The Archivist’s Nook: Captain America Comes to CatholicU

Posted on September 8, 2026September 25, 2026 by William J. Shepherd

Roger Staubach. Football card, 1979. Author’s Collection.

As we begin the107th season of the National Football League (NFL) this September 9, 2026, I could not help but reflect upon another special day, May 12, 1990, when the NFL, Catholic University, and my life converged as commencement activities celebrated graduates and honored distinguished guests and speakers. As a newly hired junior archivist amongst the gathering throng, I was excited to see former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and Super Bowl champion, Roger Staubach. Although I am a lifelong New England Patriots fan, Staubach was the first player I had followed closely as a teenage fan in the 1970s. What pray tell, was the former NFL star doing at the heart of the nation’s capital and in the territory of their arch rival Washington Redskins?

*Time Enough to Win* by Roger Staubach, 1980. Amazon.com.

Staubach was there as an honorary degree recipient and commencement speaker to a notable class that included his daughter, Michelle, a history student. He was also there in part due to his friendship with Monsignor William Kerr, Vice President of University Relations. Giving his address from the steps of The Basilica of National Shrine of the National Conception, was more than fitting for devout Catholic, whom after a 1975 legendary NFL playoff win over the Minnesota Vikings enshrined the term ‘Hail Mary’ for a last ditch play to turn a football game from defeat into victory. This was a hallmark of his life and career, including his last game with a 35-34 such win over the Redskins in 1979, and a wonderful example for those entering the future working force.

CUA Inside, May 1990 (Cover). Special Collections, Catholic University.

Born in Cincinnati in 1942, Staubach attended the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where he won the Heisman Trophy in 1963 in recognition as the best college football player in America. He then served four years in the United States Navy, 1965-1969, which included a tour in Vietnam. He never gave up on football, famously working out on the deck of an aircraft carrier, and joined the Dallas Cowboys in 1969 as a 27 year old rookie. He led the Cowboys to four Super Bowl appearances, wining two, Super Bowl VI (1972), where he was voted Most Valuable Player (MVP), and Super Bowl XII (1978). Playing for ‘America’s Team,’ and the former naval officer was often referred to as ‘Captain America’ or ‘Captain Comeback’, renowned for late game heroics and last-minute comebacks. With injuries, especially concussions, taking a toll, he retired in 1980 and went into the Professional Football Hall of Fame in 1985. Staubach’s post NFL career was also amazing as he entered into the Dallas real estate market with The Staubach Company that he built into an empire worth over $600 million when he sold it in 2008, however he remained as executive chairman until he retired in 2018, the same year he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his athletic, civic, and philanthropic contributions. His daughter, Michelle, returned to Catholic University for a law degree in 1994, married John Grime in 1997, and is author of two children’s books Where is Pidge? (2015) And Pidge Takes the Stage (2018).

Commencement, Catholic University, May 12, 1990. Special Collections.

Monsignor William A. Kerr was born 1940 in St. Louis, ordained a priest of the archdioceses in 1966, and later became incardinated in the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee. He held a BA from Cardinal Glennon College Seminary in St. Louis, a licentiate in Theology from Catholic University, a masters in international affairs from Johns Hopkins University, and a doctorate in American history from Florida State University (FSU). His remarkable resume includes being rector of the St. Thomas More Co-Cathedral in Tallahassee, 1975-1984; Campus Minister and Adjunct Faculty at FSU, 1971-1984; Vice President for University Relations at Catholic University, 1982-1992; President of La Roche College in Pittsburgh, 1992-2004; Executive Director of the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in D.C., 2004-2006; Executive Director of the Claude Pepper Center for International Dialogue at FSU; and President of John Paul II Catholic High School in Tallahassee until his death in 2012. In addition to being friends with Staubach, Kerr was also close to then Senator and future President Joe Biden. In an odd twist of fate, Kerr is now inexorably linked, particularly online searches, to the heinous serial killer, Ted Bundy, whom he counseled on death row, at Bundy’s request, prior to the killer’s execution in January 1989. Bundy had become aware of Kerr due to news reports that while at FSU in 1978, Kerr had administered last rites to a student murdered in her sorority house by Bundy.

William Kerr, VP of University Relations 1985-1992

Finally, I would like to thank Roger Staubach for my all time favorite interview clip, from 1975, and readily available on YouTube. He comments that people often compare him to another Super Bowl winning quarterback, Joe Namath, who was a notorious womanizer, and how they have different approaches to romance, to say the least! James Youniss, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, who was with Staubach at CU that day, stated that he thought:

“What a good human being. Excelled at sports.

Served his country. Is a principled guy in business.

I used the idea of “triple threat” in the piece I wrote

for the graduation program.”(1)

At Catholic U’s Special Collections, which includes the University Archives, Museum, Rare Books, and the American Catholic History Collection, houses many records and objects in various mediums documenting the rich history of Catholic University, and beyond, which include many other instances of six degrees of separation demonstrated above as well as the various occasions of notable visits of pope, presidents, and, of course, Captain America. For more information, or to ask a question, please email us at lib-archives@cua.edu.

