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A Gothic Yuletide | St. Patrick's Cathedral Crypt · The Grim: Haunted Cemeteries & Graveyard Tales

0:13
Kristin: Grim morning and welcome to the Grim.
0:16
Kristin: I'm your host, Kristin.
0:18
Kristin: On today's episode, we'll be opening the gate and entering the crypt in St.
0:22
Kristin: Patrick's Cathedral, located in New York City, New York.
0:25
Kristin: The aroma of coffee mingles in the air.
0:28
Kristin: The gates stand open.
0:30
Kristin: Step carefully.
0:31
Kristin: It's starting to descend into the hauntings of history.
0:34
Kristin: It's the week of Christmas, dear listeners, if you celebrate.
0:39
Kristin: As the season settles in, many make their way to the Big Apple, drawn by a city that knows how to dress itself in life.
0:46
Kristin: New York gleams in December, its streets draped in garland and tinsel reflections, alive with anticipation, and the cold air curling like smoke around hurried footsteps.
0:57
Kristin: Rockefeller Center is often the first pilgrimage.
1:00
Kristin: Central Park follows, hushed beneath winter's weight, and then their St.
1:04
Kristin: Patrick's Cathedral, rising pale and unyielding along Fifth Avenue.
1:09
Kristin: Its gothic spires cutting through the glow of storefronts and traffic, like something older, steadier, and indifferent to the season's spectacle.
1:18
Kristin: Some of you might be among the parishioners who often return year after year, quietly securing your place at midnight mass as part of a tradition passed down through family and faith.
1:29
Kristin: Others may watch from home, the soft glow of Christmas trees reflecting in your screen, listening as bells echo into the cold night.
1:37
Kristin: However, you arrive, through bronze doors or by the way of live stream, the cathedral welcomes millions each year, drawn not only by its beauty but by the quiet promise of belonging.
1:48
Kristin: But tonight we're not here for its beauty, nor its midnight mass.
1:52
Kristin: We're here for what lies beneath.
1:54
Kristin: More than twenty archbishops and cardinals are buried below St.
1:57
Kristin: Patrick's Cathedral.
1:58
Kristin: Their remains sealed within brick-lined crypts and marble tombs.
2:02
Kristin: Names once spoken with authority and reverence now survive only in engraved stone.
2:07
Kristin: Hughes, Farley, Spellden, and Coop.
2:10
Kristin: There were shepherds of a city swollen with immigrants and grief, men who presided over Christmas masses, while influenza crept through its tenements, while telegrams delivered news of lost souls overseas, while hunger lingered and fires devoured entire blocks, and death they remained where they served, directly below the altar.
2:31
Kristin: Before we descend into the crypts, we must first understand the story of the cathedral above them, its ambition, its trials, and the hands that built it.
2:40
Kristin: The Diocese of New York was founded in 1808 by Pope Pius VII, and soon after St.
2:46
Kristin: Patrick's was established to serve the city's small but growing Catholic population.
2:51
Kristin: The original St.
2:52
Kristin: Patrick's, what's now called the Old Cathedral, was dedicated in 1850 on Mulberry Street, accommodating just 15,000 Catholics at the time, but by the mid-19th century the Catholic community had swelled to more than 200,000, many of them Irish immigrants fleeing famine and hardship.
3:11
Kristin: The Old Cathedral, though, could no longer hold them.
3:14
Kristin: In 1810, a parcel of land on Fifth Avenue, between 50th and 51st Street, was purchased by the Reverend Anthony Coleman.
3:22
Kristin: At the time it lay far north of the city proper, a quiet rocky stretch of ground where Manhattan thinned into the countryside.
3:30
Kristin: A Jesuit college rose there, along with a small chapel dedicated to St.
3:34
Kristin: Ignatius.
3:35
Kristin: Its presence modest but deliberate.
3:38
Kristin: By 1840, the diocese repurposed the property, transforming it into a parish church and orphanage.
3:44
Kristin: Trappist monks fleeing persecution in France care for the children until their return home in 1815.
3:51
Kristin: Around them, the neighborhood remained sparse, early streets sketched into stone and dirt, hinting at a future not yet imagined.
3:59
Kristin: By 1850, Archbishop John Joseph Hughes understood the growing Catholic population could no longer be contained by its downtown cathedral.
