The Little School Under the "L"

Very Rev. Francis X. McCabe, cm

Location: 1st row of pillars north of Belden. 

Installed:  Aug. 2017

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        Arguably, there would be no DePaul University without Fr. McCabe.  McCabe was DePaul’s 3rd. president from 1910-1920.  Even though he was controversial in his decisions, still his leadership skills, charisma, and organizational abilities brought much of the form that we recognize as DePaul today. He was a skilled charismatic speaker, theatrically trained, and nationally known.  He was instrumental in finding ways to open the university for more marginalized groups, especially women. 

       It was McCabe’s decision, because of educational needs in the diocese, that the university be opened to women and coeducational in 1911; making DePaul the first Catholic coeducational institution in the United States, and a leader in that field. 

       The McCabe composition features the figure of Fr. McCabe on a theatrical  stage with his right hand pulling back a stage curtain to reveal the main controversy in his life. This curtain reveals the handshake he gave to Eamon deVelara, then the President of the struggling Irish Republic in 1919. McCabe awarded  deVelara with DePaul’s first honorary doctorate. This was at a time right after World War I, that the US state department considered the move embarrassing. The awarding of this degree cost McCabe his job in 1920, and affected him the rest of his life. He went on to do parish work in various places and retired in New Orleans (his home), where he died on July 2nd, 1948.