Endnotes:

(1) Email to author, September 4, 2026.

(2) Special thanks to Special Collections staff for their assistance, especially with the images.

The Archivist’s Nook – Acquisitions de Livres – Rare Book Acquisitions, 2025-2026

Posted on July 30, 2026September 25, 2026 by William J. Shepherd

Catholic University’s Rare Books Department, part of Special Collections, had another great year with targeted acquisitions via purchase, with eight items from five national and one international professional book sellers. Four of our recent wares are detailed below; two others were discussed in a recent post about the generous bequest of Msgr. Robert Trisco, and two more will be discussed in future posts.

Pentateuch… title page and text with annotations, 1527. Rare Books, Special Collections, Catholic University.

The first item, purchased from Patrick Olson Rare Books of Massachusetts, is Pentateuchus Moysi…, the first volume of a multivolume pocket Bible published in Paris by Simon de Colines in 1527. Paris pioneered small-format Vulgate Bibles in the 1520s, and this volume, measuring approximately 4.5 by 3 inches, is from the second of some fifty such editions printed by Colines. This particular volume is an early English binding with boards paneled with gilt and blind frames and with gilt and blind tooling on the spine. Most notably, the volume contains brief marginalia (likely cross-referencing) on more than 80 pages. There is an early ownership signature of “John Willson” on the title page. He was most likely an English Recusant, a stubborn minority that clung to the Catholic faith after the English Reformation imposed its new Anglican religion on the kingdom. Although the name is common, it is possible that this is the recusant John Wilson of Bunbury imprisoned in the 1590s. (1)

Indicis rerum omnium praecipuarum, ca. 1590. Rare Books, Special Collections, Catholic University.

The second item, obtained from RareTom.Com of Oregon, is Indicis rerum omnium praecipuarum by Franciscus Fontanus (Venetiis: Apud Io. Baptistam & Io. Bernardum Sessam, fratres). This volume, a comprehensive index to the works of noted Spanish theologian Alonso Tostado (1410-1455) prepared by Franciscus Fontanus, is most notable not for its contents, but for its binding, which illuminates its provenance. Both the front and rear boards bear the crest of Sancho Dávila y Toledo (1546-1625). Toledo rose to the rank of bishop in 1591, but this volume was probably bound before that happened, as the galero (hat) above the crest is ornamented with six tassels, rather than the twelve tassels we would expect for a bishop. The elaborate fore-edge painting on this volume indicates that it also belonged for a time in the collection of Toledo’s brother, Gómez Dávila y Toledo, the Marques of Astorga. The library of the Marques of Astorga is famous for its use of fore-edge paintings in this style to indicate provenance. (2)

Jansenist Game, 1724. Rare Books, Special Collections, Catholic University.

Our third object, from Kline Books of California, is Chevalier de G. Poesies sur la Constitution Unigenitus (Amsterdam: Chez P. Belhumeur, 1724). It is a revised second edition in two volumes, with titles in red and black. It is bound in contemporary calf with raised bands and richly gilt spines and is a compilation of generally satirical pro-Jansenist writings that includes a controversial board game (with five pages of rules) on a folding plate, devised on the pattern of the Game of Goose. The point of the game is to mock the authority of the Church and in particular that of the Pope and of his bull. For example, the columns on either side of the game board are headed by a cartoon depicting the Pope and a group of cardinals, each represented by a goose wearing a mitre. Below the lefthand cartoon is a quotation from Gregory of Nazianzus, fourth-century Archbishop of Constantinople, who referred to the rowdy Council of Constantinople (381 AD) as a noisy gathering of cackling geese. Game examples include space 15, which shows a torn robe symbolizing Church schism, and space 40, a prison where the player must wait until a throw of 5, which multiplied by 3 will lead to King Louis XV and deliverance (Louis was seen as a force for positive change and re-unifying the Church). The death space at 58 shows the skeleton of Pope Clement XI sitting in an armchair wearing his papal tiara and raising his bony hand to bless an infant at his feet, which represents the Unigenitus bull. The publishers were thrown into the Bastille and the game still has shock value due to the force of its imagery. (3)

Leduc Prayer Book, ca. 1792. Rare Books, Special Collections, Catholic University.

The fourth example, from Cotter Books of Texas, is a manuscript prayer book, or Recueil des Prieres, copied by Paris Opera dancer Elisabeth-Claire Leduc sometime before 6 March 1792. This compact volume, abandoned around the time of the French Revolution, is bound in contemporary maroon morocco with Leduc’s armorial in the center of each board. In 1741, Leduc became the mistress of Louis de Bourbon-Conde, Comte de Clermont, known for his violent possessiveness. Her story has intrigue from the underground passage connecting her and Clermont’s residences to her appearance draped in diamonds at a widely satirized event in Boulogne. Misogynistic accounts of her include descriptions of her large collection of books that critics considered an expression of contemporary fashion for libraries among upper-class women. This diminutive manuscript reflects her late-in-life devotional turn. In it, Leduc renounces Satan and commits to living as a Christian, renewing vows made at confession, communion, and throughout her life.

