Frederic Ozanam live a short life in one of the most tumultuous periods of history. Born in the year of Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Leipzip, Ozanam would witness two major political upheavals in France during his lifetime–The overthrow of the Bourbon Dynasty in the 1830 July Revolution and the end of Louis Philipp’s “Bourgeois Monarchy” during the 1848 Revolutions. Committed to the principles of democracy, Ozanam favored a Republic that supported the poor, not just the rich. At... Read more

If you’re looking for a short, readable history of the Church in America, you can’t do better than Charles Morris’ American Catholic. From Amazon.com’s product description: Before the potato famine ravaged Ireland in the 1840s, the Roman Catholic Church was barely a thread in the American cloth. Twenty years later, New York City was home to more Irish Catholics than Dublin. Today, the United States boasts some sixty million members of the Catholic Church, which has become one of this... Read more

For work is not only, for every man, a means of decent livelihood, but it is the means through which all those manifold powers and faculties with which nature, training and art have endowed the dignity of the human personality, find their necessary expression. Pius XII Read more

St. Mary’s Seminary Baseball Team, ca. 1915. Read more

Today in 1921 marks the founding of the Legion of Mary in Ireland by layman Frank Duff. The following is taken from the legion website: Born in Dublin on 7th June 1889, Frank Duff was the eldest of seven children to John Duff and Susan Freehill. His father and his mother were both civil servants in the British Civil Service – remember, this is before 1922 – and both were quite keen intellects. They were a well to do family... Read more

GOD’s LIKENESSby John Bansiter TabbNot in mine own, but in my neighbor’s face,Must I Thine image trace;Nor he in his but in the light of mine,Behold Thy face Divine.Father Tabb (John Banister Tabb) was born at “The Forrest,” in Mattoax, near Richmond, Virginia, on March 22, 1845. Despite bad eyesight, he served on the Robert E. Lee steamer for the South in the Civil War and was imprisoned by the North in Point Lookout prison. After the war, he taught... Read more

We must speak to them with our hands by giving, before we try to speak to them with our lips. St. Peter Claver (He was speaking of the slaves from Africa to whom he was ministering–but this is good general advice for everyone.) Read more

Today marks the birth of the first Native American priest, Father James Chrysyostom Bouchard (1823-1889). The following is taken from the Jesuit’s California Province website and is written by Father Gerald McKevitt, S.J.: “The number of people that come to our church is incredible,” an Italian Jesuit wrote from San Francisco in 1862. “Last Sunday more than a thousand people left because they could not find a seat.” The packed pews of St. Ignatius Church testified not only to Christian... Read more

The Duquesne University Football team, as seen in 1919. Read more

This week’s Catholic Art column features a painting by Elizabeth Nourse titled Capuchin Monk. The following is from Wikipedia: Elizabeth Nourse (b. October 26, 1859 – October 8, 1938) was a portrait and landscape painter born in Cincinnati, Ohio in the Mt. Healthy area. She also was familiar with working with watercolors, painting furniture and sculpting. Born to the Catholic household of Caleb Elijah Nourse and Elizabeth LeBreton Rogers Nourse on October 26, 1859, Elizabeth and her twin sister were... Read more