4:08
Kristin: He envisioned something bolder, a Gothic monument rising along Fifth Avenue, a dedication of faith and permanence in a city where Catholics were still met with suspicion and hostility.
4:20
Kristin: In 1853, Hughes commissioned the architectural firm of Renwick and Rodrigue, entrusting the project to James Renwick Jr., a young architect deeply influenced by the great cathedrals of Europe, including Cologne.
4:33
Kristin: Renwick's original plans were grand with soaring spires, flying buttresses, and an elaborate ambulatory, yet ambitions soon met with reality.
4:42
Kristin: Hughes requested modifications, scaling the design to make room for clergy residences, and removing several buttresses and chapels.
4:51
Kristin: Even so, when the cornerstone was laid on August 15, 1858, more than 100,000 people gathered.
4:58
Kristin: A crowd drawn not just by ceremony, but to the promise of what this building would become.
5:04
Kristin: But such ambition came at a cost.
5:06
Kristin: Money was always a problem.
5:08
Kristin: From the beginning, this cathedral was built in defiance of scarcity.
5:12
Kristin: James Renwick insisted on white marble, stone quarried from Pleasantville, New York.
5:17
Kristin: Beautiful, durable, and ruinously expensive.
5:20
Kristin: Fronton blocks were hauled into place as foundations were carved into shallow bedrock.
5:25
Kristin: Progress though was slow, painfully slow, and then came the setbacks.
5:30
Kristin: A stonecutter's strike brought the work to a standstill, and then the Civil War erupted.
5:36
Kristin: Construction stopped altogether.
5:38
Kristin: Archbishop John Hughes, the cathedral's great champion, would never see its completion.
5:43
Kristin: When he died, the burden passed to those who followed.
5:46
Kristin: Men like John McCulski, who inherited not just an unfinished church, but an unfinished promise.
5:52
Kristin: They raised money where they could, negotiated contracts, and refused to let the project collapse under its own weight.
5:59
Kristin: By the late 1860s, the walls finally began to rise again.
6:03
Kristin: Marble climbed skyward along Fifth Avenue.
6:06
Kristin: Stained glass, some of it once displayed at the World's Fair, was set into place.
6:10
Kristin: Washing the nave in muted reds, blues, and golds.
6:14
Kristin: The roof was then laid down.
6:16
Kristin: Scaffolding filled the interior like a skeleton waiting for its flesh.
6:20
Kristin: And then on November 29, 1877, the doors opened, unfinished, unpolished, but standing.
6:28
Kristin: Fundraisers in the year that followed drew crowds by the hundreds of thousands, and in 1879, St.
6:34
Kristin: Patrick's Cathedral was formally dedicated, not as a monument to wealth or ease, but as a testament to endurance, faith, and survival.
6:43
Kristin: Every stone, every pane of glass, every detail, from the vaulted ceilings above to the crypts below, tells a story of ambition and struggle.
6:53
Kristin: This is a cathedral shaped by hands hardened by labor and by hearts hardened through prejudice, loss, and persistence.
7:00
Kristin: It's in this context that the spaces beneath the cathedral take on their full meaning.
7:05
Kristin: The new St.
7:06
Kristin: Patrick's Cathedral officially opened on May 25, 1879, attended by 35 bishops and six archbishops.
7:14
Kristin: The reaction was swift and divided.
7:17
Kristin: Some newspapers were openly admiring.
7:19
Kristin: The Baltimore Sun called St.
7:21
Kristin: Patrick's the finest church edifice on the American continent.
7:25
Kristin: Others, though, were far less generous.
7:27
Kristin: Journalist Clarence Cook dismissed the facade as repetitive, the interior as paltry.
7:32
Kristin: Criticisms that years later, architectural historian Robert A.
7:36
Kristin: M.
7:37
Kristin: Stern would argue were rooted less in design and more in religious and ethnic prejudice.
7:42
Kristin: But praise or protests the cathedral endured.
7:45
Kristin: Alongside Temple and Manuel, St.
7:47
Kristin: Patrick's claimed a place on Midtown Fifth Avenue, making it one of the first non-Protestant houses of worship to rise there, at a time when the neighborhood itself was still on the city's margins.
