Portraits in Faith and Freedom

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Portraits in Faith and Freedom
Bethlehem Books is bringing back this series of biographies originally made available in the 1950’s and 60’s by publishers who wished to introduce young people to a wide range of arresting and faithful Catholic lives. Slightly edited now for the modern reader, these biographies present key people and events from the past that help us reflect anew on the meaning of freedom. They depict how powerfully men and women of faith have formed and influenced the world in which they live.

Founding Voices For Freedom In the U.S.

Charles Carroll and the American Revolution

Priest, Patriot and Leader: The Story of Archbishop Carroll

Mathew Carey: Pamphleteer for Freedom

Polish Advocates of Hope and Nationhood

So Young a Queen: Jadwiga of Poland

Cavalry Hero: Casimir Pulaski

The Lion of Poland: The Story of Paderewski

Spanish and Mexican Heroes

The Sea Tiger: The Story of Pedro Menendez

Padre Pro: Mexican Hero

Women of Faith and Courage

Star of the Mohawk: Kateri Tekakwitha

Margaret Haughery: Bread Woman of New Orleans

The Door of Hope: The Story of Katherine Drexel

Missionaries On the Frontier

Joseph the Huron

Simon Brute and the Western Adventure

Frontier Priest and Congressman: Father Gabriel Richard, S.S.

Black Robe Peacemaker: Pierre de Smet

New York Ambassadors of Brotherhood

Pierre Toussaint: Pioneer in Brotherhood

John Hughes: Eagle of the Church

Alfred E. Smith: Sidewalk Statesman

Charles Carroll and the American Revolution

Charles Carroll was one of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. This wealthy young landowner not only played a key role in founding the United States of America, but a surprising one. He was Catholic. In Maryland, laws prohibited Catholics from all aspects of public life including...Read more

Priest, Patriot and Leader: The Story of Archbishop Carroll

Though independence had been won from England in 1783, and with it greater religious freedom, Catholics in the new United States of America still faced prejudice and fear engendered by decades of anti-Catholicism. Rome needed to find the right man to become the first Catholic bishop in the new...Read more

Mathew Carey: Pamphleteer for Freedom

Semi-crippled and with a poor school record, Mathew Carey should never have succeeded in anything, especially as he was also a Catholic in the intolerant Ireland of 1775. But by the age of 15 he’d gotten himself apprenticed to a Dublin printer and bookseller. At 17, he had anonymously penned an...Read more

So Young a Queen: Jadwiga of Poland

Hungarian Princess Jadwiga (Yahd VEE gah) has been prepared from birth to put the peace and prosperity of nations above her own desires. Betrothed in 1378 at the age of five to Prince William of Austria, their education has included spending time in each other’s court for careful training as future...Read more

Cavalry Hero: Casimir Pulaski

Casimir Pulaski is most remembered as the dashing Polish cavalry officer who aids the United States’ fight for independence with daring feats of courage and strategy. As a child, already a gifted horseman, he learns from his father Joseph Pulaski, a statesman and landowner, what it means to stand...Read more

The Lion of Poland: The Story of Paderewski

Ignace Jan Paderewski was born in Poland in November, 1860. At his death in 1940, he was honored by burial in the Arlington Cemetery. As a boy, young Ignace saw repeated Polish rebellions against the controlling foreign powers fail. He determines that the way to help Poland become free and united...Read more

The Sea Tiger: The Story of Pedro Menendez

Pedro Menéndez of Aviles is an unfamiliar name to many Americans—and yet in 1565 this remarkable man founded St. Augustine, the oldest continually-inhabited city in North America. Growing up in Asturia, Spain, the young Pedro becomes a master at handling boats, with an instinctive knowledge of the...Read more

Padre Pro: Mexican Hero

There are two doorways into the life of the gallant Mexican priest Padre Pro. One doorway begins at the end, during an intense period of anti-Catholicism in Mexico, in the high public drama of a daring young priest’s use of disguises and audacious risks to secretly carry communion to the faithful,...Read more

Star of the Mohawk: Kateri Tekakwitha

In the 1600s, New France was the arena for both violent upheaval and powerful change. On one hand, longtime enmity between the Mohawk nation of the Iroquois and the Algonquins of New France fuels aggressive competition for the fur trade with Europeans. On the other hand, many Algonquins, as well as...Read more

Margaret Haughery: Bread Woman of New Orleans

In 1836, after the death of her husband and child, Irish-born Margaret Haughery (Haw-er-y) finds herself alone and penniless in a strange city—New Orleans. It is after she obtains work as a hotel laundress right next door to where the Sisters of Charity take in orphans that Margaret’s life takes on...Read more

Portraits in Faith and Freedom