Born in Ireland, Edward Mary Fitzgerald came to America as a teenager. At seventeen he began studies for the priesthood, and was ordained for the Diocese of Cincinnati in 1857. For the next nine years, he served as a pastor in Columbus. In 1866, he was named Bishop of Little Rock, a diocese encompassing the entire state of Arkansas. He initially refused, but reconsidered and accepted the appointment. At thirty-three, he was the world’s youngest bishop. When Bishop Fitzgerald came... Read more

Maria Lowe was born in Brooklyn, but grew up in an orphanage in Cincinnati. At age seventeen she joined the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati. Taking the religious name Sister Aloysia, she taught in the sisters’ Ohio schools for nearly twenty years. In 1870, she was sent with a group of sisters to start a new foundation in Altoona, Pennsylvania, at the request of the Bishop of Pittsburgh. Sister Aloysia was named Mother Superior. Over the next few years they... Read more

“Thousands at a Mission: The Work Which Paulist Fathers Have Been Doing In BrooklynInteresting Services in the Church of the Sacred Heart— Many Total Abstinence Pledges Signed— The Renewal of Baptismal Vows— Conversions to Catholicism” At the Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart in Clermont Avenue, near Park Avenue, of which the Rev. John Nash is pastor, was closed last Sunday night a mission which had been going on for two weeks and which had been attended by about nine... Read more

THE SACRED HEART Adelaide A. Procter (1825-1864) What wouldst thou have, O soul, Thou weary soul? Lo! I have sought for rest On the earth’s heaving breast, Yet somewhere in God’s wide world, Rest there must be. Within thy Saviour’s HeartPlace all thy care, And learn, 0 weary soul,Thy Rest is there. What wouldst thou, trembling soul ?Strength for the strife, — Strength for this fiery warThat we call Life. Fears gather thickly round;Shadowy foes, Like unto armed men,Around me... Read more

When speaking of the Catholic Church’s Eastern Rites, the late Pope John Paul II often said: “The Church must breathe fully with both its lungs: the Eastern Churches and the Western.” The Maronite Rite, dating back to the fourth century, is one of the oldest in the Church. One scholar notes that the Maronites “have no counterpart among the Orthodox and Oriental Christian Churches and claim they have never broken their union with the Roman Church.” Maronites began to emigrate... Read more

Joseph John Conlon was born in 1863 in New Haven, Connecticut, where he received his early schooling. He then entered Manhattan College, which the De La Salle Christian Brothers established in 1853. The brothers were founded in seventeenth–century France by St. John Baptist De La Salle to meet the educational needs of the poor. They made their first American foundation in 1845 in Baltimore, and in 1848 they came to New York. After graduating from Manhattan, Joseph taught for a... Read more

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The first Catholic Church built in the State of New Jersey was St. John’s, Trenton, in 1814. However, the oldest Catholic community in the state is St. Joseph’s Church. Located in Echo Lake (once known as Macopin), it dates back to 1765, but it didn’t get its own building until 1829. The Freeman’s Journal, a nineteenth century Catholic newspaper, commented that St. Joseph’s was “one of the oldest and most interesting Catholic congregations in the whole country.” The first settlement... Read more

Born in Missouri, Robert Emmet Vincent Rice grew up on a farm near the Vincentian Fathers’ first American parish, St. Mary’s of the Barrens, founded in 1818. Three of his sisters entered religious life. Robert joined the Vincentians at age eighteen. Founded in France in 1625 by St. Vincent De Paul as the Congregation of the Mission, the community’s main priorities are evangelization of the poor and the formation of clergy. After completing his novitiate in Missouri, Rice studied theology... Read more

Lucy Eaton Smith was born to an affluent Manhattan family in 1845, raised Episcopalian, and educated in the city’s best private schools. As a young lady she was something of a socialite. One historian writes that she “gave herself freely to the pleasures of society, and soon became a general favorite.” Her biographer Katherine Burton writes that the “Catholic faith draws its chosen in many and varied ways. For Lucy the path led through music.” Lucy lived next to St.... Read more