Seen above is St. Francis of Assisi on West 31st Street in Manhattan as it appeared in 1878. Read more

Born Paul Francis Daneii in Genoa, he grew up in a wealthy merchant family. For Paul, the Passion of Christ was the most overwhelming sign of God’s love, and a door to union with God. His life was devoted to spreading this message. He wanted to found a community whose members would do the same. In a vision, he saw himself clothed in the habit he and his companions would wear: a long, black tunic on the front of which... Read more

On this day in 1870, the First Vatican Council adjourned. Convened on December 8, 1869, By Blessed Pius IX, the council’s foremost accomplishment was the definition of papal in fallibility. Two dogmatic constitutions were voted on during the council, Dei Filius on the relationship between faith and reason; and Pastor Aeternus on the centrality of the Pope’s authority and his personal infallibility in matters of doctrine. The latter claimed that “a primacy of jurisdiction over the whole Church of God... Read more

Wilfrid Meynell was an English Catholic convert, writer, newspaper publisher, and editor. Born of an old Yorkshire family, at age eighteen he converted to Roman Catholicism.He married the writer Alice Thompson in 1877.The pair’s first effort at periodical publishing was The Pen, a short-lived critical monthly review. In 1881 he accepted Cardinal Henry Edward Manning‘s invitation to edit the Catholic Weekly Register, and continued to do so until 1899. Meynell later founded and edited (1883-94) the magazine Merry England, in... Read more

On this day in 1844, Orestes Augustus Brownson, probably the most accomplished American Catholic lay intellectual of the 19th century, was received into the Church. As a young man he went from Universalism to Presbyterianism and back again. Then he went to Unitarianism and Transcendentalism before he converted to Catholicism. As a Protestant minister, he got involved with reform politics, but got disillusioned with it. He came to the conclusion that grace alone was the lever that could elevate both... Read more

This I know full well now, and did not know then, that the Catholic Church allows no image of any sort, material or immaterial, no dogmatic symbol, no rite, no sacrament, no saint, not even the blessed Virgin herself, to come between the soul and its creator. It is face to face, solus cum solo, in all matters between man and his God. He alone creates; He alone has redeemed; before His awful eye we go in death; in the... Read more

St. Edmund Campion (1936) is a short biography of the Jesuit martyr (1540-1581) written by one of the masters of the English language, Evelyn Waugh. It’s short, well-paced, and well-written. Highly recommended! Read more

The baseball team of St. Michael’s Byzantine Catholic Church (now Cathedral), Passaic, New Jersey, as seen in the 1920’s. Read more

Jerzy Popiełuszko was a priest from Poland associated with the Solidarity union. He was murdered by the agents of internal intelligence agency, the Służba Bezpieczeństwa, (eng: Security Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs). Popiełuszko was a charismatic priest who was first sent to strikers in the Warsaw Steelworks. Thereafter he was associated with workers and trade unionists from the Solidarity movement who opposed the Communist regime in Poland. He was a staunch anti-communist, and in his sermons, interwove spiritual... Read more

Born in London, Thomas Weld belonged to an old English Catholic family, and he was educated at home in Catle Lulworth. King George III used to visit Lulworth, and always expressed the greatest regard for the family. He married at age 23 and had a daughter. After his wife died and his daughter married, Weld renounced his inheritance and became a priest. He was ordained in 1821 in France. After a few years as a pastor in England, he was... Read more