Description:

Brian J. Cudahy

This story began in 18th Century Ireland when Capuchin friar Arthur O’Leary opened a chapel on the quiet Cork City backstreet of Blackmoor Lane. Through his writings, O’Leary called for justice and tolerance amid the turmoil and confusion of Ireland’s Penal Era. O’Learys message later informed the world view of another priest from Cork, John England. It is England who took O’Leary’s vision across the Atlantic, where he ultimately in 1820 became the bishop of a new diocese in Charleston, South Carolina. 

Ironically, England preached for justice and tolerance in a community that was to become the epicenter of America’s defining moral quandary, slavery. But England’s transcendent message somehow took hold and he ultimately found himself on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives sharing the wisdom of Arthur O’Leary with Members of Congress. It is on that January day in 1826 that England, the first Catholic bishop to address the body, outlined what some have called a theology on the separation of church and state to the leaders of a nation interpreting the meaning of its still-new Constitution. Indeed the themes he shared that day remain relevant in today’s world, addressing critical issues facing both Catholicism and the nation.

Pb ISBN 978-1-57659-439-1

ebook ISBN 978-1-57659-440-7