American Catholic History

George Herman "Babe" Ruth was born in Baltimore in 1895. He was one of eight children, but only he and one sister survived childhood. His parents both had to work, and his father kept a saloon. He had little supervision and grew up skipping school, hanging out in his dad's saloon, and generally getting into trouble. This was all before he was seven. At seven his parents accepted they could not rein him in, so they put him in St. Mary's Industrial School. There he was taught baseball and the Catholic faith by the Xaverian Brothers, especially Brother Matthias Boutlier. In 1913 the St. Mary's team played a travel ball game at Mount St. Mary's College in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where he was spotted by big leaguers. He signed to the minor league Baltimore Orioles in February 1914, but by July he had been picked up by the Boston Red Sox. With the Red Sox he established himself as one of the most dominant pitchers of the day, but in his seven years with the Red Sox he and the team realized he had even greater potential as a hitter, so they moved him to first base and then to the outfield so his bat could be in the lineup every day. He was sold to the Yankees in 1919 (yes, due to Broadway debts, but no, not for No, No Nanette). In New York he became The Babe of legend. To this day he holds or is in the top 15 of nearly every offensive category, as well as a number of pitching categories. He is widely regarded as the greatest baseball player ever.

But his off-field antics and lifestyle were nearly as notable as his on-field accomplishments. He got married in 1914. His wife, Helen, was also Catholic and she tried to help him live a good stable life. But he was incapable of controlling his appetites. He lived life hard and fast — women, booze, and partying were too tempting for him to resist. Helen died tragically in a fire in 1929, and Ruth married again in just three months — though he was no more faithful to his second wife, Claire. 

But Ruth never forgot what the Xaverian Brothers had done for him, nor what his Catholic faith meant. He gave generously to charity, organized barnstorming tours for charity, helped raise money to rebuild St. Mary's Industrial after it suffered a devastating fire, played sandlot baseball with neighborhood kids, and spent many hours signing every baseball, hat, and scorecard offered him, no matter what. 

He retired in 1935 which allowed him to spend even more time raising money for charity until throat cancer took his life in 1948. He died with the Sacraments, and with a Miraculous Medal — sent to him by a seventh grader who said the whole class was praying for him — pinned to his pajamas. 

The Babe lay in state in the rotunda of Yankee Stadium for two days before Francis Cardinal Spellman offered his requiem Mass in St. Patrick's Cathedral. More than 100,000 stood in the rain to line the route to Gate of Heaven Cemetery.

George Washington relied on multiple Catholics during the Revolutionary War. One of the most important was his dear friend Lt. Col. John Fitzgerald , who served as an aide de camp in some of the most crucial moments of the war. During the winter in Valley Forge he helped to root out the Conway Cabal, which was an effort among some to discredit Washington and get him replaced as commander-in-chief. But Fitzgerald's relationship with Washington extended before and after the War for Independence. They had been friends for years before the War, when Washington was a planter at Mount Vernon and Fitzgerald was a merchant in Alexandria. It is likely that Fitzgerald met his wife through Washington. And after the war they worked together closely on many business and government matters. One of the most enduring is the Basilica of Mary in Old Town Alexandria, which was the first Catholic Church established in Virginia. The effort to build the first St. Mary's church began in Fitzgerald's home, at a St. Patrick's Day dinner, and the first donation was made by George Washington, who was in attendance. Fitzgerald died less than two weeks before his old friend and commander, George Washington, and he is buried on his wife's family's former estate, which is, fittingly, directly across the Potomac from Mount Vernon, where Washington's remains lie.

Father Stephen Badin was the first priest ordained in the United States. Born in France, he was a deacon completing his seminary studies when the French Revolution compelled him to flee France. He arrived in the United States in 1792 and was ordained by Baltimore's first bishop, John Carroll, in 1793. While he would have preferred to stay in Baltimore, Carroll sent him to be a missionary priest in the Kentucky wilderness where a concentration of Catholic families had moved recently and who needed a priest. He worked as a missionary all over Kentucky and the midwest for most of the rest of his life. He was a cantankerous, rigorous man who nonetheless had a tender concern for the souls of his flock. He built many churches, acquired much land, helped to establish religious communities, welcomed the Dominicans, and made the way ready for Bishop Benedict Joseph Flaget when Bardstown, Kentucky was made a diocese in 1808. Eventually his gruff style and strong opinions about how things should be run put him at odds with Bishop Flaget and he moved to Cincinnati, where he lived out his days. Along the way, however, one of the plots of land he purchased in north-central Indiana made its way into the hands of Fr. Edward Sorin, who was looking for a place to establish a college. That college is the University of Notre Dame, and Father Badin is buried in a replica of the cabin he had built near one of the two lakes on that land.

Elizabeth Ann Seton was an Episcopalian and a wealthy socialite in New York. She married the scion of a wealthy shipping family, and they started a family. Life was wonderful. But tragedy struck: her father in law and her husband died, and the family shipping business failed. At 29 she was a widow with five children and no means of support. While seeking solace she became Catholic after being struck by the example of the Filicchi brothers, who had been business associates of her husband. Her conversion cost her her friends and brought about hardship. She moved to Baltimore to work with Father William Louis Dubourg and Bishop John Carroll to establish a school for girls. Eventually she took religious vows and became the first mother superior of the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph. The new order moved to Emmitsburg, Maryland where they built a home and a school near Mount St. Mary's. The parochial school system in the United States traces its roots to her pioneering work. She died at just 46 years old, and became the first American-born person to be canonized in 1975.

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.