Students and Deacon Collaborate to Make Altar for Papal Mass

Knights Ryan Mullen and John-Paul Mikolajczyk hold models of their winning designs for the papal Mass.

Ryan Mullen and John-Paul Mikolajczyk are not sure which will be more exciting – seeing Pope Benedict XVI offer Mass at the altar they designed or having a chance to meet the pope himself. Either way, Mullen said, “the honor is all ours.”

Both young men are members of the Knights of Columbus and graduate architecture students at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Their design for the papal altar, ambo and chair was selected in a contest run by the university.

The finished products will be used during the papal Mass on April 17 at the Washington baseball park, Nationals Stadium, where about 46,500 people are expected to attend.

At the unveiling of the winning design last January, Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington said, “All those people (at Nationals Park) are going to be looking at this, and you’ll be able to say, [the pope] is standing at my altar.’”

Mullen, 24, is a member of Catholic University Council 9542 and Mikolajczyk, 23, belongs to Father Rosensteel Council 2169 in Silver Spring, Md.

The Knights’ connection to the project extends even further. Working with the two students, Deacon David Cahoon, a member of Our Lady of Fatima Council 6901 in Barnesville, Md., constructed the altar and other pieces at his St. Joseph’s Carpentry Shop.

“This is the highlight of my life, to do this work for the Holy Father,” said Deacon Cahoon. “I work on it in the shop and think, ‘This is where he’ll put his hands, and so on.’ I make sure I sand it a little more smoothly.”

He added, “I’m humbled and honored to be involved. Deacons are ordained to serve at the altar. I won’t have a chance to serve at this Mass, but I will at least have a hand in providing the altar itself.”

The 10-foot by 4-foot altar is made of solid white maple with solid aluminum tracery depicting a net and water that evokes St. Peter as a “fisher of men.” To get ideas for the design, Mullen and Mikolajczyk consulted online sources and visited the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

“We kept two adjectives as our guides: simple yet elegant,” Mullen said. “We wanted the design to be familiar yet original. We had no desire to make anything revolutionary…We did not plan this from the beginning, but the construction of the pieces combine some of the oldest construction techniques – woodworking – with some of the latest – waterjet cutting and computer numerically controlled milling.”

Mullen and Mikolajczyk got to know one another as undergraduates at Catholic University through their association with the Knights of Columbus.

When Mullen heard of the design competition, “I knew that the two of us should work together. John-Paul had taken a lot of theology classes and is also an altar server at the Shrine. I had built a couple of furniture pieces before and was more knowledgeable on how things went together. Basically, he knew the why and I knew the what.”