American Catholic History

Telling the stories of Catholics on these American shores from 1513 to today. We Catholics have such an incredible history in what are now the 50 states of the United States of America, and we hardly know it. From the canonized saints through the hundred-plus blesseds, venerables, and servants of God, to the hundreds more whose lives were sho-through with love of God, our country is covered from sea to shining sea with holy sites, historic structures, and the graves of great men and women of faith. We tell the stories that make them human, and so inspiring.

Listen on:

  • Apple Podcasts
  • YouTube
  • Podbean App
  • Spotify
  • Amazon Music
  • TuneIn + Alexa
  • iHeartRadio
  • PlayerFM
  • Listen Notes
  • Samsung
  • Podchaser
  • BoomPlay

Episodes

2 days ago

Donald Brown wasn't Catholic when he became fascinated with the Rosary. A bad bout of pneumonia when he was young put him in a hospital run by Sisters of Mercy in the early 1900s. In 1917 he began to collect rosaries. In 1929 he became Catholic. Over the decades he collected about 4,000 rosaries before his death in 1975 at 80 years old. His rosaries include some connected to Sister Lucia, one of the visionaries of Fatima, Governor Al Smith, Padre Pio, President John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Father Flanagan of Boys Town, Lou Holtz, and others. They range in size from the size of a thimble to 16 feet long. They are made from everything from precious gems to pieces of bone to foam balls. The collection occupies the top floor of the Columbia Gorge Museum in Stevenson, Washington, 45 minutes east of Portland, Oregon.

5 days ago

Jean Louis Cheverus was a remarkable man and the first bishop of Boston. He was another of the many bishops, priests, and religious who fled France due to the French Revolution and made a tremendous impact on the Church in America.
During his 27 years in New England he changed things dramatically. When he arrived, Catholics were a definite minority, and a reviled one at that. But through his tireless ministry, good humor, erudition, and holiness, he won over many previously hostile protestants, and became a friend to John Adams, Josiah Quincy, and many other prominent protestants. His counsel was sought by legislators. He aided in establishing the first chartered savings bank in the U.S. He worked tirelessly among all of his flock, no matter their social status or race. He established the first two parishes in New England, including St. Patrick for Penobscot and Irish in New Castle, Maine.
His sudden departure in 1823 when he was named bishop of Montauban in his native France saddened everyone.
But he left a lasting legacy on Boston and New England.

Thursday Sep 26, 2024

Sister Ignatia Gavin co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous. She worked in Admissions at St. Thomas hospital in Akron, Ohio. She had compassion for the alcoholics who came to the hospital. However, medical practice at the time did not regard alcoholism as a disease to be treated through admission and medical treatment. In 1939 Sister Ignatia and Dr. Bob Smith managed to get the hospital to admit alcoholics for the first time. From that first admission the practices of Alcoholics Anonymous grew into a national — and international — phenomenon. In 1952 she was transferred by her order to St. Vincent Charity Hospital in Cleveland, where she established Rosary Hall Solarium. Since her death in 1966 Rosary Hall Solarium and Ignatia Hall at St. Thomas Hospital in Akron have both continued to treat those with substance abuse problems.

Monday Sep 23, 2024

Ven. Nelson Baker was incredible. After a time as a soldier in the Union Army during the Civil War, he found success in business. He felt a call to the priesthood. He saved lives in and around Lackawanna, just south of Buffalo, New York. He invented direct mail fundraising. He did whatever was needed to build institutions to make others' lives better. And he did it all by relying utterly on the intercession of Our Lady of Victory. As a tribute to her beneficence, he built the massive and breathtaking Basilica of Our Lady of Victory.

Mark Twain and St. Joan of Arc

Thursday Sep 19, 2024

Thursday Sep 19, 2024

Mark Twain considered Personal Reflections of Joan of Arc his best, and his favorite work. He spent twelve years researching for it, and then two years writing. The book was originally published under a pseudonym in serial in Harper's Weekly. His fans and the general public were shocked and confused when they found out that this beautiful, serious, and deeply Catholic book was written by Twain. Twain was not Catholic — he wasn't even Christian — and he had a great animosity toward the Catholic Church. But in Joan of Arc he found the greatest human person he'd ever encountered.

