgrew that and moved to a home on East Boulevard and outgrew that facility as well. And in the intervening years, St. Paul’s was put up for sale. It became an opportunity for the bishop to establish the shrine within the Diocese of Perpetual Adoration. That would offer a place for the sisters to live and perform their rule and live within the rules of their religious life and offer that daily prayer for the needs of the city, that a church in the midst of the city. And that seemed to be his whole purpose. As most contemplative monasteries are built on the fringes, away from a downtown area. It’s most unusual to have a contemplative monastery in the midst of the city.

Mark Souther [00:13:06] Correct me if I’m wrong. Is it the case that a church that’s of a particular order, in this case, orders is not a parish church? Is that correct to say?

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:13:25] Not necessarily. A shrine technically, typically is not. But religious orders do. Are assigned to parishes or do serve in parishes in a traditional form. St. Paul’s run sort of an attention. It was not established as a parish church. It was set up as a shrine. A shrine is a church of pilgrimage that would be open for all members of the diocese to come and to pray. In 1949, Bishop Hoban, who was Bishop Schrembs’ successor, assigned parish boundaries to St. Paul’s, which was not the intent of the founder, but that is what happened in history. And now we’re coming back to a point in time in the life of the church where those boundaries are in question again, whether they should be there or should the boundaries be removed, and should this just simply be a place of prayer and oratory in the midst of the city, as was originally intended?

Mark Souther [00:14:24] So on a typical Sunday, prior to when it became a parish church in 1949, so say from 1931 to 49, what would have happened on a typical Sunday? Since you would not necessarily, you wouldn’t have a parish, people would not go there as their parish home for worship, but they would go there on special occasions. What would happen on a Sunday?

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:14:47] Sunday, people from all over the city would come here, and it had a very. Where we read through the logs and the registers. This often was a place for people who would not fit or be at home in a typical parish church. We look at the children who were baptized, and many were baptized from single parents back in the thirties and the forties and the fifties, when that stigma would have been very strong. There has always been a segment of the gay community who has worshiped at St. Paul’s, where they would not necessarily feel comfortable in the traditional parish. We’ve always had sort of an odd mix of people who come simply because no one is from here, so everybody belongs. And there also would have been a very group of people who would have been very traditionally catholic and very devout in their own practices of the faith. And the response, the function of the parish or the church as a shrine would have been very appealing to them into that devotional Catholicism. It was also a practical thing. St. Paul’s had the last mass in the city at one time at 01:00 and my aunt remembers growing up and saying when they missed all the other masses, they knew they could go to St. Paul’s at 01:00 to catch the last mass in the city was at the shrine. So it would have been. It was a place in World War II, was a tremendous place of prayer for families with men and women in the armed services. Church was packed with people daily praying for their sons and daughters in the war. And that type of devotion continued on through the fifties and then began to wane as people began to move from the city. And the type of worship and style of devotion that was offered at the shrine declined in favor in the overall catholic church. But there were many missions. There were missions preached. A mission would be like a catholic form of a revival that they would bring in guest preachers to preach, and there would be 30 missions a year that would be held at the shrine. And it was that devotional preaching and three novenas were prayed each day, in addition to four or five daily masses and numbers of hours of confessions every day. So it served many people in many, many ways as a church without boundaries that anyone was welcome to attend.

Mark Souther [00:17:18] Could you tell me a little about the three orders of the church? Just briefly, if you could say what they do, what their focus is, and your view finally on after that, on how common or unusual is it to have three? I’m assuming it’s unusual to have three different orders in one building.

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:17:46] We believe it to be the only church in the United States where all three, the Franciscan family, is divided into three distinct branches. The first, we call them orders. The first order are the friar priests or the friars brothers, and priests who minister and serve sacramentally or serve the needs of the church as lay brothers. That’s the first order. The second order are Poor Clares. Poor Clares are a group of contemplative women. The order that they live in, enclosure and the ministry is a ministry of prayer. And the third order are, we call the secular Franciscans, or they used to be literally called the third order, and they are lay men and women who live and work in the world, but seek to shape and form their lives in the values of the Franciscan order. So the fact that all three of these communities, the friars, the Poor Clares, and the seculars, all minister and work in one place is most unusual, and that we cannot find another place in the United States that replicates this arrangement.

Mark Souther [00:18:59] For the secular Franciscans. Do they, how much time do they spend at the church? It would be quite different, I’m sure, from being a Poor Clare nun, not even nearly the same experience. But give me an idea, if you would, of what they would do in a typical week.

