1. Hollywood to sisterhood, 1958
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| Photo of Dolores Hart and Elvis Presley from public domain trailer of King Creole (1958). Acquired from Wikimedia Commons. |
And then Hart answered the call to join a contemplative Benedictine monastery. In 1963, she entered the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, CN. Today, Mother Dolores is prioress of the abbey.
The National Catholic Register relayed Hollywood’s reaction in an interview with Mother Dolores:
They were shocked — angry. My boss, Hal Wallis, just couldn’t believe it. He sent me a message that said, "Don’t leave. Because if you do, I’ll make sure you never work again in Hollywood!" [She laughs.] But, eventually, he became a very good friend. His wife is still alive and sends us a basket of fruit every month.On prayer, she said:
Prayer is not something you just teach a little child as a pious action. Prayer comes from the deepest heart of human beings who want their life to continue or they want the life of someone else to continue. The call for prayer is a belief and faith that their needs can be answered.Some believe young Dolores' role as St. Clare of Assisi influenced her conviction to become a nun. Although Dolores grants there may have been some influence there, she better recalls a moment while filming Lisa, a story of a Nazi survivor. In speaking with a real Nazi survivor, Dolores contemplated the evils of the world. In another National Catholic Register interview, she stated:
I realized that the human condition was in such terrible pain that I wondered what one person could do. What can one woman do to face that kind of evil? The only thing that came to me was: The consecration of a woman was the only way to fight that. You have to believe that giving your body into that kind of prayer has a meaning.See further reading at the Abbey of Regina Laudis.
2. Cologne crane, 1868
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| The Cologne Cathedral crane. Photo by Theodor Creifields, 1868. Acquired from Wikimedia Commons. |
In either the 15th or 16th century, lack of funds prevented further construction until 1842. The official website imagines that the crane was originally built at ground level, and slowly raised along with the construction of the tower by lifting each corner atop the tower blocks, up to 50 cm at a time, until the base reached a height of 45 meters. Many websites and books reference this device when detailing the history of cranes. By 1880, the Cathedral was completed.
3. Soccer priest, 2008
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| Chase Hilgenbrinck (left) playing for the New England Revolution in 2008. Photo acquired from Fr. Hilgenbrinck. |
In 2008, he was signed by the Colorado Rapids in Major League Soccer, although he was released during the pre-season. But other scouts recognized his defensive talent and he eventually signed with the New England Revolution. He ended up playing several games for the Revolution until he decided to leave the sport of soccer. Why? To become a priest, of course! Our story here resembles Dolores Hart's, told above, of someone leaving public fame for religious life.
After announcing his decision to leave the Revolution and enter the seminary, Hilgenbrinck said:
"I wouldn't leave the game for just any other job. I'm moving on for the Lord. I want to do the will of the Lord, I want to do what he wants for me, not what I want to do for myself." (CatholiCity)Even then, he already incorporated soccer technique into his new vocation:
"When you play soccer you have to continue getting better every day. It's the same with faith. You have to improve every single day, search for opportunities to deepen your relationship with Christ."Hilgenbrinck was ordained in 2014 and currently serves at St. John’s Catholic Newman Center in Champaign, Illinois.
In May 2016, Fr. Chase returned to the city of Chillán where he played “on first division teams for three years.” (Catholic News Agency) This time, he returned not as a soccer player, but as a priest, to celebrate the Eucharist with over 600 faithful in the community that knew him.
Further reading at Wikipedia: Chase Hilgenbrinck.
4. Tomb of a priest, 2016
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| Presumed tomb of Don Miguel de Palomares (d. 1542) in Mexico City. Photo: Mauricio Marat, INAH. Used with permission. |
In April 2016, construction crews sought to install new lamp posts to illuminate the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral. In digging one of the holes, the crew struck a historic slab of stone.
Pictured above is the stone, now featuring the hole made by the construction crew. As it turns out, the slab is inscribed with the name Miguel de Palomares, a Catholic priest. The slab is apparently the cover of his tomb.
Miguel was one of the first Catholic priests to evangelize Mexico. He arrived in Mexico from Spain in 1524 “to work with Juan de Zumarraga, the Franciscan prelate and the first Bishop of Mexico.” He died in 1542.
Miguel’s tomb is set in a foundation of what was once an Aztec temple. The Aztecs were known for committing hundreds if not thousands of gruesome human sacrifices per year.
