Dear Friends, I hope you will forgive my lengthy absence from the blog, but let me assure you all that I have not abandoned it, and have no plans to do so. However, in the last few weeks, I have taken on a new role as weekly columnist for a great new religion website called patheos.com, which I recommend for your perusal. I am doing a weekly column there on Church History, which tends to be a bit longer than... Read more

Born in Newport, Rhode Island, Alice Morton Rutherfurd was the daughter of Levi P. Morton, who served as Vice President of the United States under Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893). She was raised Episcopalian, and converted to Catholicism, along with her husband Winthrop Rutherfurd. In 1917, she died at an early age of apendicitis. After her death, her sister Helen financed the erection of a Carmelite monastery in Brooklyn to honor her memory. Alice gave the following reasons for her conversion in... Read more

During the Civil War, congregations North and South often sided with their respective governments. This was no less true of Catholics. New York Archbishop John Hughes strongly supported the Union, traveling abroad to secure foreign support. In South Carolina, Bishop Patrick Neison Lynch (1817-1882) did the same for the Confederate States of America. Born in Ireland in 1817, his parents moved to South Carolina two years later. Lynch began studies for the priesthood at age twelve. In 1840, he was... Read more

For Poles, the nineteenth century is known as the “century of sadness,” when a once-great nation was divided among three surrounding powers (Russia, Germany, and Austria). Between 1870 and 1910, some two million Poles settled in America, mainly in the big cities. By the turn of the century, Chicago had become the world’s third largest Polish city. Among the first Polish religious to follow them were the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, founded at Rome in 1875 by... Read more

THE ANSWERED “AVE”By J.W.S. NorrisThe dear Saint Bernard ere eve’s shadows fellThroughout the cloister’s fair and fragrant shade,Paused as the golden sunbeams slowly fade,List’ning to the holy Angelus bell,Which thro’ each happy hermit’s peaceful cellPoured its full note, re-echoed, then decayed.‘Neath Mary’s ling’ring image he delayedTo breathe his loving “Ave:” Legends tellFrom out the pure white marble lips there cameA voice of wondrous sweetness, thrilling power;That Bernard’s greeting answered graciously:O Mary! kindle in my heart love’s flameThat I may greet... Read more

Twenty-Fourth or Last Sunday After PentecostEPISTLE. Col. i. 9-14.GOSPEL. St. Matt. xxiv. 15-35.Behold I have told it you beforehand.—ST. MATT. xxiv.25.Once in a venerable manor-house, at the head of the carved oak stairway, stood an old clock. About half a minute before it struck it made a curious, buzzing, whirring sound. Then all the children of the house said, “Ah, the old clock is warning”; and upstairs they ran to see the clock strike. The clock told them beforehand what... Read more

“The Church needs both the men who act and the men who think; and since with us everything pushes to action, wisdom demands that we cultivate rather the powers of reflection. And this is the duty alike of true patriots and faithful Catholics. All are working to develop our boundless material resources; let a few at least labor to develop man. The millions are building cities, reclaiming wildernesses, and bring forth from the earth its buried treasures; let at least... Read more

Contemplative nuns form one of the Dominican order’s oldest branches. Their prayer apostolate is meant to bolster the community’s active works. In nineteenth century America, two dozen communities of Dominican Sisters were founded, but only one was purely contemplative. Today America’s oldest Dominican monastery is in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx, where it was founded by Julia Crooks. Born in 1839 to a wealthy New York family, Julia was raised Catholic and attended private schools. As a young... Read more

HOLY TRINITY, WASHINGTON D.C.— This parish is one of the oldest in the archdiocese. The first pastor was Rev. Francis Neale, S.J., a brother of the second Archbishop of Baltimore, who in 1789 built the church, which has been called the cradle of Catholicism in the District of Columbia, in Georgetown. The church was not completed until 1792, and it is now known as Trinity School on N Street. During the early stages of the history of the parish, services... Read more

This is one of the very queerest of the common delusions about what happens to a convert. In some muddled way people have confused the natural remarks of converts, about having found moral peace, with some idea of their having found mental rest, in the sense of mental inaction… To become a Catholic is not to leave off thinking, but to learn how to think. G.K. Chesterton, The Catholic Church and Conversion Read more