7:58
Kristin: It was not being merely just judged, it was being allowed, or not, to belong.
8:04
Kristin: James Renwick Jr.
8:05
Kristin: continued shaping the cathedral's world beyond its walls.
8:08
Kristin: He designed the Archbishop's house and rectory on Madison Avenue.
8:12
Kristin: Buildings meant to anchor the church's presence nearby.
8:16
Kristin: Even these drew criticism.
8:18
Kristin: Their dormant windows were mocked as absurd, reminders that scrutiny followed the cathedral in every form it took.
8:25
Kristin: Money once again slowed everything.
8:28
Kristin: The spires, those unmistakable twin towers, were delayed for years.
8:32
Kristin: Only in 1885 were the funds finally secured.
8:36
Kristin: Three years later, in October of 1888, they rose at last, towering over Fifth Avenue, briefly becoming the tall structures in New York City, a declaration at last, that the cathedral was not temporary, it was here to stay.
8:51
Kristin: Inside, however, the work remained unfinished, a ceiling of plaster and wood, but only as a placeholder was never replaced.
9:00
Kristin: Shortages persisted.
9:02
Kristin: Completion was always just out of reach.
9:04
Kristin: The bells then came next, tested in 1889, then replaced by a French set blessed in 1897.
9:11
Kristin: Their number eventually grew to 19, more than any other church in the city.
9:16
Kristin: The cathedral might have been incomplete, but it would no longer be quiet.
9:20
Kristin: At the turn of the century, one final promise remained unfulfilled.
9:25
Kristin: In 1899, Margaret A.
9:27
Kristin: Kelly left $200,000 for the construction of Lady Chapel, stipulating it be built only after her death.
9:35
Kristin: It was an act of faith deferred, a gift meant for the future she would never see.
9:39
Kristin: Architect Charles T.
9:41
Kristin: Matthews was chosen to bring the chapel to life.
9:43
Kristin: He traveled through Europe, studying shrines and sanctuaries shaped by his centuries of devotion.
9:49
Kristin: When construction began in 1901, it was with the understanding that this would not merely be an addition, but a cultimation.
9:57
Kristin: On Christmas Day in 1906, the first Mass was celebrated within the Lady Chapel.
10:03
Kristin: By 1908, its interior was complete, at a cost far exceeding its original bequest.
10:09
Kristin: And at last, in 1910, the cathedral's long-standing debt was cleared.
10:15
Kristin: After decades of delay, interruption, and unfinished work, St.
10:19
Kristin: Patrick's Cathedral was finally ready.
10:22
Kristin: On October 5, 1910, it was formally consecrated.
10:26
Kristin: And yet for all those years of labor and longing, the cathedral began with loss.
10:31
Kristin: The first man laid to rest beneath St.
10:33
Kristin: Patrick's never lived to see it finished.
10:35
Kristin: John Joseph Hughes, New York's first archbishop, was born in Ireland in 1797 and ordained at Maynooth College in 1817.
10:45
Kristin: He arrived in New York in 1826 as a young priest in a city raw with prejudice, where Irish immigrants poured ashore hungry and exhausted, and the anti-Catholic sentiment simmered openly in the streets.
10:59
Kristin: Hughes just didn't join them, though, he became their defender.
11:02
Kristin: He founded schools, established parishes, and fought relentlessly for a community the city often wished would disappear.
11:10
Kristin: His fiery temperament and refusal to yield earned him the nickname Dagger John, a reference to the cross-shaped slash that cut through his signature like a blade.
11:19
Kristin: In 1842, Hughes was named the first Archbishop of New York.
11:24
Kristin: From that moment on, he committed himself to a single unyielding vision, a cathedral that would stand in plain sight, permanent, visible, immovable, within a city openly hostile to its presence.
11:37
Kristin: For more than twenty years he endured skepticism, financial strain, and the slow agony of construction, all ministering to a population shaped by famine, poverty, riots, and war.
11:50
Kristin: When Hughes died in January in 1864, the Civil War still raged.
11:55
Kristin: The walls of St.
11:56
Kristin: Patrick stood unfinished.
11:58
Kristin: He never saw Christmas lights along Fifth Avenue, never heard midnight mass echo through the marble vaults.
