American Catholic History

Betty Hutton was "The Incendiary Blonde" of Hollywood in the 1940s and 50s. She was known for her high energy and her big singing voice. But her biggest roles, in "Annie Get Your Gun" and "The Greatest Show On Earth," also proved to be her undoing professionally. Her personal life, filled with trauma and rejection from her earliest days, deteriorated to drugs and poverty, until a Catholic priest came along and saved her life.

Lawrence Welk was raised in a sod house on the plains of North Dakota, but after his appendix burst when he was 11 he was smitten by music. He made a deal with his dad for a brand new, very nice accordion that kept him on the family farm until his 21st birthday. After that date he was on the road, making his way in life with his accordion and his ability to craft arrangements of popular tunes that were easy to dance to, easy to listen to, and helped people feel good. One thing led to another and his "champagne music" became a hit in Santa Monica, where a local television station broadcast his set live. The Lawrence Welk Show was born, and it woudl run for an amazing 31 years, even through the cultural craziness of the 1960s and '70s. Welk died ten years later, with his wife of 62 years, Fern, by his side.

Daniel Barber came from good Puritan stock and was a fine upstanding Congregationalist minister. Until some Episcopalians convinced him that Apostolic Succession matters when it comes to ministerial Orders. So he became an Episcopalian priest. He was a fine, upstanding Episcopalian priest for many years. He and his wife, Chloe, raised three children as good Episcopalians. But eventually the question of Apostolic Succession came back to him, and he realized that Episcopalianism didn't satisfy the question of Apostolic Succession — the Catholics actually had it, and the Episcopalians didn't. Meantime, his son Virgil had also become a fine, upstanding Episcopalian priest. He and his wife, Jerusha, were in charge of a good school and had a comfortable life with their children. But a chance encounter with a pamphlet on the life of St. Francis Xavier fired his heart to seek the faith that motivated a man like St. Francis to do what he'd done.

Eventually, Virgil and Jerusha became Catholic. Then Chloe converted, along with a number of other members of the family. And finally, Daniel also became Catholic.

The entire affair was very upsetting to fine, upstanding New England Protestant sensibilities, and caused a sensation.

But the sensations didn't end there. The rest, however, is a tale for another time.

Before Lilies of the Field was a beloved movie it was a charming short book. The author, William Barrett, was Catholic, and based the book in part on the story of the Sisters of St. Walburga in Colorado. When director Ralph Nelson and his screenwriter, James Poe, got the story they made some additional adjustments to it, but kept the essential message and thrust of the story. The result was movie magic. Neither the studio nor the critics thought much of the script, but up-and-coming Hollywood star Sidney Poitier saw something powerful. He took a measly salary to make it happen, and filming took only 14 days. The popular reception, and the film's enduring popularity, showed Nelson and Poitier to be right. Poitier won an Oscar — the first Oscar won by a black man — and the film has been an enduring cultural phenomenon.

Born in 1910, Mary Lou Williams was a child prodigy. She played piano concerts in the homes of her neighbors in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh as early as five years old, and was touring by her teens. After a meteoric rise as an arranger for the biggest names in jazz she became a mentor and mother-figure to many of the great jazz musicians of the 20th century. She was a remarkable pianist and composer in her own right — one of the most important of the 20th century. But she also saw the suffering and grief of those around her as drugs and lives of loose morals wreaked havoc on friends and loved ones. Eventually, in her 40s, she had a crisis and walke off the stage in Paris, vowing to never play music again. She instead did everything she could to help everyone she could, but she didn't know how to. She found refuge in a Catholic church in Harlem that she found was not kept locked, so she was able to go in to pray — though she was not Catholic. But her friend Lorraine Gillespie, wife of jazz great Dizzy Gillespie, was considering becoming Catholic. Together they met with the priest and eventually were received into the Church in 1957. After her conversion to Catholicism she returned to the jazz scene, seeing her music as a way to praise God and to evangelize. Her music found new depths of meaning in the prayers, devotions, and themes from Scripture that saved her. She believed that jazz was one of the most pure art forms, and wrote heart-wrenchingly beautiful music over the last few decades of her life, including three different Mass settings. She died in 1981 of cancer and is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Pittsburgh.

A leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance, poet and author Claude McKay had an idyllic childhood in Jamaica until his first experience of racism when he was 21. After emigrating to the United States in 1912 he became convinced that socialism held the answer to what ailed society, especially what kept black people down. His poetry and novels explored the themes of racial tension, the plight of poor black people in Harlem, and social struggle. He traveled extensively in Europe and Russia to find support for his efforts, but only became disillusioned with socialism. Eventually back in the U.S. his health failed and he was forced to seek help at a Friendship House, a Catholic endeavor. He became enamored of the Catholic approach to social justice and became active in both the Friendship House and the Catholic Worker movements. He came to believe in the Catholic faith, seeing in it the answers to the questions of justice and charity that he’d been seeking his entire life. He was received into the Catholic Church in 1944, four years before he died of heart failure.

Father Augustus Tolton was the first black priest in America who identified as black. He was born a slave in Missouri in 1854, but his mother escaped with him and his two siblings to freedom in Illinois after the Civil War began. He endured racism among the children and parents at two schools, but also experienced great acceptance and love from the priests of his parishes and the nuns at the school. One of the priests, the Irishman Father Peter McGirr, took a special interest in "Gus," as he was known, and made sure he received a good education. Eventually, Father McGirr recognized the possibility that Gus had a vocation to the priesthood. After a few false starts, Father McGirr and the local Franciscan superior got Gus into the seminary of the Propaganda Fidei in Rome. Gus excelled as a seminarian in the Eternal City, and expected to be sent to Africa as a missionary. But the day before his ordination he found out he'd be returning to the U.S. He came back in 1887 and served as a beloved pastor in his home town of Quincy, Illinois, until a change in the local Church leadership made life very difficult for him, and he was transferred to the Archdiocese of Chicago. There he was once again a beloved pastor until his untimely death in 1896. In 2019 Father Augustus Tolton was declared Venerable by Pope Francis.

Mardi Gras, French for Fat Tuesday, is the day before Ash Wednesday. Fat Tuesday is the final day of the season known as Carnival in many French-based cities and lands all around the world. Carnival comes from the French from "goodbye, meat!" Carnival season begins on Epiphany, January 6, and goes to Lent. The celebration of Carnival, while not a formal and official liturgical season, is a time when Catholics remember the joy of Christmas, while also preparing for Lent. In this episode we talk about the history of Carnival and Mardi Gras in the US, going back to 1699. New Orleans and it famous French Quarter are best known for Mardi Gras, but Mobile, Alabama has the longer continuous celebration. And in New Orleans the celebration now is conducted by krewes, which run the parades and balls which usher in Lent. Enjoy this stroll through the history of a festive season and celebration, plus a great outtake at the end... 

St. John Neumann was born in 1811 in Prachatice, Bohemia (in present-day Czech Republic). He was a good student, and while in seminary determined to become a missionary in the United States. But after completing his seminary studies he found difficulty in getting ordained or gaining passage to the U.S. But once in the U.S. he proved to be a tireless pastor. He was ordained in 1836 by Bishop John Dubois of New York. After time in diocesan parish work in the Buffalo area he joined the Redemptorists and was stationed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Norwalk, Ohio, New York City, and Baltimore, Maryland. In 1851 he was consecrated the fourth bishop of Philadelphia. He oversaw a period of incredible growth and construction in the Diocese, establishing so many schools that Phildelphia had the first diocesan school system in the country. His sudden death at 48 years old stunned and saddened everyone. He was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1977.

John von Neumann invented Game Theory, redefined ordinal numbers, contributed mightily to quantum mechanics, and developed the architecture which enables modern computing. He also designed the trigger mechanism which detonated the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and he was key in developing "Mutually Assured Destruction" as a means of balancing the world order as the nuclear age dawned. He possessed an intellect rivaled by only a handful of other persons, and he was, without doubt, one of the most important individuals of 20th century. He also was agnostic for the majority of his life, though he was baptized Catholic at 30 years old in order to marry his Catholic fiancee. But when suddenly facing his own death at just 53 years old, he had to face the questions of the afterlife and the existence of God. Ever the gamer, Pascal's Wager gave him the argument that convinced him to return to the Catholicism of his first wife, and then significant conversations with a learned Benedictine priest helped him to understand the faith and desire the sacraments. He died with the Last Rites in January 1957.