A CATHOLIC DOG (The New York Times, May 7, 1877) The Middletown Press tells this story: “Mr. Herrick, the liveryman, has a dog which has the peculiarity of refusing to eat meat on Friday, although he seems glad enough to get it on other days. The attempt to get him to break the rule has been repeatedly made without success. On every other day of the week he eats what is set before him, asking no questions, but when Friday... Read more
THERE IS A PUBLIC SPHERE FOR CATHOLIC WOMEN. By Alice Timmons Toomey The Catholic World (August 1893): 674-677. The Catholic Women’s Congress held in Chicago, May 18, gave an outline sketch of the work of Catholic women, beginning with a paper on “The Elevation of Womanhood through the Veneration of the Blessed Virgin,” and closing with the life-work of Margaret Haughery of New Orleans, the only woman in America to whom the public have raised a statue. The enthusiasm wakened... Read more
THE LECTURE SEASON. Catholic Library Association—Lecture by Dr. Silliman Ives—“Catholic Rome the Patroness of Knowledge” (The Brooklyn Eagle, November 2, 1860, p. 2) A lecture was delivered last evening at the Brooklyn Institute under the patronage of the Catholic Library Association. The lecturer of the evening was the Dr. Silliman Ives, who was formerly Episcopal Bishop of North Carolina and whose resignation and adoption of the doctrines of the Church of Rome has excited considerable discussion in the religious world.... Read more
In 1899, the New York-based Catholic World, an operation of the Paulist Fathers founded in 1865, featured a series on Army and Navy officers who had recently served in the Spanish-American War. This March 1899 essay is a part of that series: Catholic Officers in the Army and Navy: Lieutenant-Commander William B. Barry, U.S.N. Lieutenant-Commander William B. Barry, was born October 20, 1849, in New York City. His father Garret V. Barry, late Pay-Director in the U.S. Navy, was the... Read more
OLD NUNS Our Lady smiles on youthful nuns, She loves them well. Our Lady’s smile like sunshine floods Each convent cell, But fondest falls Our Lady’s smile Where old nuns dwell; Old nuns whose hearts are young with love For Mary’s Son, Old nuns whose prayers for faltering souls Have victory won, Old nuns whose lives are beautiful With service done. Their love a loveless world has saved From God’s dread rod, The paths where sorrow walks with Sin Their... Read more
There’s two ways to look at Vatican II, George Weigel suggests in his new book Evangelical Catholicism. One is to see it as a “rupture-with-the-past,” as progressive-minded Catholics are wont to do. The other, favored by the traditional-minded, is to view it as a “terribly-mistaken-concession-to modernity.” Both, he contends, are inaccurate interpretations. The real goal of Vatican II, he writes, was to reclaim the Gospel message and “propose the good news of Jesus Christ to a disenchanted world.” An overlooked... Read more
Rev. Bonaventura Frey, O.M. Cap., Pastor of the Church of St. John the Baptist The Rev. Father Bonaventura Frey was born June 12, 1831, in the Canton of Thurgovia, Switzerland. His education, begun at Einsiedlen, was completed at the Universities of Bonn and Tubingen. Gid having called him to the ecclesiastical state, he proceeded to St. Gall’s Seminary, in Switzerland, which bears the name of one of Ireland’s saints. Here, after that preparation of the mind and heart which the... Read more
Two Nuns Celebrate Their Silver Jubilee. Took the Veil Together Twenty-Five Years Ago at St. Rosa’s Convent. Beautiful Service is Held. Sisters Justina and Valentina Congratulated by Relatives and Members of Order. (The Brooklyn Eagle, January 28, 1902) A very interesting ceremony was performed early this morning in the Roman Catholic convent of St. Rosa, attached to the Church of St. Michael, Jerome Street, near Liberty Avenue, in the Twenty-sixth Ward. Two nuns, who twenty-five years ago took the vows... Read more
New Chapel at West Point. Catholics Dedicate Their Building at the Military Academy With Elaborate Ceremonies. (The New York Times, June 11, 1900) Special to the New York Times. WEST POINT, N.Y., June 10— A hundred priests, vested in their clerical robes, assisted Bishop John M. Farley of New York to dedicate the new Catholic cadet chapel here this morning. After the dedication ceremonies Bishop Farley confirmed Col. Otto L. Hein’s young son. Lieut. C.M. Smith was his sponsor. The... Read more
There are two ways of looking at the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages: as an era of monstrous corruption, or as a golden age. Both are prone to exaggeration. This Columbus Day weekend, while doing the fall cleaning, I rediscovered an old gem of a book from the year 1907 titled The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries, by one James J. Walsh (1865-1942). A medical doctor who wrote about Church history for Catholic audiences, Walsh’s book definitely falls in the... Read more
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