On August 15, the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. One of the great depictions of Virgin Mary is the Pietà by Michelangelo.

In 1964, the Pietà was displayed at the World’s Fair in New York City.

Enter Robert Hupka.

Mr. Hupka was a cameraman and audio technician at CBS Television who became acquainted with the Paulist Fathers while attending Masses at our mother church, the Church of Saint Paul the Apostle in New York City and in the nearby chapel at Roosevelt Hospital. Because of his technical skills and knowledge of sacred music, Mr. Hupka was asked to choose the musical extracts for the Vatican Pavilion at the World’s Fair, where the Pietà was exhibited, and also to take photographs for the souvenir album.

The video below tells the story of those important photos — showing angles of the Pietà rarely before documented:

When Mr. Hupka died in 2001, his funeral was held at St. Paul’s.

Historical aside: Mr. Hupka was a friend of Charles Rich (1899 – 1998), who Hupka wrote was “a man of deep interior prayer and learning.” Deemed a mystic by others, Mr. Rich lived from around 1938 to 1948 at the Paulist Fathers Motherhouse in New York City.