Search results for ""Author Marvin R. O'Connell""

This sweeping book offers the definitive account of the life and labors of Edward Sorin, founder of the University of Notre Dame. Born in the west of France in 1814, Sorin was ordained in 1838 and joined the newly founded Congregation of Holy Cross shortly thereafter. In 1841, Father Sorin, along with six Holy Cross brothers, was sent to establish a mission in Indiana. After a year’s service in the Vincennes diocese’s fledgling parochial schools, Sorin was offered a tract of land in the diocese’s northernmost section—on the condition that a college be situated there. Father Sorin and his companions arrived at the lakeside property, located near the south bend of the St. Joseph River, in November 1842. The next year, the state of Indiana granted a charter to what Sorin proudly and reverently called the University of Notre Dame du Lac. In its early days, Father Sorin’s “university” was composed of a few log shacks and a handful of half-educated brothers, only a few of whom could speak English. There was no money and hardly any students. But Father Sorin, by sheer willpower, was determined that his university would prosper. Basic to Father Sorin’s success in this regard was his willingness to give free rein to gifted colleagues—men more intellectually sophisticated than himself—and his intuitive understanding of, and growing love for, the unique character of American culture. Edward Sorin is a lively, colorful history of the man who overcame great odds to found and grow one of the world’s premier Catholic institutions of higher learning.

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This is the first narrative history of the Archdiocese of St. Paul, from 1840 to 1962. Historian Marvin R. O'Connell brings to life the extraordinary labors and accomplishments of the French priests who came to the upper midwest territory during the first half of the nineteenth century. Over the next fifty years a flood of settlers, primarily Irish and German Catholics, filled up the land. In 1850 Rome created a new diocese centered in the village of St. Paul, and in 1851 French priest Joseph Cretin was named its first bishop. O'Connell's lively account stresses the social, economic, and political context in which the Catholic Church in Minnesota grew and evolved. He vividly illuminates the personalities of the bishops who followed Cretin, Thomas Grace (1859–84) and John Ireland (1884–1918). Ireland inherited a sophisticated system of churches, schools, orphanages, and hospitals, staffed by orders of religious men and women. Ireland built upon this legacy, founding colleges for men and women, a major seminary, and cathedrals in both St. Paul and Minneapolis. Ireland's successors, Austin Dowling (1919–30) and John Gregory Murray (1931–56) were not as colorful as Ireland, although Murray was immensely popular. William Brady is the final archbishop covered in this book, serving from 1956 to 1961 when he died unexpectedly from a heart attack. O’Connell ends his narrative in 1962, soon after the death of Archbishop Brady and a few months before the first session of Vatican II.

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