This day, as Pope Gregory XI entered Rome in 1377, officially marks an end to the Avignon Papacy (1308-1377), a period known as the “Babylonian Captivity of the Church.” For most of the 1300’s, the Popes were French. In 1308 Clement V (Bertrand de Got) moved his residence to France (seen above) after some trouble with Rome’s powerful Colonna family. One of the problems he and his successors faced was a loss of credibility; they were seen as puppets of... Read more

During National Vocations Awareness Week, I’ve referred quite a bit to families with multiple vocations. As noted earlier, every diocese and religious community can fill in their own examples. (Over the years, it’s been estimated that nearly 350 Brooklyn priests had a relative previously ordained.) This photograph shows four brothers who all became Monsignors, the Arceses. Born in Arpino, Italy, five of the twelve Arcese children entered the service of the Church (four brothers and a nun). Gaetano, Vincenzo, Leopold... Read more

Today marks the death of Father Joseph F. Hanselman (1856-1923), who played a leading role in the American Jesuits during his lifetime. Born in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg section, he began studies for the diocesan priesthood, but decided to join the Jesuits instead. Ordained in 1892, he began teaching at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, in 1893. From 1901 to 1906, he was college president. In 1905 he got President Theodore Roosevelt to speak at the 1905 commencement (which I’m... Read more

Back in 2001, Father Mark Massa, S.J., started a center for American Catholic Studies at Fordham. The Curran Center has become one of the premier institutes of its kind in the country. On Tuesday, February 3, at 6 p.m., they’ll be hosting a lecture by Dr. Margaret McGuiness, Chair of the Department of Religion at La Salle University, Philadelphia. Her topic is “Saints, not Angels: American Catholic Female Saints.” The lecture will be at Fordham University’s Rose Hill Campus, in... Read more

The Dominican History Blog is a model for Church History blogs. Today they have a great entry on the friars’ baseball teams from the 1920’s and 1930’s: At Ocean City the summer residence for the student brothers from the Dominican House of Studies had been used as an orphanage or a ‘home’, which is why the Dominican baseball team was known to the locals as the “Home Boys.” Thanks to the owner of the Boston Red Sox, discarded Red Sox... Read more

Until 1957, the Brooklyn diocese covered all of Long Island. For most of that time, the bulk of its parishes were concentrated in Brooklyn and Queens. Only after World War II did the number of Nassau and Suffolk parishes grow significantly. Before that, churches in that area were considered “country parishes.” This 1898 line drawing from the Brooklyn Eagle shows a group of priests working in Nassau and Suffolk. It wasn’t easy work; anti-Catholic sentiment was pretty strong in some... Read more

According to Charles Chiniquy (1809-1899) they did. Today marks the death of the ex-priest who spent forty years on the anti-Catholic lecture circuit. Ordained in his native Quebec, he made his way to Illinois, where he became a Protestant. His books and lectures exposed both priestly corruption and Vatican plans to rule America. His bestseller Fifty Years in the Church of Rome proposed the conspiracy theory (which still has adherents) that the Jesuits planned Lincoln’s assassination: Read the history of... Read more

Today marks the death of Roberto de Nobili (1577-1656), an Italian Jesuit who spent more than fifty years as a missionary in India. Unlike most missionaries, de Nobili didn’t attempt to impose his own culture on the people he encountered. Instead, he studied theirs and attempted to reach them through it. He started to dress like a Brahmin, the leading figures in Hindu society, and adopted their ways in order to exercise the greatest influence on the largest number of... Read more

The occasion of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday offers a good opportunity to share this photo taken during his audience with Pope Paul VI on September 18, 1964. It’s also a good chance to share the pontiff’s reflections on Dr. King’s death, which he delivered in his sermon at the 1968 Palm Sunday Mass: Brothers and sons, we cannot omit to mention here also the sad remembrance which weighs upon the conscience of the world, that of the cowardly and... Read more

Redeemed is the story of Heather King’s conversion to Catholicism and her life thereafter. It’s very readable, slightly irreverent, and highly relevant. She has a great quote that I can’t refrain from sharing here: “I’d be wrong to claim that the Church is perfect, but I’d be just as wrong to overlook the schools and orphanages and hospices, the faithful priests, the martyrs and saints, the incalculable amount of good, seen and unseen, that flows out from the Church, all... Read more