The fruit of SILENCE is PrayerThe fruit of PRAYER is FaithThe fruit of FAITH is LoveThe fruit of LOVE is ServiceThe fruit of SERVICE is PeaceBlessed Teresa of Calcutta Read more

This day in 1980 marks the death of Frank Duff, founder of the Legion of Mary. Born in Dublin, he attended Blackrock College. After college he joined the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and was greatly influenced by it. In 1916, at age 27, Duff published his first pamphlet entitled “Can we be Saints?” In it he expressed the conviction that all without exception are called to be saints, and that through Christian faith all persons have available the... Read more

The 1920’s saw the last great wave of organized anti-Catholicism. One of the most powerful expressions of this bias was the passage of the Oregon Compulsory Education Act on this day in 1922. Known as the Oregon School Bill, on a single day in June 1922 volunteers from the Klan (seen here in a 1925 Oregon rally) and the Masonic Lodges collected enough votes to put the proposition on the ballot. On election day, November 7, 1922, by a margin... Read more

In the early twentieth century, Father John Curran of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, earned a national reputation as supporter of the country’s miners as they struggled to improve wages and working conditions. As a boy he himself had worked in the mines before becoming a priest. During the 1902 miner’s strike, Father Curran worked with United Mine Workers President John Mitchell to present the miners’ case to the public. Upon Curran’s advice, President Theodore Roosevelt intervened as coal shortages were affecting the... Read more

The Knights of St. Peter Claver is the largest historically African-American Catholic lay organization in the United States. The Order was founded November 7, 1909 at Mobile Alabama; by four Josephite priests (Conrad F. Rebesher, John H. Dorsey, Samuel J. Kelly, and Joseph P. Van Baast) and the three laymen of the Diocese of Mobile (Gilbert Faustina, Frank Collins and Frank Trenier). The Fourth Degree was authorized in 1917. The Ladies Auxiliary was authorized and their constitution adopted at Opelousas,... Read more

Joan of Arc is a 1948 Technicolor film directed by Victor Fleming; starring Ingrid Bergman as the French religious icon and war heroine. It was produced by Walter Wanger. It is based on Maxwell Anderson‘s successful Broadway play Joan of Lorraine, which also starred Bergman, and was adapted for the screen by Anderson himself, in collaboration with Andrew Solt. Bergman had been lobbying to play Joan for many years, and this film was considered a dream project for her. It... Read more

Perhaps even those who are most anti-Catholic are subsonsciously aware of the fact that Catholicism is attractive because Catholicism is true. It is difficualt, on any other hypothesis, to explain the widespread conviction that an interest in Rome is a danger signal, and that safety can only be assured by resolutely ignoring Catholicism.Arnold Lunn, Now I See Read more

Berta Hummel was a famous German artist. She was also known as nun Maria Innocentia Hummel. She is most famous for the artwork which became the Hummel figurines. Born in Massing, Bavaria, she attended the Academy of Applied Arts in Munich in 1927 and entered the Franciscan Convent of Siessen in Bad Saulgau after she graduated in 1931. She spent her spare time painting pictures of children, which were made into popular postcards. Soon afterward, Franz Goebel, the owner of... Read more

George Meade, most famous for having won the Battle of Gettysburg, belonged to an old Catholic family in Philadelphia. The son of a U.S. naval agent, he was born and baptized in Cadiz, Spain. After graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1835 he served only a year in the United States Army before resigning to become a civil engineering. He rejoined the army in 1842 and saw action in the Mexican War (1846-48). At the outbreak... Read more

Soldier, convert, b. at Savannah, Georgia, U.S.A. 1817, d. at Wytheville, Virginia, 6 Nov., 1873. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1838, and served in the second dragoons in the Florida Indian war. In 1839 he was sent to the French military training school at St. Maur for professional study and attached to the French cavalry department. On his return to the United States he was stationed in the West and promoted to be captain... Read more