Philadelphia’s First Catholic Cathedral

  Old St. Mary’s traces its history to 1763, when a second church was needed for the growing number of Catholics in the city. Built on land originally bought to serve as a cemetery for Old St. Joseph’s, Old St. Mary’s was referred to as “Mission Number 1” as St.

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Mathew Carey

A major figure in the fields of literature, religion, and economics in the post Revolution America, has often been overlooked and forgotten. That figure is Mathew Carey, an Irish Catholic immigrant who helped shape the intellectual landscape of Philadelphia. Born on January 26, 1760 in Dublin, Carey entered a printing

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A Brief History of the Growing Pains of the Church in Philadelphia

While the founding of Philadelphia as a diocese dates back to 1808 when it was separated from the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the history of the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania dates back another hundred years. The first Mass in Philadelphia was said in 1708 in a private home; however, the first

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Philadelphia’s First Bishop

Philadelphia’s first Bishop, the Irish-born Franciscan Michael Egan, was appointed a full century after the American colonists began the practice of their Catholic Faith in the New World. The colony of Pennsylvania, chartered in 1681 with William Penn as proprietor, offered the safety of religious tolerance, but 50 years passed

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