Book: New York Catholics

With enthusiasm, I recommend a new book by Patrick McNamara, "New York Catholics: Faith, attitude & the works!"  It is a paperback of more than 200 pages, published by Orbis Books and also available on Amazon.  Historian and archivist McNamara has presented short biographies of seventy-six Catholics who have lived in the five boroughs.  Each presentation is sharp, clear and right on target in describing these outstanding people.
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Among Brooklynites he describes:
Peter Turner, petitioner for a Brooklyn church in 1822 and a principal founder of St. James, Jay Street.
Fr. Johann Stephan Raffeiner, who in 1841 used his own money to buy the Meserole farm for the new parish of the Most Holy Trinity.  In 1853, he invited the Dominican Sisters from Regensburg, to live and work in his parish.
Fr. Sylvester Malone, in the 1850's a Republican and Unionist when the Democrats were generally pro-slavery.  For fifty years he was pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul, Williamsburg. He got along admirably with the non-Catholic neighbors, and he promoted harmony.
Bishop John Loughlin, first bishop of the diocese of Brooklyn 1853-1891.
Thomas Francis Meehan, newspaperman, historian, and assistant editor of the 1914 Catholic Encyclopedia.  He and his family resided on Greene Avenue.
Patrick Scanlan, editor of the Brooklyn Tablet from 1917 to 1968.
Msgr. Bernard Quinn, in 1922 the founding pastor of the parish of St. Peter Claver.
Bishop Francis Xavier Ford, 1892-1952, martyr.
Msgr. Bryan Karvelis, priest and activist at Transfiguration parish 1956-2005.
Bishop Guy Sansaricq, who has ministered to Haitian immigrants for more than five decades.
Ed Wilkinson, editor of the Brooklyn Tablet since 1985.
Paul Moses, newspaperman and scholar.
Sr. Ann Marie Young, of Visitation Monastery, Bay Ridge.
Rudy Vargas IV, helper of Hispanic Catholcs.

Bishop Loughlin Memorial HS, Fort Greene

Bishop John Loughlin hoped to build Brooklyn's cathedral on this block, bounded by Clermont Avenue (left), Green Avenue (right), Vanderbilt Avenue (parallel to Clermont), and Lafayette Avenue (where Queen of All Saints church and school are). Through a go-between, he purchased the block in the 1860's and he commissioned Patrick Charles Keely to build a very large cathedral facing Lafayette Avenue.  Other pressing needs of the people of the diocese of Brooklyn took precedence, and the cathedral construction went slowly  About 1887, he asked Keely to design this house as a bishop's residence. The foundations for the cathedral were built, a chapel of St. John was built, but the project was later abandoned and Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School was constructed in an L-shape around the house, now LaSalle Hall, a residence for students.



Above is the Clermont Avenue entrance to Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School. Queen of All Saints may be seen on the north side of Lafayette Avenue, with the 1906 Brooklyn Masonic Temple to its left.



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