Morgan Park received its second Roman Catholic parish in 1927 with the establishment of St. Cajetan Church. While Sacred Heart Parish was created as a national or ethnic-based parish serving French-Americans, the Archdiocese of Chicago founded St. Cajetan for Morgan Park’s growing Irish-Catholic population. Members of this territorial parish, whose boundaries were established by the Archdiocese, lived between 107th Street, 119th Street, Vincennes and California.
Over a forty-year period, St. Cajetan Parish constructed a complex of buildings to meet its growing needs. Soon after the Archdiocese purchased property at 112th Street between Artesian and Campbell in 1927, the congregation utilized a small, temporary frame church building. In the 1930s, the parish built a rectory at 11207 South Artesian (1934) and its first school, a two-story, brick building designed by architect Gerald A. Barry with English Gothic Revival elements (1936-37).[i] With only eight classrooms, the school at 11201-23 South Campbell was destined for expansion. Following World War II, when the population of West Morgan Park rose exponentially, the parish built a six-classroom addition to the south end of the school which also included a church. A relationship with architect Gerald Barry continued when the parish hired the architectural firm of Barry and Kay to design the addition in 1946-47.[ii] Four years later, the parish expanded the school once again with a second story classroom addition and a two-story stairwell completed in 1952 and designed by the same architects.[iii]
St. Cajetan Parish furthered its building program in the 1950s with the construction of a two-story brick convent at 2445 W. 112th Street.[iv] While architects Barry and Kay revived the use of English Gothic Revival ornament in another building at St. Cajetan, the convent built in 1950 is starkly modern, particularly in its plain wall surfaces. Today, the building is the St. Cajetan Parish Center. In 1954, rising enrollment and educational needs forced the construction of a second school building. The parish built a one-story brick primary school at 11214-20 South Artesian featuring six classrooms and Memorial Hall.[v] A second floor was added later.[vi]
The architectural gem of the parish complex is the current St. Cajetan Church at 2435-41 West 112th Street. This unusual mid-twentieth-century church was built in 1961–62[vii] from designs by the architectural firm of Barry & Kay, prolific Chicago church architects of the midcentury period. The Lannon stone building at the southwest corner of 112th Street and Artesian is a Late Gothic Revival style church set within an A-frame form. It is graced with a sweeping, low-lying broad front gable roof facing 112th Street that projects at the ridgeline. The welcoming front facade features a three-bay central entry with three segmental arch openings over recessed front doors. Above is a stunning three-part stained glass window depicting Christ flanked by graceful sinuous modern fish sculptures in stone. Its facade is nontraditional and inviting in its scale with a roofline that almost meets the sidewalk. Yet it is still outwardly vertical in its soaring smooth stone piers dividing the window and door bays and niches. On the interior is a sanctuary seating 1,100. Albert Cardinal Meyer dedicated the new church on April 19, 1964.[viii]
[i] City of Chicago Ancient Building Permit no. 41325, May 11, 1936. Ledger Book South 49, p. 176. Two-story brick school, 100’10”x80’x33.’ Cost $50,000. Architect: G. Barry. Contractor: Carney Construction Co.
[ii] City of Chicago Ancient Building Permit no. 00511, October 24, 1946. One- and two-story church and school, 60’x121’x40, Cost $138,651. Architects Barry & Kay. Contractor Henry Brothers.
[iii] City of Chicago Ancient Building Permit no. 63191, August 21, 1951. Second story classroom addition, 60’x48’x14’, and two-story addition for stairwell. Cost $66,603. Architects Barry & Kay. Contractor T. J. Durkin.
[iv] City of Chicago Ancient Building Permit no. 38244, February 7, 1950. Two-story brick convent, 44’106’x32.5’, Cost $155,000. Architects Barry & Kay. Contractor Gordon Hamilton.
[v] City of Chicago Ancient Building Permit no. 108512, April 9, 1954. One-story brick school building, 62’121’x26’, Cost $200,000. Architects Barry & Kay. Contractor J. J. Kinnare.
[vi] “St. Cajetan Church” in A History of the Parishes of the Archdiocese of Chicago, Volume One. Chicago: The Archdiocese of Chicago, 1980, p. 158.
[vii] “Cardinal to Dedicate St. Cajetan Church.” Chicago Tribune. April 5, 1964, p. SW10.
[viii] Ibid.