St. John Henry Newman and the “Special Charm of Christmas”
I grew up in the pre-internet age, so I still have a sense of awe every time I turn on a computer. Yesterday morning, for example, I was looking at a great website devoted to the works of St. John...
View ArticleAmerican Catholics and Race in 2020: A Church Historian’s Reflection
“Are We There Yet?” Over the past week, we’ve looked at some painful history. While it has at times been hard to address, as a Church, we’ve definitely come a long way. Still, as one of my college...
View Article“It’s About Time They Got Here”: Catholics and the Civil Rights Movement
Charity Not Enough Today we focus on a brighter spot in American Catholic history: the Church and the Civil Rights Movement. Many Catholics were late to the movement, while some were early. By the...
View ArticleThe Struggle for an African American Priesthood
“The Dignity of the Priesthood” In a sermon on “The True Priesthood,” delivered at Brooklyn’s St. Ambrose Church in May 1886, Father Daniel Sheehy declared to his parishioners: What a dignity, the...
View ArticleA House Divided: The American Bishops and the Civil War
A Hierarchy Divided As we mentioned earlier, some mainline Protestant Churches formally divided over the slavery issue. Although the Catholic Church did not formally do so, they did side with the...
View ArticleConvents White and Black
American Sisters and Social Justice Many today are familiar with the photos of American women religious marching during the Civil Rights Movement. Catholic Sisters have advocated for social justice at...
View ArticleAmerican Catholics and the 1619 Project
American Catholics and Slavery Throughout the centuries leading up to Emancipation, many slaveholders were Catholics. After the Jesuits landed in Maryland in 1634, they acquired land. And in the...
View ArticleWhite American Catholics and Race: A Church Historian’s Reflection (Part One)
Race in American Life When you look at English history, most scholars would agree that class is the defining issue. (Maybe that’s why TV series like Downton Abbey have been so popular.) But in America,...
View ArticleThis Week in America: What Would St. Francis Do?
A Drawing in the Middle of the Night Last night, I had trouble sleeping, which I normally don’t. For some reason, I felt compelled, perhaps inspired, to do a drawing from a movie I had recently...
View ArticleJohn Wayne and the Catholic Church
John Wayne and the Catholics For me today is a big “OTD” moment. That’s because, in 1907, my favorite actor, Marion Robert Morrison, was born in Winterset, Iowa. Known to the world as John Wayne, he’s...
View ArticleA Great Book for Memorial Day– Catholics and the Civil War
The Best Father’s Day Present Last Father’s Day, I got a book I’d wanted for a while– Soldiers of the Cross: The Heroism of Catholic Chaplains and Sisters in the American Civil War, by David Power...
View ArticleCatholics in the Movies: Pedro de Cordoba (1881-1950)
Born in New York City to a French mother and a Cuban father, Pedro de Cordoba was a solidly reliable character actor in American films from the silent through the sound era. Between 1915 and 1951, he...
View ArticleAnti-Catholic Cartoon of the Week
The Rail Splitter was one of several anti-Catholic publications that gained a wide circulation in the 1910′s and 1920′s. This cartoon from its pages shows a cassocked priest replete with horns and tail...
View ArticleCatholics in Public Service: Senator Francis Kernan, New York (1816-1892)
As Americans go to the polls today, we profile the first Catholic to represent New York in the United States Senate. The following is taken from the 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia: Lawyer, statesman; born...
View ArticleCatholic Poetry: “Believe and Take Heart,” by John Lancaster Spalding
BELIEVE AND TAKE HEART By John Lancaster Spalding What can console for a dead world? We tread on dust which once was life; To nothingness all things are hurled: What meaning in a hopeless strife?...
View ArticleAll Saints Day Homily, St. Paul the Apostle, Manhattan, 1913
FEAST OF ALL SAINTS: The Intercession of the Saints. “You have come to Mount Sion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the company of many thousands of angels, and to the...
View ArticleAll Hallows College, Ireland (1840)
On the eve of All Hallows (All Saints), it seems appropriate to focus on a seminary named for that day. From 1840 through the 1980′s, All Hallows College sent some 5,000 Irish priests out to the...
View ArticleThe First Review of “New York Catholics”!
The following review of my new book, New York Catholics, appears this week in The Tablet, the official newspaper of the Diocese of Brooklyn. It’s in the editorial column by Editor Ed Wilkinson: I’m a...
View ArticleWho’s Buried in Catholic Cemeteries: Mona Darkfeather, Actress (1883-1977)
Between 1910 and 1917, this actress appeared in some 109 movies, featured mainly as a Native American woman. Born Josephine Workman in California, she was of English, Scottish, Native American and...
View ArticleBlog Bishop of the Week: Ignatius A. Reynolds, Charleston, South Carolina...
Ignatius Aloysius Reynolds was born near Bardstown, Kentucky, August 22, 1798, of one of the Catholic families that emigrated from Maryland to that State. Trained under Bishop Flaget and Dr. David he...
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