Great Resources on the First Catholic Bishop of the United States

Whispers in the Loggia has a huge post on one of my favorite topics and people of American Catholic History. That is our first Bishop and Father of American Catholicism Bishop John Carroll. Go see In the Beginning....

I know as to Catholic CCD and eduction we have some priorities that we need to address. Like people knowing the basics of the faith. However it would be nice if perhaps a little talk about our foundations here in America were talked about.

There are some jewels of some links here. I saw elsewhere this week that Archbishop Timothy Dolan of Milwaukee had given this talk. Whisper has the full video and the full text!!!

As Whispers notes "To think: 25,000 Catholics in thirteen colonies at The Founding... 22 priests... not a lot of money... and a whole lot of misunderstanding and discrimination... and you think we had it bad?"

For Louisiana readers the the northeastern Parishes of East and West Carroll Parish are named after his cousin. That is Charles Carroll of Carrollton who among other things was the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence. One of the early settlers of that Parish had been befriended by Carroll as a youth after his family had to emigrate to the United States from the Caribbean. He later ended up in Louisiana and thus he remembered his benefactor and honored him by the naming of the Parish of Carroll.