Doc Holliday

Monday Sep 16, 2024

Monday Sep 16, 2024

A legend of the Wild West, John Henry "Doc" Holliday was born in Georgia to Presbyterian and Methodist parents. But his sweetheart growing up was Catholic — and his first cousin — Martha Ann "Mattie" Holliday. After an excellent education and becoming a dentist, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. To survive he had to move to a more arid climate, like west Texas, and parts of the desert and great plains states. Eventually he had to stop being a dentist, and he became a professional gambler and gunslinger. He befriended the Earp brothers, especially Wyatt, and was involved in many adventures with the Earps, including the famous shootout at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. Eventually the tuberculosis worsened and he died at 36 in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. But he had maintained a correspondence with his beloved Mattie. She had become a nun, and her influence led to Doc summoning a priest and becoming Catholic shortly before he died. The romance between Doc and Mattie was later captured in the 1939 movie <i>Gone With The Wind</i>, because the author of the book, Margaret Mitchell, was a second cousin, once removed of Mattie Holliday.

Thursday Sep 12, 2024

Saints Bonosa and Magnus were martyred in Rome in either the third or fourth century. Their bones rested peacefully in the catacombs until 1700, when they were given to the Cistercian sisters in Anagni, a town near Rome, for veneration in their chapel. When the Kingdom of Italy conquered the Papal States in the late 19th century, Pope Leo XIII needed a new place to keep these old relics safe. Fortunately, the pastor of St. Martin of Tours parish in Louisville, Kentucky had written to Rome requesting relics. Pope Leo XIII sent the skeletons of Bonosa and Magnus, and since 1901, these two Roman martyrs have been venerated safely and peacefully in Louisville. Learn more about the parish of St. Martin of Tours, and how anti-Catholicism almost destroyed that church when it was only two years old. 

Father Mulcahy, M*A*S*H

Monday Sep 09, 2024

Monday Sep 09, 2024

Father Mulcahy, Army chaplain of the M*A*S*H 4077, was perhaps the most important priest on network television not named Fulton Sheen. He was a fictional character, and the actor who played him, William Christopher, was Methodist. But Father Mulcahy was an integral part of what made M*A*S*H one of the best television series of all time. He was a humble, real man, with his own struggles with pride, but who managed to be a steady and humanizing presence in that TV depiction of hell on earth.

Mother Teresa in America

Thursday Sep 05, 2024

Thursday Sep 05, 2024

(Note: this is a re-release of a previously released episode.) Saint Teresa of Calcutta, known in life as Mother Teresa, visited the United States a number of times, usually to open new houses of her order, the Missionaries of Charity. She gave a number of addresses in the U.S., speaking of the duty we all have toward our fellow man to aid one another, singling out abortion as the "greatest destroyer of love and peace." On one occasion, in 1985, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and addressed the National Right to Life Convention. In 1994 she addressed the National Prayer Breakfast, and spoke strongly against abortion and contraception with President Bill Clinton, his wife, Hillary Clinton, and Al Gore and his wife, Tipper Gore, in attendance. In 1996 she was made an honorary citizen of the U.S., only the fifth person to receive this honor.

Thursday Aug 29, 2024

In 1862, Clara Barton got some of the experience which would lead to her founding the Red Cross. That year, St. Mary of Sorrows Church in Fairfax Station, Virginia, became a field hospital during the Second Battle of Bull Run — or Second Manassas, if you’re from the South. The church was only about a year old. The pews were pulled out to be used for beds around the grounds as thousands of wounded and dying were brought to the church grounds, which were only about one quarter mile from the new railroad depot for Fairfax. During the battle, Clara Barton came out to held nurse the wounded. She served admirably, and remained at the work until the last wounded soldier was loaded on a train bound for a hospital in Alexandria or Washington, DC. After the war, all but one of the many dead who were buried in the Church grounds were exhumed and relocated to Arlington National Cemetery. In the 1870s, President Ulysses S. Grant ordered that new pews be provided for St. Mary, as the one original ones had been destroyed during their usage as hospital beds and firewood.

Image

Your Title

This is the description area. You can write an introduction or add anything you want to tell your audience. This can help potential listeners better understand and become interested in your podcast. Think about what will motivate them to hit the play button. What is your podcast about? What makes it unique? This is your chance to introduce your podcast and grab their attention.

Copyright 2024 All rights reserved.

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Version: 20240731