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Recent Episodes
Mary Virginia Merrick
Mary Virginia Merrick was paralyzed by a fall when she was young, but she had a deep love of Christ and she founded the Christ Child Society to help mothers and children.
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John Wayne
John Wayne cultivated a rugged and tough, but family-friendly on-screen persona. But in his private life, it wasn’t until his death that he mended his ways.
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Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Charles Carroll of Carrollton was the wealthiest man in the colonies before the Revolutionary War and the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence
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Fr. Juan de Padilla, Proto-Martyr of the USA
Fr. Juan de Padilla accompanied Coronado into what is today Kansas and became the first martyr on American soil for his efforts to evangelize.
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Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy
Jean-Baptiste Lamy was the first archbishop of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and had to deal with obstinate clergy and a terribly uncatechized flock.
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Sr. Miriam Michael Stimson
Without the discovery made by the Dominican scientist Sr. Miriam Michael Stimson, our knowledge of DNA would have been impossible.
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Noel Dube, Hero of D-Day
Noel Dube, Noëlle’s grandfather, was a man of deep faith who made significant contributions on D-Day during World War II.
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Fr. Emil Kapaun
Fr. Emil Kapaun was an Army chaplain who died in a prisoner of war camp during the Korean War. He is now a Servant of God.
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Father Stephen Badin
Fr. Stephen Badin was the first priest ordained in the United States, he ministered to the Catholics in Kentucky, and is connected to Notre Dame.
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Catholics at Gettysburg
Catholics, including the Daughters of Charity and St. Francis Xavier church were heavily involved in the Civil War battle of Gettysburg.
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St. Damien of Molokai
Fr. Damien de Veuster arrived in Hawaii in 1864 as a missionary. He ministered to the leper colony at Kalaupapa, Molokai, where he died of leprosy.
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The Apparition of Our Lady of Good Help
In 1859, a young Belgian woman in Wisconsin, Adele Brise, had an apparition of Our Lady of Good Help who instructed her to teach the children the faith.
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Find The Stories from Your State!
Sharing the stories of the many and wondrous Catholic parts of American history.
Catholics around the globe remember and honor great men and women from all over the place, and all through the ages. We are a religion of tradition, a religion which remembers events, and cherishes places where those events took place. So many of these places are in Europe, the Middle East, the north of Africa, and east Asia, where great missionaries and great teachers spread the Gospel. Men like Peter and Paul, Augustine of Hippo, Francis Xavier, Patrick, Francis, Thomas Aquinas, Jerome, and so many more. And there are women like Teresa of Avila, Gertrude, Catherine of Siena, Mary Magdalene, Bridget, Veronica, Clare, and many, many more.
These men and women, and the things they did, are rightly venerated the world over.
But we Catholics in America have a remarkable history of our own. The men and women who brought the faith to these shores, who helped it to spread, who poured themselves out for Christ, all have stories and give examples that we owe it to ourselves to come to know.
And the story of the growth of the faith here is interwoven with the stories of our national history. In fact, Catholics were already active across much of the continent long before the founding of the United States.
American Catholics played significant roles in the founding of the United States, and then the growth and development of her laws and national customs. Catholics founded a number of her great cities. Catholics have been important members of every aspect of American life from government to popular culture, plus education, health care, athletics, civil rights activism, and more.
But far too few Catholics know these things.
This American Catholic History podcast exists to help introduce people to these remarkable men and women, the incredible events, and the sacred places that are our own right here in America.
Celebrating the Catholic History of America!
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