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:19:29] Most of their experience, of their expression, of their lifestyle, would be done outside of the church. It is done, and it’s more of a shaping of their lives into the values of Franciscanism and taking those values of the gospel, really, and living them in the workplace. They meet monthly, they have service projects that they do, and outreach into the community. They often gather for prayer once, some as they’re available during the week, almost all on Sunday. And it’s more, the secular Franciscans is more of taking what they learn in church and the values of Francis and Clare, of simple living, concern for creation, social justice, the life of the gospel, and then taking that and incorporating it in their lives, so they can live in the office that way and live in the home that way, and live at the mall that way, and take the values. So there’s very little focus at the church, but the focus is out in the world.

Mark Souther [00:20:33] Could you give me some examples of how being a church in what’s now called Midtown has reshaped the ministries of St. Paul, particularly after the area started to change. I’ve heard from a number of people about how this was an area that was invested with drugs and prostitution. It was a place that was rather unsavory, to say the least, in the 1970s, at least, and maybe a little before and after, although I don’t have a good timeline on that.

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:21:04] We were brought in. The bishop invited us in 1978 simply to try to. To serve the needs of the community as existed at that point. The diocesan priesthood is not necessarily geared to, often geared to social outreach and ministry. And that became more the focus of the shrine in the late seventies and throughout the eighties and nineties was there was a daily meal offered in the back building on the property, and there was more of a focus on caring for the needs of the poor who came to our door, and responding to the needs, monetary needs of those who were facing utility issues and rent crises and housing issues. But we became more of a center of attempting to be a stable presence, which all churches try to be a stable presence in a transitioning neighborhood. We came, we were invited because the neighborhood was thought to be pretty much hopeless and was hoping that it would be bottom out and we would be able to respond to new needs in the seventies and the eighties, and we did, and now it’s looking at new needs again, and the neighborhood has transitioned. We stopped the daily meal because it was no longer necessary. The neighborhood, particularly to the south of us in Central, has changed greatly. Actually, most of our parish boundaries are within central. They’re not in Midtown. Most of our parish is in Central. So the needs, and we’re shifting to try to meet those needs and realize what they are. And in conjunction with the plans that the diocese has for the downtown ministry and catholic ministry in downtown. So we’re at a pivotal point now where we’re at another moment of transition that we have been through before.

Mark Souther [00:22:57] Were the daily meals, was that part of the St. Peter Claver Hunger Center, or was that something different?

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:23:04] That was something entirely different. The St. Peter Claver Hunger Center was attached to St. Edward Church, which was on Woodland Avenue, which has since closed, that we have taken that ministry over, incorporating it with St. Paul’s Shrine. One of our capuchin friars runs the ministry now, Brother Hubbard’s Cupboard, and he runs that. But it was connected with another parish that we ran in another neighborhood, but we maintained that connection.

Mark Souther [00:23:35] What was the reason for the decline in need for the daily meals that have to do with exodus of population or more upward mobility within the neighborhood or some of those?

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:23:47] It was a little bit of everything. There was a change in the neighborhood. There was an increase in meals being offered elsewhere. With the arrival of the City Mission, which had not been here before, the Salvation army taking a couple complexes in the area, Trinity Cathedral began to engage in more of an outreach to the poor. So there was a shift in the demographics. There was an outmovement of population. There was an upward movement of our neighbors behind and south of us in central. With the new housing and the new life there outward from the city, the poor are moving often around, moving into the inner ring suburbs, and there’s been a shift in that whole sense of population. So it was determined that we still offer a Sunday meal. We offer meals to those who come to our door, but that there was, the daily meal was no longer considered to be essential because of the demographic change in the neighborhood.

Mark Souther [00:24:45] When was that demographic change?

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:24:47] That would be in the early nineties.

Mark Souther [00:24:50] You mentioned that the neighborhood is in transition now. There are new needs. Could you tell me some of those needs?

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:24:58] We’re still exploring them, to be honest. I mean, there isn’t what we call our street traffic is down considerably. And I think this sort of the need is. I see the need more as going back to what our original mission was, is to be a place of house of prayer and welcome in the midst of the city. As we’re seeing the corridor begin to come to some completion in our area, we watch the streets and there are just changes in the people, changes in the patterns, and we’re waiting to see if there’s any. How development is going to take place in the neighborhood. Is there going to be housing going up? We don’t know where the neighborhood’s going. And that’s very fascinating to see. And we’re waiting now, and we’re all working in conjunction with the diocese in a realignment of ministry within the city. And how are we going to contribute and cooperate with that. But I think our hope is to remain a presence, remain a stable presence, and be a house of hospitality and a place of refuge for those who need a quiet place to pray in the middle of the city.

