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New Stained Glass Windows in Edmund Campion Chapel

11/05/2021

The recent installation and blessing of four new stained glass windows completes the renovations of the Edmund Campion chapel in Saint Louis University’s Catholic Studies Centre.

Four new stained glass windows have been added to the Edmund Campion chapel in SLU’s Catholic Studies Centre.

Four new stained glass windows have been added to the Edmund Campion chapel in SLU’s Catholic Studies Centre. Photos submitted.

The Catholic Studies Centre opened in 2016 in Boileau Hall. The transformation of the Edmund Campion chapel was led by the Centre’s founder, David Vincent Meconi, S.J.

Work began in November of 2017 when Meconi reached out to artist John Wheadon at Emil Frei & Associates, Inc. The studio has a long relationship with SLU — it produced the windows in St. Francis Xavier College Church and the Pere Marquette Gallery in DuBourg Hall.

Now four more Emil Frei windows have joined the SLU collection.

“It is an honor to be able to share our art with the Catholic Studies community at SLU,” Wheadon said. “We strive to create artwork that models God’s goodness.” 

The windows were blessed Oct. 16 during an event which included Mass and dinner for friends of the Centre. Music for the occasion was composed by Jesuit Scholastic John Guerra, S.J., who premiered the “Mass in Honor of Edmund Campion.” Guerra trained a schola cantorum of 12 SLU students who sang the Mass at the blessing.

Matthew Baugh, S.J., the new director of the Catholic Studies Centre, presided at the Mass and blessed the windows.

“Anyone who has stepped into College Church in the early afternoon knows the power of stained glass windows,” Baugh said. “It just immediately transports into the world of prayer, the world of God. Now almost a hundred years since Emil Frei and Associates made that glass for SLU, they have created four remarkable new windows for us. I hope that people all over the University will come to see them.”

The window blessing was the culmination of the transformation of the Edmund Campion chapel. Over the past several years, Meconi and the Catholic Studies Centre commissioned hand-made pews designed by Emil Frei, new marble statues of Mary and Joseph designed by SLU artist Amy Bautz, and statuary niches hand-carved by local artisan Paul Klauber of Round Oak Woodworking.