Top photo caption: Venerable Nelson Baker, a priest from Buffalo, N.Y., who died in 1936, is seen in this undated photo. OSV News photo/courtesy Western New York Catholic
By Jay Sorgi, OSV News
OSV News — Its imposing, improved dome better allows worshipers to see the faces of Our Lady of Victory and the saints.
Venerable Nelson Baker’s work led to the construction of the 100-year-old Our Lady of Victory National Shrine & Basilica in Lackawanna, New York, near Buffalo. Yet Father Baker, who stands two steps from sainthood, might say the greater victory is in finding the face of Christ in vulnerable young people whom his City of Charity served and still serves today through the organizations it spawned.
Father Baker, a Civil War veteran-turned-priest, committed his life fully to Jesus Christ through devotion to Our Lady of Victory. This commitment led to his being known as the “Father of the Fatherless” and the “Padre of the Poor” in and beyond the Buffalo area.
That calling came amidst the first years of his seminary formation, during a pilgrimage to holy sites in France and Italy a short time after his own miraculous healing from a skin disease.
“After he saw (Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral) that everyone goes to, the bishop who was running it said, ‘I think you’d appreciate the smaller Church, Notre-Dame-des-Victoires,'” Msgr. David LiPuma, pastor and rector of Our Lady of Victory National Shrine & Basilica, told OSV News.
“He knelt down at the side altar where Our Lady of Victory is. He saw the crutches on the wall. He saw the intercessory prayers. He looked up and he said, ‘I’m going to go back and dedicate the rest of my life to your patronage,'” Msgr. LiPuma said.
Following his ordination in March 1876, Father Baker was assigned by Bishop Stephen Ryan to St. Patrick Church in the Limestone Hill neighborhood, a calling he returned to after a one-year reassignment. St. Patrick included an orphanage and a reform school for boys.
The small business acumen he gained from previous entrepreneurship, a direct mail campaign to form the Association of Our Lady of Victory, and the discovery of natural gas on Church property helped St. Patrick dramatically expand its social services to help young people from infancy to young adulthood, with everything from the orphanage to job training programs.
Msgr. Paul Burkard, the retired pastor at the shrine and basilica, told OSV News that as the orphanage gained a national reputation, Father Baker began hearing about cases of babies being discarded by mothers who were unable to take care of them.
“He began the plans to build what was called the infant home, a home for unwed mothers who could come here and safely have their children,” he said. “If they could take their children with them after they had delivered, all well and good. If they couldn’t, then they would be placed in the orphanage and then put up for adoption or fostering through the institution here.”
All these efforts led to the complex of compassion that Father Baker fostered, called the “City of Charity,” which offered more than 250,000 meals and 20,000 nights of shelter.
While the original City of Charity doesn’t function in the same way, its successor OLV Charities now offers many foster care and mental health services, dental care and education programs for young people in need, along with the St. Gianna Pregnancy Outreach Center, which continues the legacy of the original infant home.
A fire severely damaged St. Patrick Church in 1916, leading Father Baker to focus on constructing the Our Lady of Victory National Shrine & Basilica, which saw its first Mass on Christmas Eve 1925.
The feast of Our Lady of Victory is today known as the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, and comes on Oct. 7. The shrine will celebrate its festival day on the tail end of a multi-year renovation. It has seen repairs to the infrastructure’s drainage system, the paint and plaster, restoration of floors and pews, greatly improved lighting, and continued work on the signature dome that sparkles on the Buffalo-area skyline.
“When it came time to celebrate the centennial,” Msgr. Burkard said, “the Church looked at least as good as it did when it opened.”
Msgr. LiPuma says that the shrine and basilica draw countless pilgrims taking time to kneel before the tomb of a Buffalo priest whose life of compassion may someday lead to his sainthood.
“It’s very powerful to watch people come in and to see them tell their stories, what their needs are and how they feel that Father Baker has helped them,” Msgr. LiPuma said.
“You can feel the presence of Father Baker, and you certainly can feel the intercession of Our Lady of Victory.”
Jay Sorgi writes for OSV News from Philadelphia.
More information about Our Lady of Victory National Shrine and Basilica can be found here: https://www.olvbasilica.org/olv. More information about the cause for canonization of Venerable Nelson Baker can be found here: https://www.fatherbaker.org/canonization.
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