The Bible is a letter from our fatherland.St. Augustine Read more

Born Élisabeth Catez in France, she entered the Dijon Carmel on August 2, 1901. She said, “I find Him everywhere while doing the wash as well as while praying.” Her time in the Carmel had some high times as well as some very low times. Today, we know about all that she felt and experienced in her writings. She wrote down when she felt she needed a richer understanding of God’s great love. At the end of her life, she... Read more

Francisco Ximenes De Cisneros, Francisco, in Spain commonly called Cisneros, was a well-known statesman, archbishop and cardinal. He was born at Torrelaguna in Castile in 1436. His great reputation for piety and learning led Queen Isabella to choose him in 1492 for her confessor and three years after to appoint him archbishop of Toledo — a dignity which he refused to accept until he had received an express command from the pope. In 1507 he was promoted to the dignity... Read more

Born in Trinidad, Stephen Russell Mallory was educated at the Jesuit’s Spring Hill College in Alabama. He then studied law, and was admitted to the Florida bar in 1839. d to the Bar of the State of Florida in or about the year 1839. He srved as a volunteer in the Seminole War (1835-42). After serving the State of Florida as probate judge and the United States as collector of customs at Key West, he was elected to the United... Read more

Born in Germany, his family emigrated to New York when he was six. In 1902, he was ordained in Rome for the Archdiocese of New York. After working in several New York parishes, in 1928 he was consecrated Bishop of Omaha, Nebraska. Seven years later he was named Archbishop of New Orleans, a post he held for 29 years. Perhaps his greatest contribution was in the fight against segregation. In 1953, he issued a pastoral letter calling for the desegregation... Read more

Before there was an annual Bishops’ meeting, the American hierarchy gathered periodically in the form of plenary councils convened in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the oldest American diocese. On this day in 1884, the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore was convened. Among the business taken up there was the drafting of a nationwide catechism, which resulted in the famed Baltimore Catechism. It stipulated that whenever possible, parishes should establish parochial schools. It also required clergy to wear Roman collars instead... Read more

Born Margaret Rumer Godden, she grew up in India. In 1925, she opened a dance school which she ran for 20 years. During this time she published her first best-seller, Black Narcissus (1939). In 1949 she moved to England to concentrate on her writing. In the early 1950s, Godden became interested in Catholicism, though she did not officially convert until 1968, and several of her later novels contain sympathetic portrayals of Roman Catholic priests and nuns. Two of her books... Read more

On this day in 1960, John F. Kennedy became the first Roman Catholic elected to the presidency of the United States. Read more

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This painting of Mary with the saints was painted by Guido Reni (1575-1642), an Italian painter in the high-baroque style. Read more