Catholic Heritage Highlights

Did you know ...

  1. That at its founding in 1808, the Diocese of Philadelphia comprised the entire state of Pennsylvania and Delaware, in addition to southern parts of New Jersey?During the American Civil War, from 1861-1865, 93 sisters of the Daughters of Charity nursed thousands of wounded Union soldiers at the Saterlee Army Hospital in West Philadelphia.
  2. General Thaddeus Kosciuszko, a Catholic immigrant from Poland and a Revolutionary War hero, lived at the corner of Third and Pine Streets in Philadelphia during the winter of 1797-1798.
  3. Old Saint Mary's Church, located at 248 South 4th Street in Society Hill, is the final resting place of Commodore John Barry, the "father" of the United States Navy.
  4. The Diocese of Philadelphia had no acting bishop for six years from 1814-1820 because the War of 1812 hampered transatlantic communication with Rome.
  5. Old Saint Mary's Church, located at 248 South 4th Street in Society Hill, was Philadelphia's first diocesan cathedral.
  6. During the American Civil War, from 1861-1865, 93 sisters of the Daughters of Charity nursed thousands of wounded Union soldiers at the Saterlee Army Hospital in West Philadelphia.The Diocese of Philadelphia had no acting bishop for six years from 1814-1820 because the War of 1812 hampered transatlantic communication with Rome.
  7. In 1890, Roman Catholic High School became the first tuition-free Catholic secondary school in the United States, which marked the beginning of a diocesan high school structure in Philadelphia.
  8. Brevet-brigadier general Stephen Moylan, the highest ranking Catholic officer in the Continental Army, commanded the American cavalry from 1778 to the end of the American Revolution in 1783.
  9. Thomas FitzSimmons, a Catholic merchant in Philadelphia, served in the Continental Congress and helped draft the United States Constitution.
  10. Saint John Nepomucene Neumann, Bishop of Philadelphia from 1852-1860, founded the diocesan school system in the United States.
  11. Paul Arizin, named one of the fifty greatest basketball players of all time by the NBA in 1998, began his playing days as a seventh grader at Saint Monica Parish in South Philadelphia.
  12. The Catholic Girls' High School, now John W. Hallahan Catholic Girls' High School, became the first diocesan high school for girls in the United States when it opened on September 18, 1912.
  13. The first documented Catholic parish school in the United States was established in 1782 by Old Saint Mary's Church in Philadelphia.
  14. The first Catholic prayer book issued in the New World was "The Garden of the Soul" published in 1770 by Philadelphia printer, Joseph Crukshank.
  15. Founded by Bishop Patrick Kenrick in 1849 and formerly located on Girard Avenue between 16th and 17th Streets, Saint Joseph's was the first Catholic healthcare institution (hospital) in the United States.
  16. Located at the corner of 6th and Spruce Streets in Philadelphia, the first Catholic orphanage in the United States was established in 1797 by Holy Trinity Church, to care for children left homeless by a severe cholera epidemic.
  17. Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua was the first and only Cardinal in the world to host a live weekly radio call-in program, entitled Live With Cardinal Bevilacqua, which aired on WZZD-AM from 1995 to 2000
  18. The first Catholic resident of Philadelphia is believed to have been a servant of Daniel Pastorius, the founder of Germantown, who emigrated to the New World with him in 1683.
  19. While caring for the poor stricken by the influenza epidemic of 1918, Mother Marie Aloysius, of the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, became the first religious in Philadelphia to contract the illness and die while performing her work of mercy.
  20. On July 26, 1911, Reverend Edmond F. Prendergast became the first graduate of Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary to be elevated to the rank of Archbishop of Philadelphia.
  21. In July 1884, two Philadelphians, Martin I.J. Griffin and John H. Campbell, founded the American Catholic Historical Society, the oldest existing organization dedicated to the preservation of Catholic history in the United States.
  22. December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, was formally declared a Holy Day for the entire Archdiocese of Philadelphia pursuant to a decree issued by Archbishop James Frederick Wood in November 1868.
  23. On November 29, 1964, the Solemn Mass was celebrated in English for the first time at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul by then-Archbishop John J. Krol to mark the centennial of the cathedral's official opening.
  24. George Washington attended a Solemn Mass of Thanksgiving at Old Saint Mary's Church in Philadelphia in November 1781 to celebrate the victory of the new United States of America in the American Revolution.
  25. When it opened in 1953, Saint Barbara's School for the Mentally Retarded, located at the corner of Lebanon Avenue and George's Lane in Wynnefield, was the first Catholic day school of its kind in the United States.
  26. The Philadelphia Catholic Hour, first televised in 1948 on WFIL-TV (now WPVI-TV), was believed to be the first regular religious television program in the United States.
  27. On November 28, 1951, the then-Bishop of Buffalo, John F. O'Hara, was appointed the ninth Bishop (fifth Archbishop) of Philadelphia, succeeding the late Cardinal Dennis J. Dougherty.
  28. Patrick John Ryan, second Archbishop (sixth Bishop) of Philadelphia, died February 3, 1911 and is entombed in the crypt of the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul.
  29. On February 11, 1961, John J. Krol, the junior Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Cleveland, was appointed the sixth Archbishop (tenth Bishop) of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
  30. Saint Peter Claver Church, located at 12th and Lombard Streets in Philadelphia and considered "the Mother Church of African-American Catholics in the Archdiocese," was an active parish 1892-1985 and is now home to the Saint Peter Claver Center for Evangelization.
  31. Holy Trinity Church, located at 12th and Lombard Streets in Philadelphia, became the first national parish in the United States when it was founded to serve German Catholics in 1789.
  32. On March 3, 1996, Cardinal John J. Krol, sixth Archbishop (tenth bishop) of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia died and is now entombed in the crypt of the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul.