The question was raised in media as to why the Church would not have destroyed the Aztec temple. However, the question may not be so intriguing as simple. As explained by Raul Barrera, an archaeologist for the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History: “The Spaniards, Hernan Cortes and his followers, made use of the pre-Hispanic structures, the temples, the foundations, the floors.” The foundation was already firm and saved on excessive construction materials and would have been adequate for a foundation for a cathedral.
5. Easter Island Moai, 2011
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| A row of Moai at the Easter Island sacred site Ahu Akivi (2011). Photo by Arian Zwegers. Acquired from Wikimedia Commons. |
Easter Island, natively known as Rapa Nui, is home to many mysterious statues and mythology from ancient history. The most famous icons of this historic place are the great “Moai,” giant monument busts. Pictured here is a row of Moai at the sacred site Ahu Akivi, and the apparent location on the cover of Father Sebastian Englert’s 1970 book, Island at the Center of the World.
Easter Island is one of the most remote inhabited lands on the entire planet, about 1,200 miles away from the nearest inhabited Pitcairn Islands and 2,000 miles away from the nearest mainland in Chile.
Father Englert was a Capuchin Franciscan friar stationed at Easter Island for decades. The island is home to a single museum named The Father Sebastian Englert Anthropological Museum. The museum website describes the priest having "lived at Rapa Nui for more than 30 years, extensively documenting the island's legends, language and culture in general."
Father Englert is suspected to have been the only non-native during his time on the island to have mastered the language. Following is an excerpt from Father William Mulloy’s biography of the late Father Englert:
In 1935 he volunteered to serve on Easter Island, and continued there until his death [1969], having contact with the outside world only through supply ships which arrived once or twice a year. He devoted every free moment to study of his island and its people.Fr. Mulloy described Fr. Sebastian as a student of Easter Island's "linguistics, ethnology and archaeology. Fr. Sebastian was unique in that "no other investigator of the island [had] ever been able remotely to approach the rapport which he had obtained with the islanders." He was also involved in the restoration of the island's monuments, which "began to be fulfilled in 1960."
6. LBJ oath of office, 1963
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| Lyndon B. Johnson, standing between Lady Bird Johnson and Jacqueline Kennedy, takes the oath of office aboard Air Force One on Nov. 22, 1963. Public domain photo acquired from jfklibrary.org |
November 22, 1963 forever remains a day of infamy in the history of the United States. At around 12:30 local time, President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed by a sniper in Dallas as he rode along side his wife, Jacqueline. This seismic event in the history of the U.S. remains today the subject of fascination, conspiracy theories, and mysteries. One such mystery involves the Catholic missal on which Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in approximately 2 hours later.
Following the President’s death and ensuing chaotic events, a group of federal staff found themselves aboard Air Force One, prepared to fly back to Washington, along with the deceased. Mrs. Kennedy, keeping near the casket, accompanied the group. Johnson had requested that a Judge Sarah T. Hughes administer the oath.
The events surrounding the Catholic missal begin around 2:34 p.m. A timeline appearing in Esquire recounts the moment as follows:
2:34 p.m.Marie Fehmer palms the typewritten oath to Judge Hughes. But they still need a Bible. Larry O'Brien, excusing himself to Jackie, finds a Catholic missal in the bedroom's nightstand drawer. It is in a small box, still wrapped in cellophane. It is possibly a gift, something that somebody, somewhere, had thrust into Kennedy's hands, perhaps even on this last trip to Texas. Now O'Brien tears open the box and hands the book to Judge Hughes.
A recorded phone call (MP3) between U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Abe Fortas and Judge Hughes reveals Fortas stating:
“[Larry O’Brien] handed you something that he thought was a Bible that a steward had handed him, which had been in the President’s quarters.”
How Kennedy acquired the missal remains unknown. Some articles posit that someone, perhaps even a civilian, had simply handed it to President Kennedy at some point.
Then came the administration of the oath. A 1967 article in the Washington Post reported:
“Mr. Johnson and Federal Judge Sarah Hughes, who administered the 36-word oath, both believed that the small, leather-bound book was a Bible. … [O’Brien] entered the room. He handed the missal to Judge Hughes, who looked at it briefly and took the book to be a Douay (Roman Catholic) Bible.” (Washington Post, Feb. 26, 1967, PDF)
And, so, at 2:38 p.m., President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as 36th president of the United States. Everything about the scene felt providential. Mrs. Kennedy stood by his side, wearing clothes still stained with her husband’s blood. Kennedy’s body was elsewhere in the jet. Judge Hughes to this day remains the only woman to administer the oath of office. And Johnson, a Protestant, took the oath wth his hand atop a Catholic missal.