12:04
Kristin: What he knew instead were famine ships heavy with grief, draft riots fueled by hatred, and a city unsure whether Catholics or their churches truly belonged.
12:16
Kristin: He was laid to rest beneath the high altar of the cathedral that existed more in faith than in stone.
12:22
Kristin: What rose above Fifth Avenue after his death was not simply a cathedral, but a conviction made permanent, when buried with him beneath its walls.
12:31
Kristin: If Hughes was fire, John McCulski was endurance.
12:35
Kristin: Born in Brooklyn in 1810 to Irish immigrant parents, McCulski grew up in a hardship so complete that there was no Catholic Church in his borough at all, as the boy he rode across the East River just to attend Mass in Manhattan, a small but stubborn act that would define the rest of his life.
12:53
Kristin: A near fatal accident on his family farm later left him frail and temporarily blind.
12:58
Kristin: It was a quiet brush with morality that lingered, shaping his restraint and caution long after his strength returned.
13:05
Kristin: He studied at Mount St.
13:07
Kristin: Mary's in Emmitsburg, where he became known for being measured, thoughtful, and disciplined.
13:12
Kristin: Ordained in 1834, McCulski served wherever he was needed.
13:16
Kristin: Old St.
13:17
Kristin: Patrick's Cathedral, Bellevue Hospital, St.
13:20
Kristin: Joseph's Seminary.
13:21
Kristin: When he traveled to Rome, he returned not with ambition, but with perspective, and the patience to wait.
13:27
Kristin: In 1847, he was named the first bishop of Albany, charged with shepherding a vast and impoverished diocese of immigrants.
13:35
Kristin: He built what was necessary: churches, schools, orphanages, seminaries.
13:41
Kristin: Among them rose the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.
13:44
Kristin: Foundations laid not for spectacle but for survival.
13:48
Kristin: After Hugh's death, Mikulsky reluctantly took on leadership of the New York Archdiocese.
13:53
Kristin: Under his quiet stewardship, construction of the new St.
13:56
Kristin: Patrick's resumed after the Civil War.
13:59
Kristin: In 1875, he became the first American cardinal, a recognition not just of one man, but of a faith that endured long enough to be acknowledged.
14:08
Kristin: His health though was fragile.
14:10
Kristin: Illness returned again and again.
14:12
Kristin: Still Mikulski pressed on, expanding the archdiocese, establishing 88 new parishes, and guiding New York's Catholics through a city that remained wary of them.
14:23
Kristin: When he died in 1885, he left behind institutions meant to outlast him.
14:28
Kristin: Today he rests beneath the main altar, a quiet custodian of the Marvel Knave and soaring towers he helped bring into being.
14:36
Kristin: When McCulski governed gently, Michael Augustine Corrigan governed firmly.
14:41
Kristin: Born in Newark in 1839, the fifth of nine children of Irish immigrants, Corrigan was shaped by discipline and education.
14:50
Kristin: His father's successful business afforded him opportunities rare for immigrant families.
14:55
Kristin: Studies in Wilmington, Emmitsburg, and Europe, cultivating in the ordation at the Basilica of St.
15:00
Kristin: John Lateran in Rome in 1863.
15:03
Kristin: Corrigan returned to America as a scholar and administrator.
15:07
Kristin: He taught theology, led Seaton Hall, and at just 34 became the youngest Catholic bishop in the United States.
15:14
Kristin: In 1880, he was named coadjunctor to McCloskey, and five years later Archbishop of New York.
15:21
Kristin: His tenure, though, was marked by tension, a committed conservative at Corgan championed parochial schools and national parishes, often clashing with clergy who flavored more of an Americanized church.
15:33
Kristin: His conflict with Father Edward McGlynn, whose labor activism led to removal and temporary excommunication, divided the city and exposed fault lines within the Catholic leadership.
15:44
Kristin: Corrigan's treatment of Italian immigrants drew criticism as well, relegating many debasement chapels apart from Irish congregations.
15:52
Kristin: Yet even he bented times.
15:55
Kristin: In 1889, he welcomed Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini and her sisters at the Pope's insistence.
16:01
Kristin: Setting in motion one of the most transformative missions in American Catholic history, Gorrigan oversaw the construction of St.
