Victory Mass
With the outbreak of World War II, the Catholic Church in America declared their support to the American war effort. Nowhere was this more evident than in Philadelphia, when Cardinal Dougherty held a Mass to “obtain from the mercy of God our country’s victory.”[1] The Mass was scheduled for
World War One Army Chaplains
With the upcoming 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, this month’s blog post looks at the contribution of Catholic chaplains. The history of chaplains in the United States date back to the American Revolution when the Centennial Congress created the Chaplain Corps; however, Catholic priests would not
Robert M. O’Reilly, Surgeon General
A small manuscript collection that I recently finished processing is the Robert M. O’Reilly papers (MC 34). Robert Maitland O'Reilly (1845-1912) was the 20th Surgeon General of the United States Army serving from September 7, 1902 to January 14, 1909. O'Reilly served a long military medical career beginning as a