Historic African American parish in St. Louis receives grant to restore stained glass

St. Louis, Mo., Feb 26, 2025 / 12:05 pm (CNA).

A parish church in St. Louis that primarily serves the African American community was announced Feb. 24 as a recipient of a preservation grant to support the restoration of the historic building’s stained-glass windows.

St. Alphonsus Liguori Catholic Church, known in the community as the “The Rock” because of the church building’s rock-hewn appearance, was one of 30 Black churches throughout the country chosen to receive a grant this year from the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, an independent nonprofit organization.

The parish, which is under the care of the Redemptorists and located in the Grand Center district of St. Louis, will receive $500,000 to help restore its stained-glass windows, which were created in Munich by the German firm Meyer & Company and installed at the church in time for the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.

Shannon Horstmann, a longtime parishioner and volunteer grant writer at The Rock, told CNA that she had been pursuing this particular “highly competitive” grant for several years. The church’s 54 stained-glass windows all need to be cleaned, repaired, re-leaded, re-supported, and resealed, ensuring they are water and airtight.

The windows “are irreplaceable works of art and are estimated at $15 million in total value,” the grant application, which Horstmann shared with CNA, reads.

“[These] 120-year-old iconic works of art have succumbed to the environment and need to be cleaned, repaired, and restored to continue to shed light on this active, Black congregation.”

The parish itself dates to 1867, and the church building, built of quarry stone, was dedicated in 1872.

Father Augustus Tolton, who was born into slavery in Missouri and later became the first African American Catholic priest, visited the parish and celebrated Mass there in 1887, having been ordained only the previous year. Tolton’s sainthood cause is open and currently he has the title of “venerable.”

According to the Archdiocese of St. Louis, the parish had undergone many years of declining membership until Father Maurice Nutt, an African American Redemptorist priest ordained in 1989, was made pastor in 1993. His preaching and an African American style of worship and music helped to swell the parish membership to over 1,500 households in just a few years. Nutt left the parish in 2002 and is now the diocesan promoter of Sister Thea Bowman’s cause for canonization in New Orleans.

The parish’s membership declined after Nutt’s departure. In addition, a 2007 fire in the church’s roof — which did not damage the stained glass — necessitated two years of celebration of Sunday Mass in the church gymnasium. Though still the largest primarily African American parish in the archdiocese, parish membership has declined to about 600 households, the archdiocese says.

The parish attracts worshippers from throughout the city and county. The area immediately surrounding the parish is low income, approximately 82% African American, and only 2% Catholic, one of the lowest percentages in the archdiocese.

The parish still has additional fundraising to do before the project can start, as the complete restoration of the interior and exterior of all sanctuary windows will cost an estimated $1.5 million, the grant application says.