Recent Episodes
The History of St. Patrick’s Day Festivities
As great as St. Patrick is and important to Ireland, as Tom and Noëlle Crowe tell us, the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day didn’t become the cultural phenomenon it is until Irish-Americans essentially created it and exported it around the world.
George Washington: Deathbed Catholic Convert?
Ever since he died, there has been speculation that George Washington converted to Catholicism on his deathbed. Tom and Noëlle Crowe look at the reasons why some think our first President did and the attitudes and actions in his life that were favorable toward Catholics.
Cora Evans: Mystic, Visionary, Convert from Mormonism
Cora Evans was a Mormon homemaker in the early to mid-20th century who lost her faith soon after her wedding. But Tom and Noëlle Crowe reveal how she reported mystical experiences ever since childhood that led her to Catholicism and eventually to a cause for canonization.
Mary Lou Williams
Mary Lou Williams was one of the great jazz musicians of the 20th century. In her 40s a crisis led her to abandon jazz. Eventually she became Catholic, and her new faith fueled great creativity.
Carnival and Mardi Gras in the United States
Mardi Gras and Carnival have been celebrated around the world before they came to the New World. Mobile celebrated it before New Orleans took over.
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
Elizabeth Ann Seton was a wealthy socialite and then a convert. She founded parochial education and the daughters of charity, and is the first American-born saint.
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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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