The Symbolism of the Bas-Relief Sculptures of a Pelican and a Phoenix Over the Entrance Doorways to the Saint Joan of Arc Church Harrowgate Philadelphia

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From childhood I always wondered why there were sculptures of birds and not saints over the doorways of my church in Philly. Nobody seemed to know. Nobody wanted to ask.

Just two doorways as an entrance. One left and one right. The two door configuration seemed to work alright but I always thought not very symmetrical when a bishop came for Confirmation or the May Procession proceeded through one door or the other and not a central third door.

The Priest who founded Saint Joan of Arc seemed to be of very moderate Protestant tastes in that he was born in Wales, educated in London, Canada and Wisconsin before becoming an Episcopalian priest at the turn of the last century.

The Church is a very simple early Romanesque with little adornment or fancy stained glass.  The one rather chic addition to the interior was a dozen mosaics about four foot in circular medallions in between round Roman arches. These Icon style mosaics of the twelve Apostles have backgrounds of gold backed glass mosaic tiles. Impressive if you focus on them but rarely notice them as they are so high up. 

At this point in time I am speculating and going on some historic research and oral tradition that these twelve Apostles Mosaics are recycled from an historic lineage downtown church of St. James once located at 22^nd and Walnut Streets and by the Philadelphia artist Nicola D’Ascencio more famous for this stained glass than his mosaics.

The altar area of Saint Joan’s is also a rather plain sparse area. Even the unmarried Jesus is clean shaven on the Cross there. 

I have also further speculated at this point in time that the altar and altar screen of that defunct Episcopal Church of St. James may have also been on a wish list of Monsignor Edwards Hawks as he built his dream church to cap a career of writing, lecturing and converting to the RC church from the Episcopal early in his career. 

The altar and altar screen of St. James remained in storage until after Msgr. Hawks’s death and was sold to another Episcopal church in the suburbs. Have to wonder if it is one thing to sell iconic mosaics to a Catholic church but maybe the idea of an altar and altar screen was a bit too ecumenical for the times in the middle 1950s.

Back to the doorways. And the decorative bas-reliefs of a Pelican in a nest feeding its young over the left front door and a Phoenix rising from ashes above the right side door.

Having done some cursory research, I see no major issues in dogma regarding RC church design and the use of left and right. There is a distinction in that the left hand side of the church is called the pulpit and or gospel side in terms of the reading of sacred text. The right hand side is referred to the as the lectern and or epistle side of the church and of course refers to the reading of lesser sacred text from that side. 

Also of note, the left side is the pulpit side where the priest reads the gospel aloud and the right hand side is considered more the lay side in that the laity many times read the epistles rather than a priest.

Also from tradition, the bride and groom side of the church is left to right with any reason lost in history. And as a child the children’s mass at 9:00 AM on Sunday morning had the girls side on the left and the boys on the right. 

Secular and or pagan traditions put the left side as the female side and the right side as the masculine side. So too with ancient non-Christian or pre-Christian tradition has the female side associated with the moon and the male side associated with the symbol of the sun.

With all this minor background, I found that the Pelican is a basic Christian symbol of Charity and loosely based on the sacrifice of a parent to feed its young.

Better than that:

Elizabeth I of England adopted the symbol, portraying herself as the "mother of the Church of England". Nicholas Hilliard painted the Pelican Portrait in around 1573, now owned by the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. A pelican feeding her young is depicted in an oval panel at the bottom of the title page of the first (1611) edition of the King James Bible. ~~~ - “Pelican” – Wikipedia

Pelican Detail of Above Portrait

The Phoenix has a long cultural basis going back to ancient times and even before the Greek and Romans to the Egyptians to the Bennu bird as part of Egyptian god mythology and a creature representing rebirth for the dead, a creature that came into its own being at or as part of the first creation scenario and as a symbol of the sun.

In a way the Egyptians worshiped or honored the Bennu bird as a symbol of the everyday sun dying at night and being reborn each morning.

