Two transplants from Spain, dressed in black clerical suits and collars, walked through Chicago’s bustling Loop on August 10, 1936. Fr. Aloysius Ellacuria, CMF, rector of the fledgling St. Jude Seminary, walked alongside Fr. Antonio Catalina, CMF, pastor at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. They chatted, en castellano, about the business at hand: the purchase …
In the 1980s, Catholics in rural Martindale, Texas, recalled how their elders had regularly walked to their “second home”: Immaculate Heart of Mary Church. The Claretians erected the first Catholic Church there in 1908, with a school two years later. After fire destroyed the wooden structure in 1916, the Claretians raised the brick and stone …
Conducting research in the Claretian Missionaries Archive, I noticed two tall bookcases filled with hundreds of old books. Just the colors and leather bindings suggested these volumes dated back to the nineteenth century, maybe earlier. Now curious, I randomly pulled out a small book, a bit larger than a deck of playing cards. The soft …