American Catholic History Noelle & Tom Crowe

Samuel Sutherland Cooper is perhaps the most important person in the early Church in America whom you’ve never heard of. He was a convert, born Anglican, and was a successful sea captain and merchant based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He traveled the world, tried many of the world’s delights, and became wealthy. But in in the early 1800s, illness and a strange voice from heaven compelled him to reconsider his vaguely Christian beliefs. He eventually became Catholic, and then entered seminary. His friends thought his conversion and decision to enter seminary were a reaction to a bad experience with a woman — or that he’d just lost his mind. But he persevered, was ordained, and became one of the most important priests in the early Catholic Church in America. The names of the Catholic figures with whom he was associated is a “who’s who” of the early Church in America: John Carroll, William DuBourg, Elizabeth Ann Seton, John Dubois, Gabriel Simon Brute, John England, the Hogan Schism, and John Cheverus. He likely also knew a young John Hughes, the future Archbishop of New York, while he was a professor at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland. He even reportedly experienced a eucharistic miracle, when the host turned to bleeding flesh in his hand during Mass, while he was stationed in Augusta, Georgia. He was a man of energy, resourcefulness, and a deep desire to save souls who worked tirelessly and zealously to that end. When illness sapped his energy he moved to Bordeaux, France, where his old friend, John — Jean — Cheverus had become the cardinal archbishop. Cardinal Cheverus died in his arms, and he died a few years later of pneumonia, being buried in the cathedral near the tomb of Cardinal Cheverus.

Perry Como was one of the most successful entertainers of the 20th century. A man of deep Catholic faith, his stardom never caused him to lose his humility or gentleness.

Bob Newhart is one of the most influential and beloved comedians of the last 60 years, who set records with his comedy albums and TV shows. Tom and Noëlle Crowe tell us how Newhart attributes both his 60-year marriage and successful career, in part, to his Catholic faith.

Mother Catherine Spalding spent 45 years leading and building the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth in Louisville and central Kentucky. Born in Maryland in 1793, her family moved to the Bardstown, Kentucky area when she was very young. She became an orphan at an early age, and lived with relatives until joining the fledgling order in 1813. She was elected the first Mother Superior that year, when she was 19 years old. She died in 1858, after her order had grown significantly, and was responsible for dozens of schools, orphanages, infirmaries, and homes for the homeless and destitute. In the 21st century she was named one of the 16 most influential persons in the history of Louisville and Jefferson County — the only woman on the list — and a statue of her was unveiled in 2015. It stands outside the Cathedral of the Assumption, and it is the only statue of a woman erected in a public place in Kentucky.

The earliest Catholic settlement in what is now the state of Arkansas was Arkansas Post, established in 1686 by Henri de Tonti, a lieutenant of the great French explorer Robert Sieur de la Salle. Never a bustling settlement, the Catholics who lived there struggled to maintain their faith, while mission priests came and went. But they built a church. Originally built on a barge in the Arkansas River in 1782, it was moved to land in 1832, when the first resident pastor came to minister to this neglected, but persistent, flock. Forced to contend with a flood of protestant settlers and anti-Catholic preachers in the wake of the Louisiana Purchase, St. Mary continued to be an important center of Catholic life in the region until it was supplanted in 1903 by St. Joseph Parish in the growing community of Pine Bluff. St. Mary fell into ruin until a daughter of one of the old Catholic families took on care of it, restored the old church, and pledged her estate to maintain it in perpetuity. Among those buried in the graveyard is Mother Agnes Hart, a member of the Sisters of Loretto of Kentucky. Mother Hart was the superior of the Sisters who came out in 1838 to establish schools for the girls of the region. Mother Hart died of malaria in 1839, but she was held in such high regard that those who buried her placed a bed of roses in her grave on which to lay her body. Then, twelve years later, when they had to move the graveyard, her body was found to be “petrified.” And after a miraculous cure attributed to her intercession in 2007, many regard her as a saint worthy of canonization.

Maronite Catholics maintain one of the most ancient traditions within the Catholic Church. They are originally from the southern edge of Asia Minor, and lived in relative peace for many centuries in the mountains of Lebanon. But civil wars forced many to flee. During this time of upheaval, the devotion to Our Lady of Lebanon resulted in a massive and important shrine being built in Harissa, Lebanon, just northeast of the Lebanese capital, Beirut. Maronites first came to America beginning in the late 1800s, settling wherever they could find jobs. During those years that often meant the steel cities of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Birmingham, Alabama, and Youngstown, Ohio. In the 1960s, a replica of the original shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon was built in rural northeast Ohio, just outside of Youngstown. That shrine, and its associated basilica, are a major site of pilgrimage every year for Maronites from across the U.S.