Our History
Our Beginnings
In April, 1923 the Rev. William J. Mullally, the new pastor of St. Paul Church (now the Basilica), arrived in Daytona Beach. He had been given instructions from the Bishop to purchase additional property to build a Catholic school and build a new church. Much to the credit and ingenuity of Fr. Mullally, St. Paul Catholic School (now the Basilica School of St. Paul), the only Catholic school at the time between St. Augustine and West Palm Beach on Florida’s East Coast, was opened in 1925.
Our Dominican Heritage
Our school was pioneered in 1925 by the Sisters of St. Dominic of Blauvelt, NY. This order of nuns made it their mission to share the love of God with and promote the welfare of destitute, homeless, and unprotected children. When she arrived in what would become the order’s motherhouse in Blauveltville, New York, Mother Mary Ann Sammon and her companions saw a painting of their saintly founder, St. Dominic of Guzman, raising a child back from the dead, a miracle which occurred in the 13th century in Rome. They considered the painting a sign that this was to be the place where the nuns were to make their home. With conviction, Mother Mary Ann Sammon exclaimed, “Here We Shall Be.” Thus began their mission to rescue and educate orphan children, especially poor immigrants.
We stand upon the shoulders of those faithful religious women. Our school shares the mission of our foundresses to be the loving presence to those who suffer through our active faith. It is for this reason that we must understand our mission and the statements that promote and edify it so as to better fulfill it and minister to our students and families. This is what sets us apart from other schools. We are engaged in a ministry that has been established long before us. Understanding our mission is essential to the fulfillment of our mission as a Catholic School and in ministry to our students and families.
Inspired by Saint Paul
Our school is a ministry of the parish community of the Basilica of St. Paul and is closely tied with this community of faith. As such, we do not exist in a vacuum but are called to serve all the people who live and work within the canonical boundaries of this parish. We are also named after the same patron saint: St. Paul, the Apostle.
We are inspired by the example and life of our patron St. Paul. He was a missionary apostle, taking the gospel all over the ancient world and establishing local communities where Christians could live the demands of being a disciple of Jesus Christ as a family of faith. His zeal in spreading the message of Christ was such that he proclaimed: “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!”
As teachers and staff of the Basilica School of St. Paul, we carry our patron saint’s words into our interactions with everyone we encounter during the school day. Every encounter must be seen as an opportunity to preach the gospel in some way. This is much more than telling our students about Jesus. According to the Church’s Declaration on Christian Education (Gravissimum Educationis), the goal of our proclamation is to bear witness with our whole life to the person of Jesus Christ: “Intimately linked in charity to one another and to their students and endowed with an apostolic spirit, may teachers by their life as much as by their instruction bear witness to Christ, the unique Teacher.”
Like our patron saint, we bear witness to the truth of the faith by the way we behave at school and in the world.