Illinois

There is so much to say about this Bishop who said and wrote so much. For now, please get involved in his cause for canonization here. Oh and if you didn't know, his first miracle was bringing back to life a stillborn baby after 61 minutes with no pulse or breath. Bishop Fulton Sheen died in 1979. His tomb is in Peoria, IL.

More to come on the foundress of the Congregation of Franciscan Sisters of Chicago. She died in 1918.

The first African American diocesan priest. He served in Chicago. More to come!

Lithuania born. Her brother became a priest at St. Joseph Lithuanian Church in Scranton, PA.  He urged her to com to the US and she was his housekeeper for four years before returning to Lithuania. Feeling called to create a religious order to serve the Lithuania immigrants in Pennsylvania, Sr. Casmiria returned to the US  as the Sisters of St. Casmir, approved by Pope Pius X in 1907. On August 30, 1907, Casmiria and two sisters were professed. The sisters opened their first parish convent school, Holy Cross School, in Mt. Carmel, Pennsylvania. The order spread to Illinois  where they established their Motherhouse in Chicago in 1911. The order built and ran hospitals after the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919. In 1920, Sister Casmiria returned to Lithuania to establish her order there.

 Mother Casmiria died on April 17, 1940 from cancer. She was surrounded by her sisters at the Motherhouse. 

She was named venerable on July 1, 2010. Many of the institutions she started remain today. 

Read more and see pictures from her life here.