American Catholic History

Fr. Francis Sampson was the “paratrooper padre.” He parachuted into Normandy, behind enemy lines, on D-Day, June 6, 1944, along with more than 13,000 other Allied paratroopers. He also was directly involved in the episode that inspired Steven Spielberg’s epic war drama Saving Private Ryan. He hadn’t planned on being a paratrooper when he joined the Army chaplain corps and the Archdiocese for Military Services, but his naiveté about what he had signed up for was a good thing for his men. He was dedicated to their well-being, spiritually and physically. On D-Day, he stayed behind at an aid station in a French village when the rest of the paratroopers he was with moved along to rendezvous with the larger unit. The aid station had 14 men who couldn’t be moved. When the Germans came he was put up against a wall and nearly shot, but a German sergeant recognized he was a priest and his life was spared. Once the Americans retook the village, he and the survivors were evacuated. Eventually he was captured and spent the last few months as a prisoner of war in Germany. After World War II ended, he served in Korea, and then stateside as a chaplain, and eventually the chief of all Army chaplains, before retiring in 1971.

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, born two months premature and the youngest of 13 in northern Italy, overcame the odds time and again. She and her sisters of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus made a huge difference for Italian immigrants in the U.S. and elsewhere. She personally founded 67 schools, hospitals, and orphanages in New York, Chicago, Denver, New Orleans, Seattle, and other cities in the U.S. and other countries.
She had to overcome her own fragile health, plus the (initial) opposition of the Archbishop of New York, Michael Corrigan, plus a regular lack of funds and other resources. But through a deep faith in God’s providence, combined with her own tenacity and business savvy, she did amazing work.

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most important early American wrters. He is known for horror, the macabre, suspense, and other dark themes. Poe was important in the development of science fiction and he invented the detective novel. But what is less well-known is his interesting knowledge of and interest in Catholicism. In an age where typical Protestants either wouldn’t have an idea of what Catholics actually believe, or wouldn’t be interested in presenting Catholicism in an honest light, Poe did both. And in one short story he even wrote a rather lovely poem that amounts to a prayer to the Blessed Mother. The poem, known as “Hymn,” invokes the aid of the Blessed Mother and has strong intercessory language. Later in his life, Poe lived in a cottage near the campus of St. John College at Fordham (known today as Fordham University) where he came to know and spend much time with the Jesuits who ran that school. He died in unfortunate and mysterious circumstances in 1849 at just 40 years old.

Election Day, August 6, 1855, is known as Bloody Monday in Louisville, Kentucky. The Know Nothings used violence to try to keep Catholics from voting, and the violence turned into riots. By the end of the day 22 were confirmed dead, though the number of dead was likely over 100. Learn more about this awful day in Louisville, which played a role in Louisville falling behind other cities along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, like Cincinnati and St. Louis, in terms of population and economic importance.

Jack Kerouac was born in 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts to Catholic parents. When he was four his saintly elder brother, Gerard, died tragically. His mother became more devout, but his father abandoned the faith and drank heavily. This childhood trauma affected the rest of his life, and he stopped going to Mass in his teens. After dropping out of college he began to write while in the military. In the late 1940s he and his friends, through their artistic and literary output, began the Beat Generation, signifying how their generation felt “beaten down” by the world. In 1951, Kerouac wrote his most important work, On the Road, but it wasn’t published until 1957. But through it all, what he was looking for was God. In the 1960s he returned, in stages, to the Catholicism of his youth, fully returning to the faith by the end of the decade. He died in 1969 as a result of a lifetime of heavy drinking.

Born just before the potato famine ravaged Ireland, John Boyle O’Reilly grew up in an Ireland still dominated by England. His father was a schoolmaster, so John and his siblings received an excellent education. He was very outgoing, made friends easily, and was a natural leader. He became a journalist, and then a soldier. He also joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood — the Fenians — who were bent on revolution and the end of British rule of Ireland. Eventually arrested for treason, O’Reilly was sentenced to "transportation" and was sent to a penal colony in Australia. He escaped from that colony in epic fashion, arriving in Boston in 1870. He got a job as a reporter with the Boston Pilot, eventually becoming part owner and publisher. He used the pages of the Pilot to advocate for civil rights for all. He became a very respected journalist, poet, speaker, author, and activist. His sudden death at 46 years old shocked Boston and beyond.

Sts. Isaac Jogues, Rene Goupil, and John de Lalande were three of the eighte North American Martyrs. In Canada this group is known as the Canadian Martyrs. Rene Goupil was the first to be martyred, earning that crown in 1642 after teaching some Mohawk children how to make the Sign of the Cross in the village of Ossernenon, west of present day Albany, New York. Isaac Jogues, who had been tortured around the time of Goupil's death, was martyred in 1646, with John de Lalande following him in death soon after. These Jesuits shed their blood for Christ on this continent. 

Bernard Nathanson helped co-found NARAL an was responsible for 75,000 abortions, including 5,000 he did with his own hands. But with the advent of advanced imaging technology that allowed a more clear view of the fetus in the womb, he began to realize the humanity of the unborn child, and by the end of the 1970s he had fully accepted that abortion is wrong. He became an ardent pro-life, anti-abortion advocate, but was an atheist through the 1980s. In the 1990s, however, his quest for forgiveness and absolution of his many evil deeds led him to become Catholic in 1996. He died in 2011.

Patricia Neal’s Hollywood career began the same year she met Gary Cooper and started an affair with him. That affair had a profound impact on the rest of her life. She had an abortion, and lived with the pain of the relationship gone bad for decades. She married British author Roald Dahl and they had five children. But tragedy struck two of her children and herself, and then Dahl asked for a divorce after she found out he’d been having an affair. She was living with a lot of pain. But in the meantime she had a reconciliation with Gary Cooper’s wife and daughter, Maria, after Maria reached out to her with forgiveness and a desire to mend fences. Eventually Neal found peace and solace at the Regina Laudis Abbey — home to Mother Dolores Hart — which she visited at the suggestion of Maria Cooper. Eventually, after experiencing much healing and peace, she became Catholic and after her death was buried at Regina Laudis.

Gary Cooper was one of the greatest actors in Hollywood history. His strong, understated, good-natured characters established a paradigm, especially for Western heroes. He won two Oscars for Best Actor, while acting in 84 films over 36 years. But his off-screen life wasn’t quite as virtuous and praiseworthy. He had a significant problem with philandering, which continued even after he got married. His wife, Veronica “Rocky” Balfe, was Catholic, and eventually her strong faith, and that of their daughter Maria, encouraged him to consider becoming Catholic and turning over a new leaf. By the time cancer came for him in 1961, he had become Catholic, left his womanizing ways behind, and embraced fully the life of the Sacraments.