Hometown Saint: Katharine Drexel and the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament in Philadelphia

On March 19, 1889, Katharine Drexel decided to found a new order to advance the cause of Native-American and African-American education. On February 12, 1891, Katharine pronounced her vows as the first member of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People. She added one vow to

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Parish Mapping Project

Over the past few months, CHRC have been working on a parish mapping project. Taking inspiration from a similar project from the Archdiocese of Boston, we have constructed maps of what the parish boundaries used to look like over various times in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia's past. The main goal

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Beloved Cardinal Archbishop: John Francis O’Hara

Born on May 1, 1888 to John and Ellen in Ann Arbor Michigan, John Dillon O’Hara was the fourth of ten children. After his confirmation, he would go by John Francis after his patron St. Francis de Sales.[1] His family moved to South America when he was a child, living

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The Church and Labor

CHRC has a large collection of pamphlets and writings that deal with Catholics and its teaching on the economy. The Catholic Church has a long connection to labor and the plight of the worker, beginning with Pope Leo XIII's famous Encyclical, Rerum Novarum (Latin for Of New Things), published in

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