American Catholic History

Jean Louis Cheverus - First Bishop of Boston

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.

Sister Ignatia and Alcoholics Anonymous

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.

Venerable Nelson Baker & Our Lady of Victory

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

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

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.

Roman Martyrs in a Louisville Church

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

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

(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.

St. Mary of Sorrows, Clara Barton, and the Red Cross

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.

St. Junipero Serra and the California Missions

St. Junipero Serra is considered the Father of California. He founded the missions that first brought the Catholic faith and modern agriculture and industrial techniques to California. He was a man of strict penitential practices. He expected much of those whom he evangelized, and had no patience for those who mistreated the natives for their own gain. Originally from Mallorca, off the coast of Spain, he was a brilliant scholar, but rather than an academic career he chose the mission field. He spent decades working in central Mexico, then Baja and Alta California. And due to an insect bite when he first arrived in Mexico, he did his missionary work — which he did mostly on foot — with a diseased and ulcerous leg. He was canonized by Pope Francis in 2015, and a statue of him holding a cross aloft is included in the U.S. Capitol as one of two from the state of California.