author
James F. Loughlin
1851–1911
A Catholic priest, teacher, and church historian, he helped shape one of the most influential reference works of American Catholic scholarship. His writing blends formal learning with a clear wish to explain history and faith to ordinary readers.
1 Audiobook
St. Patrick, the Father of a Sacred Nation
by James F. Loughlin
About the author
Born in Auburn, New York, on May 8, 1851, James Francis Loughlin was raised in Toledo, Ohio, and later studied at Niagara University and at the Urban College of Propaganda in Rome. He was ordained in 1874 and went on to serve in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, where he worked as a parish priest and then taught subjects including canon law, moral theology, Greek, and music at St. Charles Seminary.
Loughlin became widely known as a Catholic educator and writer. He served as president of St. Charles Seminary and was later named a domestic prelate, which gave him the title Monsignor. He also contributed to The Catholic Encyclopedia, writing on church history and related subjects, and published sermons and lectures of his own.
He died in Barbados on March 17, 1911. Remembered as both a churchman and an author, he left behind work that reflects the scholarly and devotional world of American Catholic life at the turn of the twentieth century.