Why the missal was perceived as a Bible may have come from the cover. According to Justice Fortas in another recorded call (MP3):
"[T]he missal was bound in “black leather cover…with a cross on it. I would assume looking at it, it was a Bible. I’m sure the President (Johnson) knew nothing about it.”
Fortas later revealed that the book was a “St. Joseph Sunday missal.” A photo of the missal can be seen here at the LBJ Library & Museum.
The immediate fate of the missal following the oath is also unclear. In the same phone call, Justice Fortas stated, “somebody, probably a secret service man” handed the missal to Lady Bird Johnson, who placed it in her bag and returned it to the White House archives. Mrs. Johnson, who was also on the call, claimed she did not remember the sequence of events.
The Esquire account describes the immediate fate of the missal thusly:
2:41 p.m.There will soon be stories that have Judge Hughes taking the Catholic missal with her and in her shock handing it to a mysterious man, never to be seen again. In fact, the missal ends up in Lady Bird's purse. She will show it secretively to Liz Carpenter, and they will worry for a moment that it's a Catholic book, one more of the day's accidental crossings. Today, the missal is at the LBJ Library in Austin. It looks as new as it did the day it was made, its soft black leather cover embossed with a cross.
Two other mysterious aspects surround the missal. First, details of the missal’s fate were apparently never revealed to William Manchester, who was then writing The Death of a President. In his book, published in 1967, Manchester stated that the missal was missing. The other matter concerned ownership of the missal. As the phone calls reveal, the inside of the book’s leather binding are embossed with “JFK.” The calls touch on whether or not the White House legally had the right to retain the missal or if it should be returned to the Kennedy family. The LBJ Library (also the location of 9 recorded phone calls regarding the missal) clears up these two issues as follows:
Although Manchester says in his book, published in 1967, that the book used for the swearing-in ceremony was missing, it is clear now that the White House had the missal but did not disclose this at the time. In 1979, when Merle Miller was doing research at the Library for his book on LBJ, Miller asked Library staff for information on the book used to swear in the President. At that time Harry Middleton, Director of the LBJ Library, disclosed that the Library had the book and that it was a Catholic missal. The question of legal title arose at that time since the book had actually belonged to President Kennedy. Middleton notified John Stewart, Assistant Director of the Kennedy Library, and offered to send the item to the Kennedy Library. On April 2, 1979, Dan Fenn, the Director of the Kennedy Library, responded and stated that it was his opinion that the missal should remain in the Johnson Library. Dan Reed, the head of Presidential Libraries at the time, concurred. The LBJ Library considers legal title to the item to have transferred with this letter.7. The John McNulty case, 1894
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| Sketch of John McNulty from Jan. 26, 1894 issue of the San Francisco Call newspaper. |
According to McNulty, Collins showed up at the wharf with friends who proceeded to “beat him with a wagon-wheel spoke till he bled from the lungs.” Later that evening, McNulty purchased a "revolver to protect himself."
Sunday, March 25, 1888. The next day, McNulty claims to have seen Collins and friend Mike Halpin (or Halpen) walking down the street. The three men had an encounter, apparently arguing about the fight at the wharf the day prior. McNulty was quoted as follows:
“Collins approach me in a threatening manner and put his hand to his hip-pocket. Fearing he was going to shoot me, I drew my pistol and fired it at him.”Collins died shortly thereafter at a nearby hospital.
Halpin’s version of the story differs. He claims McNulty was the aggressor and challenged Collins to a fight. McNulty then is said to have shot Collins after Collins refused to renew the fight. A Wednesday news report adds the testimony of Patrick Morgan, who also claims to have been with Collins when the murder occurred. In this report, Morgan's account of the murder is similar to Halpin’s, although there is no mention of Halpin's presence.
McNulty was immediately arrested by nearby police. His pregnant wife did not learn of the arrest until after visiting hours, and she wept outside the prison, unable to enter. While behind bars, McNulty was reported to have heard hear crying and said, “Poor woman, she will soon give birth to a child that will have a man like me as a father. That’s the only thing I am sorry for.”
In July 1888, McNulty plead not guilty. The trial was even postponed because Mrs. McNulty had given birth and was considered a key witness.
