Born to an affluent New York family, he was a distant cousin of two Presidents named Roosevelt and nephew to a saint named Seton. Originally he thought of careers in the navy and in medicine, but he opted instead for the ministry. After studying at Amherst, he entered Trinity College, Connecticut, for divinity studies. He graduated here in 1835 and was ordained an Episcopalian priest. He was assigned to a parish in Harlem. In 1841, he resigned his parish and... Read more

Today many people, even believers, think that a call to the priesthood or religious life is something of an otherworldly experience—hearing voices, seeing visions. But for me it was merely a simple attraction, a heartfelt desire, a sort of emotional pull—and the happy inability to think of anything else. And once I started down that road and allowed myself to ask questions that I should have asked years ago, everything changed. James Martin, S.J., My Life With the Saints Read more

Thérèse is a film about the life of Saint Thérèse de Lisieux. It was first released in 1986 and directed by Alain Cavalier. It won the 1987 César Awards for Best Film, Best Writing, and Best Editing. The film also won the Jury Prize at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival. Catherine Mouchet won the César Award for Most Promising Actress for 1987 for her performance. Like her older sisters before her, Thérèse Martin is determined to become a Carmelite nun... Read more

Born in what is now the Ukraine, he joined the Jesuits in 1872 and was ordained in 1881. For seventeen years he worked in Jesuit colleges until he volunteered to work among the lepers in the Madagascar missions. “I know very well”, he wrote to the Fr General Louis Martin in Rome in 1897, “what leprosy is and what I must expect, but all this does not frighten me, on the contrary, it attracts me.” He devoted all his strength,... Read more

Today marks the death of Mother Benedict Duss, foundress of Regina Laudis Monastery in Connecticut. Born Vera Duss in Pittsburgh, her family moved to France when she was very young. In 1936 she earned a medical degree from the University of Paris. She then entered a Benedictine abbey outside Paris, taking the name Sister Benedict. But her dream was to establish a Benedictine monastery for women in America. In 1946, she returned to America. Soon Robert Leather, a Protestant businessman,... Read more

Bartolomé Blanco Márquez was born in Pozoblanco, Córdoba Province, Spain in 1914. He was arrested as a Catholic leader—he was the secretary of Catholic Action and a delegate to the Catholic Syndicates—on Aug. 18, 1936. He was executed on Oct. 2, 1936, at age 21, while he cried out, “Long live Christ the King!” Born on 25 November 1914, Bartolome was orphaned as a child, and raised by family with whom he worked. He was an excellent student, studying under... Read more

Born on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in 1872, George William Mundelein contemplated a naval career before graduating from Manhattan College in 1889. Instead he opted to study for the Diocese of Brooklyn, and he was ordained in Rome in 1895. A capable administrator, he soon became diocesan chancellor. At age 34 he was named a Monsignor, and in 1909 he became Brooklyn’s first Auxiliary Bishop. An able fundraiser, in 1910 he set a record for the largest Sunday collection of... Read more

Born to a distinguished family in Champagne, from an early age he was interested in the conversion of Protestants. After entering the priesthood he was made chaplain to King Henry IV. He helped bring the Carmelite nuns (of the Reform of St. Teresa of Avila) into France. In 1611 de Bérulle founded the Congregation of the Oratory in France on the model of the one formed some years before by St. Philip Neri at Rome. While heading the Oratory, he... Read more

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For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self. Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation Read more