Father William Corby: Union Chaplain By Joseph McCormack (From the Irish Cultural Society Website)William Corby was born in Detroit on October 2, 1833 to Daniel, a native of King’s County (County Offaly), Ireland and Elizabeth, a citizen of Canada. Daniel became a prominent real estate dealer and one of the wealthiest landed proprietors in the country. He helped to found many Detroit parishes and aided in the building of many churches. The Michigan Catholic reported that there was no worthy... Read more

On this day in 1878, Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical Quod Apostolici Muneris, On Socialism. Read more

Caterina Volpicelli, founded the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart in July 1874 with the approval from the Cardinal Archbishop of Naples. The order was formally recognized by Pope Leo XIII on June 13, 1890. Born in Naples on January 21, 1839, Caterina was educated in the Royal School of St. Marcellino. Under the wise leadership of Margaret Savory, Caterina studied languages and music, atypical for women at that time. She was guided by the Spirit of the Lord, who revealed... Read more

St. Gaspar del Bufalo, the apostle of the devotion to the Precious Blood, was born in Rome on January 6, 1786. As a devoted priest he he revived the works of the apostolate in Rome and later became a dedicated missionary. In his missionary travels of Italy he invited the faithful to reflect upon and to adore the Precious Blood of Christ. In the year 1815 he founded the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood; and in 1834,... Read more

Monsignor Patrick Joseph Hartigan (13 October 1878 – 27 December 1952) was an Australian Roman Catholic priest, educator, author and poet. He was born at Yass, New South Wales and ordained after study at St Patrick’s Seminary, Manly. Writing under the pseudonym “John O’Brien” Hartigan’s verse celebrated the lives and mores of the outback pastoral folk he ministered as a peripatetic curate to the southern New South Wales and Riverina towns of Thurgoona, Berrigan and Narrandera, in the first two... Read more

UNTO US A SON IS GIVEN By Alice Meynell Given, not lent, And not withdrawn– once sent, This Infant of mankind, this One, Is still the little welcome Son. New every year, New born and newly dear, He comes with tidings and a song, The ages long, the ages long; Even as the cold Keen winter grows not old, As childhood is so fresh, foreseen, And spring in the familiar green. Sudden as sweet Come the expected feet. All joy... Read more

For He was made Man that we might become God.St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word of God (4th cent.) Read more

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Teacher, bookbinder, milliner, journalist: this was the resume of Sára Salkaházi when she applied to join the Sisters of Social Service, a Hungarian religious society that today is also active in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Taiwan and the Philippines. The Sisters of that new congregation, founded in 1923 by Margit Slachta and devoted to charitable, social and women’s causes, were reluctant to accept this chain-smoking, successful woman journalist, and she was at first turned away from their Motherhouse in... Read more

James Patterson Lyke, O.F.M. (February 18, 1939—December 27, 1992) was an African American clerygman of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Atlanta from 1991 to 1992. James Lyke was born on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, the youngest of seven children of Amos and Ora (née Sneed) Lyke. His father abandoned the family, and his mother was left to raise the children in impoverished surroundings, relying on welfare checks. The family lived in a flat, where... Read more