Thursday, March 09, 2017
Local Closing of Cause of Father Paul Wattson, SA
New York Catholic Center
1011 First Avenue
New York, NY
For Credit: Mary DiBiase Blaich for CNY
Cardinal Dolan presided at the local closing of the cause of Servant of God Father Paul Wattson, S.A., founder of the Society of the Atonement, on Thursday, March 9 at 2 p.m. in the 20th Floor Boardroom of the New York Catholic Center (NYCC).
The opening of the cause took place at the NYCC on Sept. 22, 2015.
Photographer: Mary DiBiase Blaich
Additional Background From an Oct. 1, 2015 CNY Article:
Father Wattson was ordained as an Episcopal priest in 1886. When he met Sister Lurana White, an Episcopal nun, the two were determined to begin an order that lived out the life of St. Francis of Assisi. They began the Franciscan Society of the Atonement, comprised of the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Atonement, in 1898 at Graymoor in Garrison.
He became a Catholic in 1909 and brought the whole Society with him, the first time a religious community was received corporately into the Catholic Church since the Reformation. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1910 and died in 1940.
Father Wattson established the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which runs from the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter until the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, Jan. 18-25.
His cause for canonization was endorsed on Nov. 11, 2014, by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops at their meeting in Baltimore.