When the trial began, a new report said the McNulty defense, behind attorney J.N.E. Wilson, was temporary insanity. The jury found McNulty guilty on August 6 which likely meant the death penalty. McNulty is reported to have later sparred “violently insane” with prison guards that evening following a visit from his wife.
After some appeals, Judge Murphy delivered his sentence on October 6—the death penalty. At the announcement, McNulty’s mother reportedly cried “Oh, Lord, have mercy,” while his wife cried, “My God, my God, pity me and my child.”
Subsequent appeals continued to occur for many months. In a brief segue on January 12, 1890, McNulty escaped from prison with five other inmates, having snuck past a guard and dug through a rotted wall. By January 19, he was recaptured after traveling “through the mountains.”
Appeals continued for the next years. By then, McNulty was represented by attorney Carroll Cooke. But the sentence of death continued to loom.
An August 1892 article describes Nulty’s prison situation.
The condemned man is a Catholic and he is zealously devoting most of his time in preparing for death in accordance with his faith. During the afternoon he was visited by two priests and two Sisters of Mercy. … At the upper end of the cell is a shelf. Upon this stands a crucifix flanked by two candles and a few glit-edged prayer-books.The article also reported an interview between McNulty and a reporter. "I killed Collins in self-defense," McNulty said, echoing his defense from the day after the murder.
By 1894, the gallows had already been raised twice to hang him, only to be stored again after legal stays and appeals.
McNulty was scheduled again for execution by hanging on January 26, 1894. But our story comes to an end on January 25. McNulty sat in his cell accompanied by two Sisters of Charity, consoling him and offering prayers. At 2:15 p.m. a telegram is delivered to the prison. It is from a sheriff relaying a message from California Governor Henry Markham. The message reads:
Sacramento, Jan. 25, 1894. McDade, Sheriff, San Francisco—The Governor has commuted McNulty’s sentence to imprisonment for life. I will bring official document down to-morrow morning.According to the news report, the entire prison population, as well as an outside crowd, received the news with joy. The prison sheriff reportedly exclaimed, “Thank God!” on hearing the news. The deputy and newsmen apparently ran to tell McNulty the news, who himself exclaimed, “Praise God!” The sisters shook his hand as well as the messengers'. (News reports regarding Mrs. McNulty were absent.)
After hearing the news, McNulty immediately sent a message to his mother reading:
Mrs. Miles McNulty, St. John, New Brunswick, care of Joseph Watson—Dear Mother: God has spared you from the disgrace that once threatened you. Yours. John McNulty.McNulty’s first visitor the following morning was Father Jaquet of St. Ignatius Church, who encouraged the prisoner to have hope. In an interview with the San Francisco Call, Father Jaquet stated:
I have known McNulty for years, and I never believed he would be hanged. Why? Well, when I learned that his mother came here to sacrifice her last cent for him, yet refused to swear falsely for his sake, to swear that he had been subject to epileptic fits for eighteen months when he had not, I believed that for her sake his life would be spared.Remember, during his first attorney’s term, McNulty’s plea was temporary insanity. Perhaps the mother had refused to give false testimony that McNulty suffered from seizures.
And so, our story comes to a close. It is a strange story that raises moral questions. Whether or not McNulty killed in self-defense remains unknown. Obviously the judge and jury did not buy the self-defense argument (nor his original plea of insanity with his first attorney). However, what does not seem in dispute is that Collins and some other party indeed took to beating McNulty the day before the kill. A medical report did not confirm the use of foreign objects in McNulty’s beating, as McNulty claimed, but it did reveal “discolored contusions” on McNulty’s body.
An editorial did appear shortly after Gov. Markham’s commutation, criticizing the governor’s decision, insisting murder was no fair exchange for battery. Although, as cited above, other reports claimed the community, the police staff, and religious were gladdened by the commutation. Did this indicate McNulty had shown remorse? Was McNulty only regretful for his mother and wife and child, but not the killing of Collins? That priests and nuns visited him regularly, coupled with the report that he had taken up his Catholic faith, does give evidence that he may have repented. What about Collins’ culpability? We know little of the victim’s life, other than probably leading another man’s beating, and possible involvement in bullying McNulty in the days prior to the incident at the wharf. The incident may move us to ponder our own lives and interactions with others as we strive, even if poorly, to lead worthy lives. And, as faithful, we can hope with God for the salvation of all men (1 Tim. 2:3-4).