16:09
Kristin: Joseph's Seminary at Dunwoody and strengthened the diocese structures across a rapidly changing city.
16:15
Kristin: When he died in 1902, he left behind an archdiocese reshaped by authority, conflict, and institutional strength.
16:24
Kristin: He remains though a complicated presence in the crypt, a reminder that faith is not practiced outside of power, but within it.
16:32
Kristin: Beneath the high altar, the crypt becomes a ledger, not only of faith, but of influence.
16:37
Kristin: Here lie the men who shaped Catholic life in New York as the city grew louder, richer, more divided, and more visible to the world.
16:45
Kristin: John Murphy Farley entered a cathedral finally risen from decades of struggle, and an archdiocese still learning how to stand.
16:53
Kristin: Born in Ireland in 1842, he immigrated to the United States as a child.
16:58
Kristin: He studied for priesthood in France and Rome, gaining a perspective that stretched far beyond New York City's streets.
17:05
Kristin: Ordained in 1870, he moved steadily through the church's hierarchy, eventually becoming Archbishop of New York in 1902 following Corrigan's death.
17:14
Kristin: Farley's most enduring act was consecration.
17:18
Kristin: On October 5, 1910, more than 50 years after the cornerstone was first laid, he formally consecrated St.
17:25
Kristin: Patrick's Cathedral.
17:27
Kristin: At last, he whose vision was realized, a cathedral complete, a church present, permanent, and respected in the heart of the city.
17:35
Kristin: He guided the archdiocese through ways of immigration, labor unrest, and the opening years of World War I.
17:42
Kristin: He expanded charitable institutions and new parishes, balancing growth with diplomacy, never seeking spectacle, but always insisting on steadiness.
17:52
Kristin: When he died in 1918, the city mourned quietly.
17:55
Kristin: He rests out beneath the cathedral he helped finish, a figure whose legacy is not measured in stone but in completion, and the final act of bringing a decades-long dream to rest.
18:06
Kristin: After Farley, Patrick Joseph Hayes took office in the shadow of war and pandemic.
18:11
Kristin: Born in Manhattan in 1867, Hayes was New York bred, shaped by its neighborhoods and its streets.
18:19
Kristin: Ordained in Rome, he returned to serve as Chancellor of the Archdiocese and later Bishop of Pittsburgh before becoming Archbishop of New York in 1919.
18:29
Kristin: He guided the church through the roaring twenties and the Great Depression, years of access and collapse.
18:36
Kristin: He expanded Catholic education, strengthened relief efforts, and cautiously supported labor rights.
18:42
Kristin: Hayes valued order and discipline, and in a world teetering on chaos, he provided it.
18:48
Kristin: His mark of the skyline was tangible.
18:50
Kristin: The seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington, and the Catholic Center near St.
18:56
Kristin: Patrick's, buildings that declared permanence in uncertain times.
19:00
Kristin: When he died in 1938, the city teetered on another brink of global war.
19:05
Kristin: He rest beneath a cathedral that became more than a church, a civic gathering place in times of fear.
19:11
Kristin: No figure in the crypt though cast a longer shadow than Spellman.
19:15
Kristin: Born in Massachusetts in 1889, Spellman rose with remarkable speed.
19:21
Kristin: Educated in Rome, fluent in Vatican politics, he became an Archbishop of New York in 1939 and a cardinal shortly after.
19:29
Kristin: He inherited an archdiocese on the brink of World War II and transformed it into a global center of Catholic influence.
19:37
Kristin: Spellman was not a quiet shepherd, he was a power broker, a commandant of presidents, and a constant presence at the White House.
19:45
Kristin: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kennedy.
19:48
Kristin: His relationships tied the church to national life itself.
19:51
Kristin: During World War II and the Korean War, he traveled extensively to visit American troops, earning the nickname the G.I.'s Cardinal.
19:59
Kristin: Anti-communist, he later drew criticism for supporting the Vietnam War.
20:04
Kristin: Under Spellman, schools, hospitals, and universities multiplied.
20:09
Kristin: Authority was centralized, dissent often contained.
20:13
Kristin: Admirers saw strength, critics saw secrecy.
20:16
Kristin: When he died in 1967, he left an empire, vast, efficient, and deeply influential.