Mark Souther [00:26:13] It strikes me that since this area is being touted as the next technology corridor or business corridor, that there might be an opportunity for St. Paul’s to do a lot of outreach to business. Is that a possibility?

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:26:29] Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And we are the only catholic presence on Euclid Avenue in the city of Cleveland. And a lot of that would be connecting businesses to social outreach, connecting the business community to Brother Hubbard’s Cupboard, connecting local businesses to diocesan programs, to catholic charities, to our Sunday meal, and connecting those being that connective tissue that can take pull a corporate group into the social service needs of the city for them, the people, for the residents here, because the corporate people aren’t here at night, they’re not here on the weekend, which is when a lot of our social activity happens. We also have a very strong outreach to the twelve step community and see that as more than a band aid, but a permanent solution for healing and reconciliation, and people restoring their lives and their ability to function in societies through their own recovery from addiction. And we see that as a very important outreach from St. Paul’s for a presence in the community and fitting that need that is so vital, and fewer and fewer places are able to offer that anymore, that meeting space for that work to be done.

Mark Souther [00:27:46] I know that your time is running short, short now. And so I wanted to ask one final question. It takes us back to the building itself. It occurred to me that I didn’t ask you maybe to describe a little bit of the symbolism in the windows. If there are any particular images that strike you in the stained glass windows or anywhere else that you find significant.

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:28:09] The strikingness is in style, very, very candidly. The episcopal windows are much simpler. They’re almost a painted glass with vague symbolism in them. The windows, the Zettler windows are striking in their rich, very bold coloring. There’s a beautiful window of St. Clare. And the tradition of St. Clare in the monastery in Assisi in Italy was under siege at one point in time by an invading army. And Clare was a woman of poor health, but ranged up, went up into the roof of the monastery and a porch and held the blessed Sacrament out over the invading army. And the tradition is that they all dispersed as they saw this woman standing on the roof praying over them. There’s a beautiful, beautiful rendering of that in stained glass and also a eucharistic communion of saints that has the monstrance, which is the vessel that holds the blessed sacrament in the church, surrounded by a group of saints, some very unusual, but who had a devotion, particularly devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. It’s a very striking window. There’s a window of the Last Supper, which is unusual in that Jesus is offering communion to his mother Mary, which is a rather old devotional type window. And there’s a window about purgatory where the mass is being celebrated above, and the souls of purgatory are still in the purgatorial fires, if you will, waiting to. To be freed by the celebration of the mass and the prayers of your Church here. They’re striking in their color and in their detail. They were recently all restored so that they’ve been re-leaded and are in really excellent repair and should last in that way for many years to come.

Mark Souther [00:30:04] Is there anything else you would like to add before we close? Anything that we haven’t covered that you’d like to talk about?

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:30:09] Well, we recently received a stewardship award from the Cleveland Restoration Society, recognizing about ten years of efforts of repairing, restoring the church. And we can still continue to see churches on neighborhood corners as to be vital to the glue of the structuring of a city. And we’re the anchors that help hold neighborhoods together. And Cleveland, I fear we’ll be losing a number of anchors in the weeks, in the years to come. We just hope to continue to remain that place on Euclid Avenue in the corridor that is a place of welcome, a place of hospitality, and a place of prayer in an incredibly beautiful structure. It’s always so affirming to me to have people come for weddings, principally from all over the country, New York, Chicago, California. They walk into St. Paul’s and they look at it and they say, I can’t believe this is in Cleveland. We think we’ve gone to Europe. And so many people comment walking and worshiping in St. Paul’s, so they feel they’ve stepped into a European, an ancient European church. And it’s good to have it here. And it’s a proud, I think, a very proud piece of Cleveland’s architectural and spiritual history.

Mark Souther [00:31:28] Is it. One final question actually related to that. Is it in better condition for being associated with the three orders than if it were a regular diocesan church in terms of the cuts that we foresee in the future unfortunately?

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:31:43] We’re in the midst of that ourselves. Even though we are an ordered church, we still are responsible to the bishop of Cleveland. And he ultimately does hold some sway, major sway, not some. I don’t want him to hear this, but, yes, some sway. We are, in fact, the sisters because of a unique relationship. The sisters are. The bishop holds the title for the church, for the sisters, which is most unusual, so that it is a conventual church. And in fact, the sisters remaining in the presence will allow a presence to continue. And I think it will be up to the religious orders working together to create a vibrant new presence in the midst of a new setting and a new situation for the church in Cleveland, we will continue to remain a house of worship, and how that is going to pan out and unfold in the years ahead is known only to God at this point.

Mark Souther [00:32:40] Thanks very much.

Fr. Phillip Bernier [00:32:42] My pleasure. Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you. Good questions. Good questions.

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