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25 June 2025
Volume 38, Issue 2 (2025)Read More
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25 June 2025
Memory Matters: The Journals of Cecilia Maria O’Conway and Rosetta Landry White
Betty Ann McNeil describes the journals of two of the very first Sisters of Charity, Cecilia Maria O’Conway and Rosetta (Rose) Landry White, who knew Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton and her family. Cecilia was the first to join Elizabeth in Baltimore as a Sister of Charity in early December 1808 at age twenty-one. McNeil tells us, “Cecilia taught at St. Joseph’s School until missioned to Philadelphia (1814) and New York (1817)” before withdrawing from the Sisters of Charity in 1823. At age twenty-five, Rose joined Elizabeth in late June 1809 and served as mother of the Sisters of Charity after Elizabeth died. She had a second term as mother in the 1830s. McNeil draws parallels and contrasts between the memoirs and the styles in which they are written. Cecilia confined herself to factual notes, but about events that she both did and did not witness. Rose is more discursive and narrates events she experienced. The journals tell us about Elizabeth’s life, her family life, and the early life of the religious community she founded. Each memoir is corroborated by Elizabeth’s correspondence and by other early records of the Sisters of Charity.Current Issue
Journal Article25 June 2025
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Journal Article25 June 2025
Table of Contents
Journal Article25 June 2025
Memory Matters: The Journals of Cecilia Maria O’Conway and Rosetta Landry White
Betty Ann McNeil describes the journals of two of the very first Sisters of Charity, Cecilia Maria O’Conway and Rosetta (Rose) Landry White, who knew Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton and her family. Cecilia was the first to join Elizabeth in Baltimore as a Sister of Charity in early December 1808 at age twenty-one. McNeil tells us, “Cecilia taught at St. Joseph’s School until missioned to Philadelphia (1814) and New York (1817)” before withdrawing from the Sisters of Charity in 1823. At age twenty-five, Rose joined Elizabeth in late June 1809 and served as mother of the Sisters of Charity after Elizabeth died. She had a second term as mother in the 1830s. McNeil draws parallels and contrasts between the memoirs and the styles in which they are written. Cecilia confined herself to factual notes, but about events that she both did and did not witness. Rose is more discursive and narrates events she experienced. The journals tell us about Elizabeth’s life, her family life, and the early life of the religious community she founded. Each memoir is corroborated by Elizabeth’s correspondence and by other early records of the Sisters of Charity.Journal Article25 June 2025
Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton as a Mystic
Sung-Hae Kim describes how three key spiritual experiences in Elizabeth Seton’s life confirm her identity as a mystic according to William James’s four characteristics of the mystic state. These traits are ineffability, noetic quality, transiency, and passivity, and such experiences must lead to union with God. Elizabeth wrote about these experiences, which occurred when she was fourteen in New Rochelle, New York; twenty-nine in the lazaretto of Livorno, Italy; and sometime near her death at the age of forty-six in Emmitsburg. As Kim says, these “purify[ied] her ability to love, leading to serene peace and union with God and his creation.” They happened after periods of extreme stress and sadness and enabled Elizabeth to continue to follow or carry out God’s will. Nature played a great role in them, and Elizabeth also saw herself as part of nature, as part of God’s ordering of the universe. She described herself in three images, a coral, a rotten tree, and as part of a spider web of interdependent relationships. For the most part, Elizabeth was a kataphatic mystic, which is one who “ascribes positive attributes to God such as beauty, goodness, mercy, justice, and compassion.”Journal Article25 June 2025
John Timon, the Vincentian: Filling out the Biography of the Founding Bishop of Buffalo
John Rybolt traces the biographical information we have about John Timon and talks about the bishop's career and his lifelong devotion to the Vincentians, even when he was painfully separated from the Congregation because he was forced to join the episcopacy against his will. At the time, the Congregation's Rules stated that Vincentians could not stay within the community if they accepted church office, especially not without receiving the approval of the superior general. But Timon's appointment could hardly have been refused, since it came directly from the pope.Journal Article25 June 2025
Our Lady of Peace: John Joseph Lynch’s Pilgrimage to Niagara Falls
This article relates how John Joseph Lynch established Niagara Falls as a pilgrimage site, which he envisioned as being the first such site in the United States. In the nineteenth century, Niagara was viewed as such a spectacular natural wonder that it frequently inspired religious devotion, a history that Lynch encouraged and continued. The evolution of nineteenth- and twentieth-century views of Niagara and of pilgrimage in general are discussed. Niagara's role in American history is also explored.Journal Article25 June 2025
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1 April 2010
Poverty in New Orleans: Before and After Katrina
This article explores poverty in New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina and the factors which contributed to poor persons being the most affected by the storm. Both the causes and results of poverty are investigated to see how they can be alleviated as New Orleans recovers from Katrina. The Tulane/Canal neighborhood is used as a case study for this. Faculty, staff, and students from the School of Public Service and the Chaddick Institute of Metropolitan Development at DePaul University were sent there to assist with recovery efforts in accordance with the Vincentian mission. Their work is described and its effectiveness is assessed. The demographics of New Orleans and the US definition of poverty are also discussed.Journal Article
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Saint Vincent de Paul's Response to Poverty of Spirit
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Mary’s House in Ephesus, Turkey: Interfaith Pilgrimage in the Age of Mass Tourism
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1 April 1993
"What About the Poor?" Nineteenth-Century Paris and the Revival of Vincentian Charity
During the Industrial Revolution, poor persons constituted up to half the population of Paris. They were considered to be criminal, and their poverty was seen as a punishment for this. The Church believed the traditional social order was divinely ordained. The rich were to be charitable and the poor were to be resigned to their status; these conditions were necessary for the salvation of both groups. In the Church’s eyes, the rich and the poor each contributed to the gap between them, and they could only be reconciled by returning to Christian values and the traditional social hierarchy. It was the Church’s responsibility to guide this reconciliation. The Congregation, the Daughters of Charity, and the Ladies of Charity, which had been dissolved during the Revolution, were refounded under Jean-Baptiste Etienne in the nineteenth century. They tried to combat poverty worldwide. As the first group of sisters to be supported by the French government after the Revolution, the Daughters of Charity served as the basis for the new Vincentian mission. The Ladies of Charity’s work, which was under the Daughters’ direction, is discussed. The article also describes Etienne’s view of the world and of the Vincentian mission in detail.Journal Article
1 October 1996
Segregated Catholicism: The Origins of Saint Katharine's Parish, New Orleans
The complicated history of the establishment of Saint Katharine’s, a black parish in New Orleans, is recounted. For reasons explained in the article, the city’s Catholic churches were originally racially integrated. There were two groups of blacks in New Orleans: colored Creoles (the term they used for themselves) and African Americans. Colored Creoles were people of Afro-French descent and they were Catholic. African Americans were Protestant and worshipped in separate churches from whites. This was partly because of racism in the white community and partly because African Americans wanted to control their own religious affairs. Francis Janssens, the archbishop, wanted blacks to control their churches and he wanted to win African American converts. Moreover, he believed there were many defections among colored Creoles. He saw the solution to all of this in Saint Katharine’s establishment, though he stressed that black Catholics were free to choose between it and their home parishes. The colored Creoles opposed segregation for any reason and therefore opposed Saint Katharine’s. The negotiations for its establishment with the Vincentians and with Katharine Drexel, who provided funds, are described in detail. Saint Katharine’s was dedicated in 1895. With the advent of official segregation, it became a successful parish.Journal Article
1 April 1986