American Holiness: 5 Catholic Witnesses Who Helped the Faith Take Root in America
- Mia Gallegos
- 12 hours ago
- 5 min read
From the Georgia Martyrs to the founder of the University of Notre Dame, these missionaries, martyrs and pioneers helped plant the seeds of Catholic faith in the United States.
In every age and time, though much differs and changes, one thing remains steadfast: God raises up saints to manifest his loving kindness to his people. He inspires people to live holy lives, following him even to the Cross, in love for God and neighbor.
The same is true here, on our shores. In the United States’ 250 years, the Lord has called individuals, both canonized and uncanonized, to follow him and to lay down their lives for their neighbors.
And we are called to do the same.
Georgia Martyrs
What is today labeled the coastline of the state of Georgia was home in 1595 to six Franciscan friars, who proclaimed the Gospel among the native peoples of the region, where five missions were established.
The friars — Pedro de Corpa, Blas Rodríguez de Cuacos, Miguel de Añon, Antonio de Badajoz, Francisco de Verascola and Francisco de Ávila — lived among the Guale people, earning their trust through their witness and ministry. They even learned the indigenous Guale language!
But the relative peace they enjoyed was shattered when Don Juanillo, a Christian and heir to the office of head of the indigenous chiefdom, clashed with de Corpa, who would not permit Juanillo to take a second wife, per Guale tradition. In this way, the friar held fast to the Christian faith and paid for his witness with his life; Juanillo had de Corpa killed for fear of his leadership and inheritance being revoked.
Juanillo then sent a war party to find and execute the remaining friars. Only de Ávila survived, being subjected to 10 months of torture until he was released by the governor of St. Augustine. Through it all, the holy friar chose not to condemn his captors to spare them the death penalty they would have received if he had.
De Corpa, de Ávila and the other Georgia Martyrs will be beatified this fall.
Archbishop John Carroll
Born in 1735, John Carroll was the son of an esteemed Maryland family during the mid-18th century. Knowing he wanted to be a priest from a young age, but lacking formation options in the American colonies, he went to France and Belgium for seminary. He was ordained in Belgium in 1767, then served in England for a few years. In 1774, Father Carroll returned to Maryland amid rising tensions between the Crown and the Colonies.
After the Revolutionary War, Father Carroll played a pivotal role in organizing the Catholic Church in the newly formed United States, a task made possible after independence from England and the end of restrictions on Catholic life.
In 1779, Father Carroll was appointed as the Bishop of Baltimore. With the Diocese of Baltimore encompassing the entire new country at the time of his appointment, Bishop Carroll is considered the first bishop of the U.S. Later, in 1811, he was elevated to archbishop after four new dioceses were established.
During his time as bishop and archbishop, the Roman Catholic population of America grew eightfold, making Archbishop Carroll a foundational figure in the U.S. Catholic Church.
Father Jacques Marquette
Born in France in 1637, Jacques Marquette entered the Jesuits at the age of 17. Following his studies, he was called to Canada to work in the missions there. Gifted in languages, Father Marquette learned the dialects of the Indigenous peoples he served.
While at one of his assignments on Lake Superior, he felt called to explore the Mississippi River. In May 1673, Marquette and six other Frenchmen set out to explore the river, beginning near the Wisconsin River and charting it all the way to the Arkansas River. Their expedition provided some of the first accurate European accounts of the Mississippi River.
Returning to Green Bay, Wisconsin, in 1675, Father Marquette was exhausted by his travels. He set out for one of the missions in Michigan, but he died along the way in May of that year.
Father Pierre-Jean de Smet
After arriving in the United States from his native Belgium, Pierre-Jean de Smet entered a Jesuit novitiate in Maryland in July 1821 and was ordained in Missouri in 1827.
Father de Smet had a history of peace-making among the tribes west of the Mississippi River, negotiating between the Potawatomi (Iowa) and the Yankton Sioux (South Dakota). After learning of a tribe that had requested a priest in 1840, he traveled to the Bitterroot mountain region of Montana and established St. Mary Mission near Missoula. With support from several European countries, he helped establish St. Ignatius Mission in 1844.
Well acquainted with many of the tribes in the western region he served, Father de Smet attended a peace council in present-day Wyoming to advocate for those he served. While this council reached an agreement to allow Anglo Americans the right to travel along the tribes’ main trails to set up military forts, a success at the time, future violations of the agreement would be cause for tension and unrest.
Father de Smet would go on to facilitate several more negotiations before passing away in 1873 in St. Louis, Missouri, where he had been a long-time administrator at St. Louis College. Known as the Apostle of the Rockies, Father de Smet was well-loved and trusted by the many populations he served throughout his missionary ministry.
Father Edward Sorin, CSC
Inspired by Father Moreau, the founder of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, whom he met while in seminary, Father Sorin decided to join the group of auxiliary priests being assembled to assist in parish missions and form the faithful after his ordination in 1838.
After only a year in the Diocese of Le Mans, France, Father Sorin headed to the United States to found a school of the Congregation of the Holy Cross. Arriving in Indiana, he and his fellow Holy Cross religious founded The University of Our Lady of the Lake in honor of Mother Mary, which would later become the University of Notre Dame.
Father Sorin envisioned Notre Dame becoming a great Catholic university under the care of Divine Providence. This trust in the Father’s will persisted even after a fire burned the original university (one building at the time), which Father Sorin famously described as an opportunity from Mary to rebuild the university even bigger and better.
Father Sorin served as the first president of the University of Notre Dame while continuing oversight of the works of the Congregation of the Holy Cross in the U.S. He founded Ave Maria Press in 1865, which is still in existence today. Father Sorin would eventually succeed Father Moreau as the congregation’s superior general until his death in 1893.
Father Sorin’s influence is felt even today through the institutions he founded during his time as a priest in the U.S.
Building a Church for the Next 250 Years
The mission of each of these Catholic witnesses was to bring others to the Heart of Christ, a call that we too share. Their example reminds us that this call of service and evangelization is one that, when followed, reaps fruit that will abide for generations.
Like each of these individuals, we are invited to listen for the voice of the Lord, to how and when he may be calling us to build up his Kingdom in our own day-to-day lives, through quotidian tasks or in large and influential ways.
If we turn the ear of our hearts toward the Father, we too may become like those who came before us and carved the way for our faith. As we look toward the country’s next 250 years, how is God calling you to follow him, in the ordinary and the extraordinary?
