Born to immigrant parents from County Cork, Jeremiah Francis Shanahan grew up in Pennsylvania. There he studied for the priesthood at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary and was ordained in 1859 by St. John Neumann, Bishop of Philadelphia. After serving in a parish, he was appointed to head the diocese’s preparatory seminary (a high school for young men considering the priesthood). There, historian John Gilmary Shea writes, Shanahan was noted for “his learning, his administrative powers and piety.” In 1868, two... Read more

St. Charles Borromeo parish, Brooklyn, N.Y., was founded in 1849 by Father Charles Constantine Pise (1801-1866). He bought the former Episcopal Church of the Emanuel, remodeled it, and dedicated it to St. Charles Borromeo. It was in this church that Right Rev. Levi Silliman Ives, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of North Carolina, ordained Rev. Donald McLeod (seen above). Some years later, the bishop and the minister met again in this church. The church had become a Catholic Church. The minister had... Read more

The unidentified sister in the above photograph is a member of a community whose roots date back four centuries. At the turn of the last century, an anti-clerical regime came to power in France. The new government formally legislated the separation of Church and State, confiscated Church property, and forced numerous religious communities to leave the country. One of these was the Daughters of the Holy Ghost (now Spirit), founded in Brittany in 1706. Known as the “White Sisters” for... Read more

SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISIUM Saint Francis, favorite of the Infant Jesus, Weeping in Bethlehem hot tears that tellHow deep the springs of love and self-devotion, In that seraphic heart, that throb and swell.Saint, Francis, lover of the poor and simple, Friend of the birds, the lambs, the turtle-doves;Brother of all God’s works, so fond and tender, So full of sweet and holy, fervent loves. Loves that were all for Jesus, Jesus only, Loves that made earth a holy, sacred place,A... Read more

SERMON ON CHRISTIAN HOPEPreached at Catholic Summer School by Father KennedyAt the Catholic Summer School, Cliff Haven, the Rev. D.J. Kennedy, O.P., professor in the House of Studies of the Dominican Order, Somerset, O. (seen above), recently delivered a striking sermon on “Christian Hope,” in the course of which he said: “Have confidence in the Lord with all thy heart and lean not on thy own prudence.” (Proverbs iii: 5) The law of Christ requires of a man sacrifices which... Read more

Seen above is the cover of a 1949 programme for Yale versus Holy Cross College. Founded by the Jesuits in 1843 in Worcester, Massachsusetts, Holy Cross is one of the finest small-scale liberal arts colleges in the United States. Read more

Seen above is Father Eugene H. Porcile, S.P.M. (1839-1912), a French-born member of the Fathers of Mercy, who served as provincial for his order in the United States at the turn of the century. (Religious orders are usually divided into provinces, and the heads of them are called provincials.) For many years he was pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes parish in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. In 1894, he led the Brooklyn Diocese’s first trip to Lourdes, and his... Read more

Thomas Merton made Gethsemani Abbey almost a byword in American Catholic life, but this Trappist abbey has a rich history that long predates Merton’s arrival in December of 1941. It’s the oldest continually operating Roman Catholic monastery in the United States. The Trappists are a branch of the Cistercians, a monastic order founded by St. Robert of Molesme in 1098. Their official name is Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (O.C.S.O.). In 1848 the Trappist Abbey of Notre Dame... Read more

OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE, NEW YORK CITY, FEBRUARY, 1902.— By the end of February, 1902, a few weeks before his death, Archbishop Corrigan designated the Rt. Rev. J. Mooney, Vicar-General for the dedication of the church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, at 229 West 14th Street. This new church was intended for all the Spanish-speaking Catholics of the city of New York, numbering perhaps over 45,000, who were entrusted to the care of the Augustinians of the Assumption. The religious... Read more

Born in Maine, Clarence Eugene Woodman graduated from Trinity College, Hartford, and Amherst before studying for the Episcopal Church. He converted to Catholicism in 1877 and joined the Paulist Fathers, a community founded by Father Isaac Hecker, himself a convert, to work for the evangelization of America. He was ordained a priest in 1879, and served in a variety of roles: mission preacher, pastor, and campus minister. In 1909, Georgina Pell Curtis edited an anthology of conversion stories titled Some... Read more