"It's All About 33 Steps"

The Loretto Chapel has history, and it has the legend of the construction of the Miraculous Staircase

by LAURA SMITH

History of a Chapel
The Loretto Chapel is tucked away near the plaza in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and it’s rich in history. It’s also home to the Miraculous Staircase, which is admired by the religious and the non religious every year.

Photo by Laura Smith

The Miraculous Staircase inside the Loretto Chapel, which many believe was built by St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpentry

In 1850, the French-born Bishop Jean Baptiste Lamy (pronounced la-me) was appointed by the church to the New Mexico Territory. He was the first archbishop to be appointed to the territory. He wanted to spread the faith and bring education to the territory, and he wrote a letter of plea for priests, brothers and nuns to preach and teach. Lamy realized that there was no Catholic school for girls or boys in a thousand miles. The first acceptance of his plea was from the Sisters of Loretto, an American-born teaching order from Kentucky, who also originated in the United States.

The Sisters of Loretto originally sent five nuns, who arrived by covered wagon in 1853. One passed away on the way to Santa Fe. According to Mark Childers, event coordinator for Loretto Chapel, one story is that the sisters came across “savages” and that she died of fright. Another story says that she came down with a disease.
By 1873 they were ready to start building the St. Francis Basilica. Lamy did not like the architecture of Santa Fe, and that’s why he called for the father-son team, Antoine and Projectus Mouly (pronounced moo-lay), from his hometown in France to help him build the Basilica. While they were working on the Basilica, Lamy had asked them to design and build the Chapel for the Sisters. The Chapel is regarded as the first Gothic structure built west of the Mississippi.

Construction began on the Chapel in 1873 and was completed in 1878. The only stones used to build the Chapel were sandstone and porous volcanic stone because that was available. The Chapel was also made of adobe.
The Loretto Chapel also has 14 total Stations of the Cross. There can be 11 to 14 stations, and the tradition was originated by St. Francis. Bibles were not easy to come by, and the station varied in that they were some visual way of telling the story of the passion of Christ. Stations of the Cross are taught in Catholicism, Anglican (Episcopal) and Lutheran tradition.

It was the chapel for the girls’ school. The entire academy operated on the property until 1968 when the academy closed due to declining enrollment and offered the property, including the chapel, to the archdiocese of Santa Fe. The archdiocese decided not to buy it and put it on the open market. The property needed to sell because it would fund the retirement for the nuns.

The property was purchased by a private family, who bought the property to build the hotel nearby. They put approximately $2.5 million into restoring the chapel. The Loretto Chapel and administration building are the only two original buildings remaining on the side.

Childers says the archdiocese of Santa Fe is the oldest archdiocese in the United States. He says it’s still, geographically, the largest archdiocese in the United States.

“The archdiocese of Santa Fe is the cradle of Catholicism for the entire Southwestern United States,” he says.

The Miraculous Staircase
The Loretto Chapel was completed in 1878, but after its completion, it was noticed that there was no way to get to the choir loft in the Chapel. A ladder had been forgotten. Carpenters would look at the space of the church and what was needed, and it was agreed that a common ladder would take too much room. No carpenters wanted the job of building a staircase because it would interfere with the interior of the Chapel. Childers says that workers then believed a ladder would take too much room, and that it was “unrealistic.”

Legend says the Sisters of Loretto made a “novena,” a nine-day prayer vigil, to St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpentry, who was also the order’s patron saint. On the ninth day, a man appeared at the chapel on a horse with nothing more than a saw, a hammer, a T-square, a toolbox, and a tub, in which he could put warm water in so he could mold the wood.

“The Sisters knew that this was the answer to their prayers,” Childers says.

After the work was complete, he left without payment, and no one in the town knew where he went. No one knew who he was.

“The information we have, which you will find in the state archives. The Sisters kept a ledger that was pretty clear, and they accounted for every cent going in and every cent going out. They kept an account of everything. Why would they stop at this one thing, the staircase?” Childers says.

When the staircase was complete, it made two full 360-degree turns and stood on its own weight. It was built with square pegs, instead of nails. The staircase also has no center support.

“We’ve had engineers and architects that have come in and look at it and say, ‘Ok, it is possible to have a staircase like that stands on its own weight without a center support if the inside diameter of the staircase is within 12 inches.’ Well, if you go in there, you can see that it’s more than 24 inches,” Childers says.

He also says it’s been decided that the wood used is not indigenous to any part of this country. An architectural engineer tested the wood and said the molecular structure of the wood used is so tight and compressed that it would have had to have come from a tree in cold climates, such as Alaska. The engineer also determined that it is a subspecies of a spruce like material, and it has been given the name of Loretto Spruce. He says the only place you will find Loretto Spruce is in the staircase.

“The staircase also has 33 steps, which is a significant number. Jesus Christ lived 33 years,” Childers says.

The staircase was built into the choir loft, and the Sisters had a railing added to the staircase seven years after it was built. It was attached to the choir loft by the outside and inside stringers.

There is a TV movie made in 1998 about the staircase, called “The Staircase,” starring Barbara Hershey and William Petersen.

Skeptics and Believers
An amateur historian, Mary Jean Cook, wrote a book stating that she may have discovered who really made the staircase. She says that a “hermit-rancher” named Francois-Jean Rochas may have made the staircase because of carpentry tools found near where he used to live.

Others, including Childers, disagree with her, contending that she is an amateur, and had she said it was probable, then they would not argue with her.

The Loretto Chapel no longer holds mass on Sundays because it’s not a Catholic church anymore. The Chapel performs approximately 200 weddings yearly, and they can be of any faith. There are over 250,000 visitors to the Chapel every year.

“The Chapel seats 130, but the fire marshal allows 150,” Childers says.

Childers finds the staircase to be the most fascinating about the chapel.

“It’s all about 33 steps. I sit in that Chapel each day, I go in and take some time just to go in there and sit. And I’ll watch people come in, and this goes back to the question, ’Do I believe in the miraculous myself.’ Overall, I’ll sit there and watch people come in, and this is why I say whether you’re a skeptic or a true believer, you can’t help but walk into that chapel and not be transformed in some way.

“I see people walk in, and you see whatever care they’re carrying, whether it’s a family member dying of a horrible disease or whether it’s money problems or whatever weight they’re carrying on their shoulders, and I see those people walk in. And by the time they walk out of there, their whole face changes. They see the staircase and they go, ‘How was that built?’ and they are transformed when they walk out. And I see that, time and time and time again,” Childers says.

Written April 24, 2008__________

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