Anton Martin Slomšek (26 November 1800 – 24 September 1862) was a Slovene bishop, author, poet, and advocate of Slovene culture. Slomšek was born to a peasant family in the hamlet of Slom near the village of Ponikva in the Municipality of Šentjur, Lower Styria. He studied theology and philosophy before being ordained in 1824 at the seminary in Klagenfurt. From 1829 to 1838 Slomšek was spiritual director of the seminary of Klagenfurt. In the latter year he became the... Read more

This newspaper was circulated during the 1850’s. Read more

Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. St. Francis of Assisi Read more

Francesco, named in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, was born to Giuseppa and Grazio Forgione, peasant farmers, in the small Italian village of Pietrelcina on May 25, 1887. From his childhood, it was evident that he was a special child of God. Francesco was very devout even as a child, and at an early age felt drawn to the priesthood. He became a Capuchin novice at the age of sixteen and received the habit in 1902. Francesco was ordained... Read more

On this day in 1920, Cardinal James Gibbons dedicated the cornerstone for the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. For further information on this event click here. Read more

Ellen Tarry (September 26, 1906 – September 23, 2008) was an African-American author of literature for young adults. She was born in Birmingham, Alabama. Although raised in the Congregational Church, she converted to Roman Catholicism in 1922. She attended Alabama State Normal School, now Alabama State University, and became a teacher in Birmingham. At the same time, she began writing a column for the local African-American newspaper entitled “Negroes of Note“, which focused on racial injustice and promoted racial pride.... Read more

Woodstock College was a Jesuit seminary that existed from 1869 to 1974. It opened on September 22, 1869. It was the oldest Jesuit seminary in the United States. The school was located in Woodstock, Maryland, west of Baltimore, from its establishment until 1969, when it moved to New York City, where it operated in cooperation with the Union Theological Seminary and the Jewish Theological Seminary. The school closed in 1974. It is survived by the Woodstock Theological Center, an independent,... Read more

Ephpheta (meanng “be thou opened”) was a monthly published for deaf Catholics in the first half of the twentieth century. Read more

The Word became flesh to communicate to us human beings caught in the mud, the pain, the fears and the brokenness of existence, the life, the joy, the communion, the ecstatic gift of love that is the source of all love and life and unity in our universe and that is the very life of God. Jean Vanier Read more

Today we memorialize the Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War, also known as the Martyrs of Valencia. During the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, and especially in the early months of the conflict, individual clergymen and entire religious communitieswere executed with a death toll of 13 bishops, 4,172 diocesan priests and seminarists, 2,364 monks and friars and 283 nuns, for a total of 6,832 victims, as part of what is referred to as Spain’s Red Terror. Read more