Introduction to “Great Catholic Laymen.”

“I believe that it was I who had the good fortune of inspiring the writer with the idea of the necessity in our age of some such catholic biography. For the need never seems to have attracted Catholic writers; or if it did, they must have assured themselves that the time was not ripe for such a publication, or that Catholic sense and intelligence were not ripe enough to demand it…. The great writers, thinkers, and workers of other religions, or no religion, have been glorified by studies, memoirs, biographies, or reminiscences without number. Their reliques, letters – everything pertaining to them have been published, and read eagerly by a public who delight in probing into the secrets of its heroes.

Garcia Moreno, the greatest Catholic President.

“I cannot recall the name of great Pagan or Protestant, who has been neglected. But what of our catholic writers and workers? You seek their names in vain in encyclpaedia or dictionary or biography. The world has deemed them unworthy of notice; and have accepted the verdict. Hence you will not find in the many volumes that are now published under the title of “Great statesmen,” a notice, much less a life, of Windhorst or O’connell; or if these distinguished men are mentioned, it is to be dismissed in a few, almost contemptuous sentences.

            Joseph de Maistre.

“In a series of philosophical classics, what place is there for an Aquinas or a Suarez? You have kant, and Hegel, and Fichte and Schelling, Hume and Berkeley… but where are Augustine, and St. Thomas, and Bellarmine, and Vasquez? Where are de Maistre or Montalembert? Where are Brownson and Newman? In a cheap reprint of the poets, you will find every name but Coventry Patmore and Aubrey de Vere? And if you seek the details of these men’s lives, where are you to find them? It will be said that hitherto Catholics… have been conspicuously indifferent about the lives and thoughts, or works of those clinging fast to the tenets of their faith, have wrought great deeds either through the emancipation of oppressed creeds and nationalities, or through important additions to literature….And from this indifference there sprang a natural, yet erroneous inference, that outside the domain of theology and philosophy, the Catholic Church has little to show in industry or intelligence of her children.”  -Canon Sheehan D.D.