Irish Land War

...testaments, and booklets on a variety of topics. I recently came across a number of documents related to the “Irish Question.” The Irish Question, concerning Irish nationalism and independence, spanned the time period from around the mid 19th to the mid 20th century. Religion and politics were both prominent topics

Continue reading

Day of Great Joy: Sisters of St. Joseph in Philadelphia

...St. John Fournier.[2] The Sisters of St. Joseph had come to St. Louis from France in 1836 to teach at a school for the deaf and blind.[3] As the order was mainly focused on education, the sisters opened their first school in the Diocese of Philadelphia in Pottstown the following

Continue reading

Archbishop Ryan

...s also active in expanding ministry work for the marginalized. He opened a number of institutions, including, St. Joseph’s House for Homeless Industrious Boys and the Philadelphia Protectory for Boys (now St. Gabriel’s Hall) in 1888 and 1895, respectively.[10] Ryan was also active in labor relations, working on a number

Continue reading

American Federation of Catholic Societies

...that the Church had experienced in the mid-1800s. Despite these concerns a number of archbishops and bishops supported the new organization and it slowly started to expend. In 1903, the Pennsylvania Federation was founded with the goal of “cementing the bonds of fraternal union among the Catholic laity and the

Continue reading