Saint Benedict Center Conference

Anyone and everyone! This is not a talk with a limited interest. Traditionalists, Conservatives, and Liberals; Catholics and non-Catholics; young and old; friends of Saint Benedict Center and critics of Saint Benedict Center: All are welcome. This is an outreach to help spread the Faith in America; it is not the closed session of a private club.

Brother André Marie’s talk, “Toward a Catholic America: History, Goals, and Methods,” is a multifaceted presentation on the Church in America. It is instructional, motivational, and practical.

Treating of American Catholic history, it places a special emphasis on some of the saints and other heroic apostles who labored to Catholicize our land. Listeners are motivated to “stand on the shoulders” of the “giants” who came before them. The talk finishes up with some concrete methods to help the faithful engage in this labor.

The talk varies quite a bit, based on location. For instance, in Wisconsin, there was a focus on some of the missionaries who evangelized the Badger State. A talk in Boston might focus more on Orestes Brownson or Father John Thayer; Kentucky might present an opportunity to discuss Father Charles Nerinckx; Chicagoans would hear of Father Arnold Damen; etc.

The emphasis is to encourage and instruct the faithful in our great task of making America Catholic.

We hope so. To keep posted, check this site at regular intervals or, better yet, sign up for the Ad Rem mailing list (on the front page of our main site). Regular supporters on our USPS mailing list will be notified by first-class mail if a road trip is coming their way.

We have prepared a checklist to answer that question.

The stops are being arranged now. The most certain way to find out is to call our office and speak to Mr. Russell LaPlume (603-239-6485 or rlp@catholicism.org).

If you live on or near the route we are traveling, it is very simple. All you have to do is —

• Arrange a tentative time by contacting Mr. Russell LaPlume in our office (603-239-6485 or rlp@catholicism.org). Mr. LaPlume will help step you through what has to be done.
• Arrange a location for the talk. This can be a parish hall, K of C facility, VFW Hall, local public library, college or school hall, or even a private home (as long as there is at least a small crowd of interested persons). Many of the above locales are inexpensive or even free, depending on your access; call around to find out.
• Advertise it however you can, grassroots style (e.g., word of mouth, phone tree, simple flyers, telling your pastor or chaplain).
• Finalize the details of time and place with Mr. LaPlume so we can book it and announce it on this web site.

It is a series of speeches given throughout the country, a program meant to inform, motivate, and equip Catholics to be better laborers in the project of converting our Republic to the one true faith. The core of each CAT event is Brother André Marie’s talk, “Toward a Catholic America: History, Goals, and Methods.”

In addition to hearing the presentation, those in attendance can browse books and audio products we will bring along. As part of the event, Brother André Marie will also field questions pertinent to Saint Benedict Center’s apostolate, or various topics of a Catholic interest.

No. The Catholic America Tour and the SBC Conference are two distinct realities.

The Catholic America Tour is planning a road trip, a big one. And we need your help to make it successful.

We will cut a CAT path from New Hampshire to Saint Louis, down to Texas, over to Florida, and up the East Coast back to New England. The tour will take three weeks, leaving New Hampshire on February 10, and getting back home on March 3. Since the tour is “on the road” in the most literal sense, we can arrange stops anywhere along the way.

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The map above (which you can “grab” and move around with our mouse to see the whole route), is not complete. We will make side trips off this route if there is a demand. Please let me stress: Any place on this route is a potential speaking engagement — and we will speak to small groups in private homes, if invited. (more…)

Purchase the Catholic America Tour Talk No.1 at the Catholicism.org Store.

The talk was given on Sunday, October 19, in De Pere, Wisconsin. The subject of the talk is “Toward a Catholic America: History, Goals, and Methods.” Brother André Marie spoke for two hours on the history of the Church in America — good and bad — with particular attention to some of the great apostolic workers who wished to make America Catholic, such as Father Arnold Damen, Archbishop Michael Corrigan, Orestes Brownson, and some local Wisconsin figures, the Dutch Dominican Friar, Father Theodore J. Van den Broek (”the apostle of Wisconsin”), and the Italian Dominican, Venerable Samuel Charles Mazzuchelli.

The talk was given at a chapel overlooking the Fox River, which these and many other missionaries used to travel to and from their missions.

File size: 39.7 MB