Other cultures have the whys and wherefores of the Phoenix bird in slightly different capacities and in lengths of time in terms of the cycles of a Phoenix’s never ending life. 

The Romans used the Phoenix on their coins to symbolize the supposed indestructibility of their empire.

The Pelican and Phoenix above Saint Joan's doorways are of course framed within a triangle, symbolic of the Christian Trinity and the three fold purpose of one God.

So, in short I believe that Msgr. Hawks put a piece of his life history into the stone of Saint Joan of Arc Church in Harrowgate. 

First with the Pelican as his beginning in the Episcopal church, American offshoot of the Church of England after the American Revolution with England, and second with a Phoenix rising out the ashes of his old life as an Episcopalian priest and his rebirth as a RC priest. 

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Church of England Stays Gay - Just Like the Roman Catholics - Same Sex Only For Bishops

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/21/cameron-priests-no-female-bishops

A saddened Cameron told MPs: "I am very clear that the time is right for women bishops; it was right many years ago. The church needs to get on with it and get with the programme." 

Parliament had to "respect individual institutions and how they work, while giving them a sharp prod", he added. "I think it's important for the Church of England to be a modern church, in touch with society as it is today, and this was a key step they needed to take." 

His remarks were designed to put pressure on the new church leadership to return to the issue more quickly than a strict interpretation of the church's rules allows.

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Perverted Corporate Culture of Vatican

The name Jesus was quite common in first century Judea. So too the name of Mary was quite common. So common in fact that in recent light of the corporate culture of the Vatican and the hierarchy it selects and appoints as bishops makes me wonder.

I have to wonder which Jesus founded the church of Rome? Was it Jesus the moneychanger? Was it Jesus the Pharisee? Jesus the high priest? Or was it Jesus the poor country preacher?

On an aside, I look at somebody like the Dalai Lama, the head of a religious sect, he imitates the founder which would be Buddha. The various Muslim sects and their Imams would seem to at least look like and act like the seventh century political and religious founder. Who does the pope imitate except maybe a crony high priest of the secret Personality Cult of Constantine?

The crowd at the Vatican in terms of corporate culture are more like the U.S. Congress, totally out of touch with the common voting constituent or in the Vatican’s case, out of touch with the common faithful. This, as in the case of the current clergy sex abuse scandal rocking the European RC church structure.

There is enough being said in the Press about this current scandal that reaches right into the CEO’s office. I am not as eloquent or as precise as some British Articles I have read in the past few days. I believe British interest has to do with the proximity to Ireland. The truly shameful breakdown of humanity amidst the closeted confused sexuality of clergy and hierarchy breaks my heart.

It no doubt is true that the Brits were insulted by this little pope, who once swore allegiance to Adolph Hitler, and threatened a hostile take over of the Church of England in recent months. Such is the nature of corporate cultures and so too the nature of a still free press to react.

The Brit Press is doing a bang up job that I cannot remember the American Press doing in decades – not since Watergate I think. As I said, I do not want to write much more on this subject except to say that as I started life in the ranks of the common faithful of that church, I feel for the people on the ground who have kept faith with the message of Jesus in spite of the queer aspects of their hierarchy.

The RC church will survive. Though I would say that even if they lifted celibacy today, it would take fifty years for the institution to recover any legitimate claim to moral authority, with reference to these recent and ongoing scandals.

We are witnessing something historic in these current scandals in each European country. We are witnessing the implosion of a corporate culture that took over Christianity after the fall of the Mother Church in Constantinople in 1453 when it fell to the Muslim Turks. This is a corporate culture that has existed these past five hundred years through wars, corruption, reformations, counter-reformations, and an aversion to common sense and or science.

Like the aftermath of Watergate, many, many books will now be written and this period dissected in post mortem of the situation.

As such I have to make a statement here. I have partially defended Pius XII in my blog saying not positive things but things in partial defense of his actions towards some Jews, real or imagined, during World War II and the Holocaust.

I withdraw all statements regarding that pontiff. I have come to the conclusion that considering the preset corporate culture of the Vatican, the corporate culture of the Vatican 1939-1945 was no different than it is today.