20:22
Kristin: Beneath the altar, he rests as a reminder of how closely faith and power once walked together, and how difficult they are to separate.
20:31
Kristin: After the G.
20:31
Kristin: I's Cardinal Terence James Cook couldn't have been a more different figurehead of the church.
20:37
Kristin: Born in New York City in 1921, Cook came of age in the church in transition.
20:42
Kristin: Ordained in 1945, he rose during the era of the Vatican II, embracing reform, humility, and pastoral outreach.
20:51
Kristin: When he became Archbishop of New York in 1968, he inherited a church unsettled by war, civic rights struggles, and internal fracture.
21:00
Kristin: Cook rejected spectacles and favored presence.
21:03
Kristin: Under his guidance, the Archdiocese expanded ministries to prisoners, immigrants, and the chronically ill.
21:10
Kristin: The long-standing Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital was renamed the Terrence Cardinal Cook Healthcare Center, gearing his name into the city's mission of care for the vulnerable.
21:19
Kristin: More than a brick or policy, his work was about attention, compassion, and steady guidance.
21:26
Kristin: Yet gentleness didn't shield him from controversy.
21:29
Kristin: His firm adherence to church teachings on sexuality and authority sometimes put him at odds with the progressive clergy and those pressing for rapid change.
21:38
Kristin: He governed quietly but decisively, earning both loyalty and criticism.
21:43
Kristin: Cook died of leukemia in 1983.
21:46
Kristin: Devotion to his memory grew quickly.
21:49
Kristin: In 1992, the Catholic Church formally opened his cause for sainthood, recognizing him as a servant of God, a steadfore decantonization that honors the holiness many saw in his life.
22:00
Kristin: Beneath the cathedral he rests as a figure shaped as much by restraint as resolve.
22:06
Kristin: A shepherd's legacy is about presence, care, and conscience.
22:10
Kristin: Quietly watching over a city, he served.
22:13
Kristin: But the next voice's rise within the Archdiocese would sound very different.
22:18
Kristin: John Joseph O'Connor arrived in New York not as a diplomat or shepherd, but as a commander.
22:24
Kristin: Born in Philadelphia in 1920, O'Connor served as a naval chaplain during World War II and later as chief of chaplains in the U.S.
22:32
Kristin: Navy.
22:32
Kristin: The discipline of the military life never left him.
22:36
Kristin: Appointed Archbishop of New York in 1984, he brought a direct, uncompromising public voice.
22:42
Kristin: To a church navigating moral uncertainty, O'Connor became one of the most visible Catholic leaders in America.
22:49
Kristin: He spoke forcefully against abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment, challenging political orthodoxies on both sides.
22:57
Kristin: During the AIDS crisis, he expanded care for the sick even as his moral positions provoked anger and protests beyond these walls.
23:04
Kristin: He was also among the first prominent church leaders to confront clergy's sexual abuse publicly, calling for reform before the full scope of the crisis wasn't even known.
23:15
Kristin: His response was imperfect and shaped by institutional limits, but his refusal to remain silent marked a shift toward accountability to the church.
23:24
Kristin: O'Connor died in 2000, closing out the century.
23:27
Kristin: He was buried beneath St.
23:28
Kristin: Patrick's as a man who believed the moral authority demanded voice, and that silence, in the presence of suffering, carried its own weight.
23:37
Kristin: But the next legacy beneath the cathedral would be defined not by voice, but by reckoning.
23:42
Kristin: Edward Egan's tenure was brief and burdened.
23:46
Kristin: A scholar and Vatican diplomat, Egan became archbishop at a dawn of a century already marked by fracture.
23:52
Kristin: During his leadership, the clergy abuse crisis erupted in a public view, testing the church's credibility, its compassion, and its capacity for truth.
24:02
Kristin: His responses drew sharp criticism.
24:05
Kristin: In later years, Egan acknowledged failures in how the crisis was first handled, an admission that came too late for many who had already been harmed.
24:13
Kristin: He retired in 2009 and died in 2015.
24:17
Kristin: His presence in the crypt stands as a reminder that not all legacies grow gentler with time, and that institutions, like cathedrals, cast long shadows over those who lead them.
24:29
Kristin: And yet not every voice connected to this place spoke from the altar.
24:33
Kristin: Some spoke from the airwaves.
