New Exhibit: Maryknollers On Path To Sainthood

“The Maryknoll Society’s Causes For Beatification And Canonization,” a new exhibit that follows the path to sainthood of four Maryknoll priests, can be viewed through May 2015 at the Maryknoll Museum of Living Mission at the Maryknoll Mission Center in Ossining.

The exhibit features Maryknoll co-founders Bishop James A. Walsh (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and Father Thomas F. Price (Wilmington, North Carolina), along with Bishop Francis X. Ford (Brooklyn, New York), Maryknoll’s first seminarian who was martyred in China, and Father Vincent R. Capodanno (Staten Island, New York), a U.S. Navy Chaplain killed in action in Vietnam.

The museum and the Maryknoll Gift Shop at 55 Ryder Road are open Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free. Click here for directions.

Bishop James A. Walsh

Bishop Walsh hailed from Cambridge, Massachusetts. He served as curate at St. Patrick’s Church in Roxbury and then he was appointed diocesan director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith during 1903. Among his responsibilities was to raise money to support overseas mission. During this time, he began to develop his vision, a modernized version of mission, for a mature U.S. Church that was eager to fulfill exciting and joyful missionary responsibilities around the world.

Bishop Walsh founded the Catholic Foreign Mission Bureau and The Field Afar magazine, a monthly publication about the foreign missions of the Catholic Church. Years later, this magazine would become the Maryknoll magazine that continues to be published today.

During 1910, at the 21st Eucharistic Conference in Montreal, Father Walsh shared his vision of U.S. Catholic mission with Father Thomas Frederick Price of North Carolina. Realizing they shared a common call to mission, Father Walsh and Father Price collaborated on plans for a mission society within the Catholic Church in the U.S.

The bishops of the United States formally sanctioned the pursuit of their vision to recruit, send and support U.S. missioners around the world. With this approval, Father Walsh and Father Price traveled to Rome to present their vision of mission.

They received the blessing of Pope Pius X on June 29, 1911 (the feast of Saints Peter and Paul). This is the founding day of the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America that, over the years, has become more well-known as the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.

Path To Sainthood

The cause for the beatification and canonization of Bishop James A. Walsh officially opened during a ceremony at the New York Catholic Center in Manhattan on November 9, 2011. With subsequent approval from the Vatican, the process started to pursue the cause of Bishop Walsh. A tribunal has been tasked with obtaining formal witness testimony. Since few people now living actually met Bishop Walsh, most evidence will be compiled from written records.

Next time: The cause for the beatification and canonization of Father Thomas F. Price.