“Why not become a missionary yourself, my child?” With these words, Pope Leo XIII challenged an ardent, young, American woman, Katharine Drexel. The year was 1887, and Drexel had been granted a private audience with the pope. Drexel had come to Rome to tell Pope Leo XIII of the need for religious—men and women—to staff…
On the cover of the history textbook The American Venture, students will see a picture of Fr. Pierre-Jean De Smet, S.J. (featured photo in this article). Outside the Catholic Church, not many people have heard of him. And even among Catholic students and laity, few have heard of him. Yet Fr. De Smet played a…
Popular culture holds a dismissive attitude toward history. Common headlines include “unprecedented times”, “worse than ever”, and “never before.” But how often is that really true? What do we face that is truly without precedent? This mindset—that all things have either escalated or de-escalated, that the present is always somehow more or less than the…