24:35
Kristin: Fulton Sheen didn't need stone walls to be heard.
24:38
Kristin: His voice traveled through wires and waves into living rooms and late night silence, even as he remained at times alone in the presence of power.
24:46
Kristin: Born Peter John Sheen in 1895 in El Paso, Illinois, he took the name Fulton from his mother.
24:53
Kristin: From an early age he showed brilliance and devotion, surviving childhood tuberculosis, excelling in school, and answering the call to priesthood.
25:02
Kristin: By the 1920s, he was already a celebrated theologian, earning the Cardinal Mercer Prize in Philosophy and teaching at the Catholic University of America.
25:11
Kristin: Sheen's voice would eventually reach far beyond the classroom.
25:15
Kristin: For two decades, he captivated the nation on radio and then on television with Life is Worth Living and the Fulton Sheen program.
25:23
Kristin: His golden voice in charisma drew audiences of millions, many non-Catholics, and won him Emmy Awards.
25:30
Kristin: He converted prominent figures, challenged world leaders, and wielded words like a sword, reading Shakespeare to rally against Stalin, calling the Axis powers agents of evil, and insisting that holiness must confront sin directly.
25:45
Kristin: Yet for all his fame, Sheen was no stranger to conflict.
25:49
Kristin: Within the church his brilliance clashed with authority, Cardinal Francis Spelman, then head of the Archdiocese of New York, pressured Sheen over funds donated to missions, leading to Sheen's removal from television and the eventual reassignment as Bishop of Rochester.
26:05
Kristin: Sheen accepted the move quietly, referring only vaguely to trials inside and outside the church.
26:11
Kristin: But his independence and moral insistence left a mark on those who knew the truth.
26:16
Kristin: As Bishop of Rochester, Sheen continued to challenge injustice and champion ecumenical dialogue, but not without friction.
26:23
Kristin: His attempts to use parish property for affordable housing for black residents were met with protest and disagreement, a rare instance where his idealism collided with both buiocracy and public opinion.
26:35
Kristin: Sheen's final years were devoted to writing, prayer, and teaching.
26:40
Kristin: He authored more than 70 books and countless articles, remaining faithful to his belief that truth could be communicated to the hearts of ordinary people, whether in living rooms across America or quiet study halls.
26:52
Kristin: He died in 1979 praying before the Blessed Sacrament in his private chapel, originally interred in St.
26:59
Kristin: Patrick's Cathedral near the Archbishops of New York.
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Kristin: His remains were later transferred to his home diocese of Peoria, Illinois.
27:06
Kristin: After a long legal and estolastical dispute, Sheen's wrote to Sainthood continues to this day.
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Kristin: He's now styled venerable, recognized for heroic virtue, through his debates about his life and decisions, particularly the moments of church politics.
27:21
Kristin: Here lies a man who met the modern world without fear, who spoke to millions, and who nonetheless knew the solitude of conscious.
27:29
Kristin: Together these men lie beneath Saint Patrick's, visionaries, administrators, shepherds, and power brokers.
27:36
Kristin: Above them, sunlight pours through stained glass, painting the stone in colors of devotion.
27:41
Kristin: Below them, history murmurs restless and unresolved for some.
27:45
Kristin: And yet as you pause before one name in the crypt, something immediately feels different.
27:51
Kristin: There's no title carved beside it, no bishop, no archbishop, no cardinal, only a man who lived his faith in action, whose quiet charity opened doors and hearts alike.
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Kristin: Pierre Toussaint is the only layperson buried beneath the high altar of St.
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Kristin: Patrick's Cathedral.
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Kristin: A quiet disruption in a space long reserved for power.
28:12
Kristin: He was born into slavery in 1766 in Saint Domingue, now modern-day Haiti.
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Kristin: His great grandmother was taken from Africa and sold into bondage.
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Kristin: His grandmother and his mother followed.
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Kristin: Raised Catholic on the plantation along the Artibanite River, Pierre learned faith early, not as comfort but as endurance.
28:33
Kristin: When revolution swept Haiti, he was carried north with his enslavers, arriving in New York City at the end of the 18th century, a city that condemned slavery in theory while practicing it in life.
28:44
Kristin: Harry was apprenticed as a hairdresser, styling the powdered wigs and careful curls of Manhattan's elite.