  33. In March 1741, Reverend Henry Neale, SJ, arrived in Philadelphia and was one of the first missionaries to spread Catholicism throughout eastern Pennsylvania.
  34. On March 28, 1852, his 41st birthday, Saint John Nepomucene Neumann was installed as the fourth Bishop of Philadelphia by Francis Patrick Kenrick, Archbishop of Baltimore and former Bishop of Philadelphia.
  35. In April 1853, Saint John Neumann, fourth Bishop of Philadelphia, presided over the first Diocesan Synod and mandated the first organized Forty Hours devotion in the United States.
  36. In April 1857, Reverend James Frederick Wood, then a pastor in the Diocese of Cincinnati, was appointed as the first Auxiliary Bishop of Philadelphia.
  37. In 1787, Philadelphia silversmith and engraver John Aitken produced the first collection of Catholic hymns and liturgical music published in the United States.
  38. The second Bishop of Philadelphia, the Most Reverend Henry Conwell, died on April 22, 1842 and is now entombed in the crypt of the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul.
  39. At the request of Bishop Francis P. Kenrick, the Sisters of Saint Joseph first arrived in Philadelphia on May 4, 1847 to take charge of Saint John's Orphan Asylum, located on Chestnut Street near 13th Street.
  40. The Most Reverend Edmond F. Prendergast, third Archbishop (seventh Bishop) of Philadelphia, was born in Clonmel, Ireland on May 5, 1843.
  41. The Right Reverend Francis P. Kenrick performed his last official act as Bishop of Philadelphia when he blessed the cornerstone of Saint Malachy Church, located at 11th Street above Master Street in North Philadelphia on May 25, 1851.
  42. The first field Mass ever celebrated in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia was offered on May 30, 1913 at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary in Overbrook for the memory of Catholic soldiers and was attended by over 25,000 people.
  43. Cardinal Dennis J. Dougherty, fourth Archbishop (eighth Bishop) of Philadelphia, died on May 31, 1951, the 61st anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood, and is buried in the crypt of the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul.
  44. Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua, Archbishop of Philadelphia, was ordained a priest in Saint James Cathedral in Brooklyn, New York, on June 11, 1949.
  45. Rev. Dennis J. Dougherty, who would later become Cardinal Archbishop of Philadelphia, was consecrated the first American Bishop of the Phillipines on June 14, 1903 in the Basilica of Saints John and Paul in Rome.
  46. In a pastoral letter dated June 29, 1846, the Right Reverend Francis P. Kenrick, third Bishop of Philadelphia, announced the construction of a new cathedral, the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, at 18th and Race Streets.
  47. On July 4, 1779, members of the Continental Congress attended the first public religious commemoration of the Declaration of Independence at Old Saint Mary's Church, located at 248 South 8th Street in Philadelphia.
  48. To mark the Centennial of the Declaration of Independence, the Catholic Total Abstinence Union, a national Catholic temperance group, dedicated a fountain featuring statues of prominent American Catholics in West Fairmount Park on July 4, 1876.
  49. On July 10, 1918, the Most Reverend Dennis J. Dougherty became the first native Philadelphian to be installed as Archbishop of Philadelphia.
  50. The construction of the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, located at 18th and Race Streets in Center City, began on August 18, 1846 with the digging of the building's foundation.
  51. On August 20, 1884, the Most Reverend Patrick John Ryan was installed as the sixth Bishop (second Archbishop) of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul.
  52. Archbishop James Frederick Wood dedicated the church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, located at the corner of Belgrade Street and Allegheny Avenue in North Philadelphia on August 20, 1882.
  53. John Cardinal O'Hara, C.S.C., ninth Bishop (fifth Archbishop) of Philadelphia died on August 28, 1960 and is buried in Sacred Heart Church at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana.
  54. Located in the Hunting Park section of North Philadelphia, Little Flower Catholic High School for Girls first opened its doors on September 1, 1939 to over 2300 young women.
  55. Founded in 1830, Saint John the Evangelist Church served as the second Cathedral of the then-Diocese of Philadelphia and hosted the American premiere of Mozart's Requiem Mass in 1834.
  56. To commemorate the 175th anniversary of the Constitution of the United States, then-Archbishop John J. Krol delivered an invocation at Independence Hall on September 17, 1962.
  57. Before leaving for America to occupy his post as the second spiritual leader of the Diocese of Philadelphia, the Most Reverend Henry Conwell was elevated to the rank of Bishop on September 24, 1820 in London, England.
  58. On October 3, 1979, Pope John Paul II became the first Pontiff to visit the city of Philadelphia and celebrated an outdoor Mass on Logan Circle for over one million people.
  59. During a Solemn Pontifical Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul on October 15, 1873, then-Bishop James F. Wood dedicated the then-Diocese of Philadelphia to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
  60. The Most Reverend Michael Egan, O.S.F., first Bishop of Philadelphia, was consecrated to that position on October 28, 1810 by Archbishop John Carroll of Baltimore.
  61. In October 1956, Philadelphia's Convention Hall hosted the "Vistarama" exposition, the largest exhibit of Catholic Missionary work ever assembled, which featured 334 works of art by religious orders and missionary workers.
  62. Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua, Archbishop of Philadelphia, became a Bishop on November 24, 1980 when he was named as an auxiliary to serve the Diocese of Brooklyn.
  63. In April 1853, Saint John Neumann, fourth Bishop of Philadelphia, presided over the first Diocesan Synod and mandated the first organized Forty Hours devotion in the United States.
  64. Saint Adalbert Parish, located at the corner of East Allegheny Avenue and Thompson Street in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia, was established by Archbishop Patrick John Ryan on November 25, 1904 to meet the spritual needs of the burgeoning Polish community
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