Pius XII or his Vatican cronies could not have saved one Jew in World War II intentionally. By default maybe but not intentionally. It is not in the nature of the corporate medieval beast of the Vatican to do so.

I say this knowing that thousands of Jews were saved by the simple humanity, some of simple faith in the RC church, and of people on the ground of all faiths and creeds simply because it was the human thing to do. It was the right thing to do. It had nothing to do with Canon Law.

The Vatican in WWII could not save a single Jew. This, in the same light that the buggered hierarchy of the RC church exists only for its own pleasure and prestige - a real institution uncovered and exposed in this current round of scandal.

An institution that could not save a single catholic child from perversion and buggery could in no logical sense have saved any outsiders, past or present, including Jews.

Fascism vs. Secularism – Joe the Pope vs. Freedom

There is quite a row going on in the British Press regarding Joe the Pope’s upcoming visit in September.

British protest Pope's swipe at U.K. equality laws

Joe the Pope, fresh from victories and a surprise blitzkrieg on Rowan Williams’ Church of England, arrogantly wants it to be known that he thinks that existing and proposed Equality laws in the United Kingdom are “against natural law”. In other words it is okay to discriminate against women and homosexuals in hiring and the use of public services.

Joe was really hitting out at British Freedoms I think, because of his church being cut out of the cash action when five “catholic” adoption agencies could no longer discriminate against gays wanting to adopt children under recent laws guaranteeing rights of all including gays to be treated equally.

These adoption agencies by the way did not close shop. They merely had to break official ties to the RC church and continue in operation. People in the UK are sensitive to the needs of its workers to keep their jobs no matter what a bigoted reactionary medieval church thinks is “natural law”. This is of course ludicrous. The Roman Empire hated all things natural. The pope’s morality based on nature is really only based on Constantine’s Army Manual of do’s and don’t in the conquest and suppression of all captives and slaves.

Getting back to the present. Britain is more European in a sense that church and state are loosely connected. It is kind of like their Monarchy – totally archaic and irrelevant but sometimes good for the tourist dollars. There are some Anglican Bishops in the upper house of their Parliament or House of Lords. The Church of England is the official faith of the country but in a secular world – that blows – in the face of reality.

There is pending legislation to lift exemptions specifically on priests and clergy from their Medieval rights to discriminate against gays and women in the workplace etc.

Which brings us back to the reactionary Anglicans, the British version of Episcopalians on this side of the Atlantic. Talk about being all F*cked up. You have these Anglican priests and bishops who can marry who do not want women to be priests and bishops. An extension of the hate thing against women goes to their homophobia against gays. So rather than be human and Jesus-like, these Anglican pricks want to take their parishes, churches and wives over to the RC church, which is waiting with buggering arms to greet them.

Joe the Pope, in typical German arrogance, is ready to enter Britain, not as a visiting head of state, but as a conquering hero – a salvation to all the women hating and gay hating Anglican clergy.

Throughout all this, Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, religious head of the Church of England, has turned his cheek so to speak. He was dissed by Joe the Pope when Joe recently ordered a fast track cutting of red tape to welcome any dissenting Anglican clergy into the ranks of the RC church. In a way, I think Rowan is glad to get rid of all the “white trash clergy” so to speak, and to gladly send them over to hell so to speak.

In the meanwhile the British public and the British Press are in a stink about Joe the Pope and his entering Britain in triumph. This former German Army private who once swore an army oath to Adolph Hitler, is not really putting out the right vibes to the Brits.

There is a petition going around the Internet to forbid the government from paying for any expenses of this dissing, Freedom hating potentate. I think that by September Joe the Pope will not be able to piss on Henry VIII’s grave as planned for in the hoped for wish list papal itinerary.

I think that maybe Joe the Pope will understand what fellow catholic Newt Gingrich felt when he became the most hated man in America when he was Speaker of the House and stopped printing social security and welfare checks.

Joe the Pope by September may be the most hated man not only in Britain but also in Europe as well.

So it goes.