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Kristin: He dressed the wealthy while living without freedom.
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Kristin: Pierre was not freed by purchase or petition.
28:57
Kristin: In 1807, as the woman who enslaved him lay dying, she made her husband promise that Pierre would be free.
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Kristin: After her death, that promise was kept.
29:06
Kristin: Toussaint walked into freedom not by Law's generosity, but from a vow made at the edge of a grave.
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Kristin: What followed was not bitterness, but resolve.
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Kristin: Toussaint became one of New York's most sought-after hairdressers, serving Protestant women who admired his gentleness, discipline, and unfailing charity.
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Kristin: Many called him Saint Pierre, long before Rome ever considered the name.
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Kristin: With his earnings, he purchased his sister's freedom.
29:33
Kristin: He then later secured the freedom of the woman he loved, Juliette Noel, and the two built a life together, bound by love and devotion.
29:41
Kristin: Together they turned to their home into a refuge.
29:44
Kristin: They sheltered orphans, educated foster children, fed the hungry, cared for yellow fever victims when others fled the city.
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Kristin: Pierre attended daily mass for more than sixty years, not here, but at St.
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Kristin: Peter's, because segregation and custom often push black Catholics to the margins of parish life.
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Kristin: And here is the quiet contradiction that follows him into the crypt.
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Kristin: Pierre Toussaint helped fund Catholic institutions that would not admit children of his own race.
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Kristin: He raised money for orphans that excluded black children.
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Kristin: He supported schools that barred black students.
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Kristin: He gave away, not because the system was just, but because the need was real.
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Kristin: His charity didn't wait for permission to be righteous.
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Kristin: He helped finance old St.
30:30
Kristin: Patrick's Cathedral on Mulberry Street.
30:32
Kristin: He organized informal credit networks, found work and housing for Haitian refugees.
30:38
Kristin: Long before Catholic charities had a name, Pierre Saint was doing its work without authority, without security, without recognition.
30:46
Kristin: When he died in 1853, at the age of 87, his funeral filled the church.
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Kristin: The poor stood behind the powerful, like mourners beside New York's elite.
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Kristin: He was buried quietly beside his wife and adopted daughter.
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Kristin: More than a century later, though, his body was exhumed.
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Kristin: As the church opened his cause for sainthood, Pierre Toussaint was interred here, beneath the main altar of St.
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Kristin: Patrick's Cathedral, the first and only lay person ever granted that honor.
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Kristin: Not because he commanded, not because he governed, but because he served.
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Kristin: In a crypt filled with men who wielded authority, Pierre Toussaint represents something rarer.
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Kristin: Holiness without office, faith without recognition, charity practice inside an unjust world without pretending it was fair.
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Kristin: Above him, the cathedral rises in marble and light.
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Kristin: Around him lie the princes of the church, yet it's Pierre Toussaint, once enslaved, once excluded, who rests the closest to the altar.
31:45
Kristin: In 1997 he was declared venerable by Pope John Paul II, a milestone on the path towards sainthood for a man many believed already lived in.
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Kristin: His grave reminds us that the gift of giving, even after enduring human cruelty, is measured not in wealth or title, but in deeds.
32:03
Kristin: Despite its hauntingly beautiful grounds, St.
32:06
Kristin: Patrick's Cathedral is not known for restless spirits or wandering shades.
32:11
Kristin: That may disappoint some, but for those hoping to wed within its walls, perhaps it's a blessing.
32:17
Kristin: For many, St.
32:18
Kristin: Patrick's means midnight mass, a tourist stop or gothic masterpiece.
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Kristin: Yet for the cardinals who served within its soaring nave, it has become a place of eternal rest, beneath its spires, tucked into the quiet shadows of its crypt.
32:33
Kristin: For now the stories of St.
32:34
Kristin: Patrick slid back into the gleaming gothic marble, and the dead return to their uneasy rest.
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Kristin: Yet they're never silent for long.
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Kristin: Thank you for walking with us through the veil into the crypt in St.
32:46
Kristin: Patrick's Cathedral, descending once more into the hauntings of history.
32:51
Kristin: The gate is sealed, the veil drawn, yet death keeps no calendar, and so we shall return, as we always do, on the grim.