Thank you to the Special Collections and Library staff who help make these purchase acquisitions possible. We also appreciate the university faculty members who wisely advise us on potential books and, as always, our many generous donors of rare books and related materials.

For more information on these and many others items in Rare Books at Catholic University’s Special Collections, please email lib-rarebooks@cua.edu.

Endnotes:

(1) Patrick Olson Catalog, 2026.

(2) RareTom.Com Catalog, 2026

(3) Kline Books Catalog, 2026

(4) Cotter Books Catalog, 2026.

(5) Vera Effigie della Miracolosa Beata Vergine posta nella chiesa del Pino di
Cervia (in English: True Effigy of the Miraculous Blessed Virgin placed in Cervia’s Church of the Pine). An important 18th-century engraved woodblock printing showing a Madonna with Child wearing a starry cloak, in the act of breastfeeding her baby, known as “Madonna del Pino di Cervia.” about 14 x 9 inches, from Cervia, Italy, to be described in detail in a later blog post.

(6) El Diamante del Cristiano (The Christian Diamond; Barcelona: Librería Española, 1851), purchased from Phillip Pirages of Oregon. This little Spanish prayer book, of a type popular in the 19th century, is bound in contemporary claret-colored velvet and embroidered with silver wire. To be more fully described in a separate blog post.

(7) The Diary of a Papal Master of Ceremonies compiled by Master of Apostolic Ceremonies Francesco Gaetano Diversini, 1772, from Cotter Books of Texas, and Lochmaier. Parrochiale curatorum. 1497, probably the second edition of the Passau canon’s pastoral manual, from Patrick Olsen Rare Books of Massachusetts, both described in a separate blog post by Sally Kendrick, Rare Books Librarian at Catholic U. Special thanks to Sally and Alexis Howlett for their assistance, especially for the images.

The Archivist’s Nook: James J. Norris – Catholic Globalist Humanitarian

Posted on April 21, 2026April 21, 2026 by William J. Shepherd

James J. Norris, 1964. Special Collections, Catholic University.

James Joseph Norris (1907-1976) was a New Jersey born alumnus of Catholic University with a renowned career as global humanitarian working with war refugees and notable as the only layman to address the Second Vatican Council with a speech he wrote and delivered in Latin. He was the eldest child of James Henry Norris and Rose Elizabeth Schenk and graduated from Battin High School at age 16 in Elizabeth, New Jersey. That same year, he joined the Missionary Cenacle Apostolate (or Trinitarians) and two years later enrolled at The Catholic University of America (CUA) as a seminarian, but his studies were interrupted in 1929 when he was appointed Prefect of St. Joseph’s High School. During the Great Depression, he acted as the head of finances for the struggling Trinitarians and returned to CUA, where he received his Bachelor’s Degree in 1933. Recognizing he did not have a priestly vocation he left the Trinitarians in 1934.

Relatio iacobi i. norris de paupertate mundiali in Schemeate de Ecclesia in mundo huius temporis cap. IV, par. 24. See English text of *World Poverty and the Christian Conscience* 1964. Special Collections, Catholic University.

He worked with the finances of a Catholic orphanage on Staten Island and also attended graduate school at Fordham University’s School of Social Service. In 1941 became assistant executive director for the National Catholic Community Service (NCCS), part of the National Catholic Welfare Conference (now United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) in Washington, D.C., coordinating American Catholic efforts with the US Government via the United Service Organization (USO). He became acting director of NCCS in 1943 and accepted commission in 1944, serving as a Lieutenant junior grade in the Naval Reserve as a commander of an Armed Guard Unit in several war theatres. In 1945, he went to War Relief Services (WRS), the American Catholic overseas aid agency as special assistant to the executive director, working with the federal government to relocate World War II refugees. In 1946, he became European director of WRS and mobilized millions in aid from American Catholics. In 1951, Norris together with Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, (later Pope Paul VI), created the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) and in 1959, returned to New York where he continued working for Catholic Relief Services (CRS, the former WRS, renamed 1955) to assist small nations. Norris was executive assistant to the director, Bishop Edward E. Swanstrom, and responsible for the global relief program.

Flanked by the Chancellor, Archbishop O’Boyle (far left) and the Rector, Bishop McDonald (far right) are two distinguished recipients of Honorary Degrees at June 1965 Commencement: Bishop Edward E. Swanstrom, Auxiliary Bishop of New York and Director of Catholic Relief Services, and his assistant, James J. Norris, a Lay Auditor of the Vatican Council.

In 1963, Norris was invited by Pope Paul VI to be a lay auditor at the Second Vatican Council in Rome. During the Third Session, he lobbied the Council to recognize poverty as a concern of the whole church, not just for the Apostolate of the Laity. The Pope permitted him to address the Council, and on November 5, 1964, he became the first layman to participate in a council debate when he introduced Chapter Four, Paragraph 24, De Paupertate Mundiali, in the schema on the Church in the Modern World. In his historic speech, entitled World Poverty and the Christian Conscience, he issued “a clarion call for action which would involve the creation of a structure that would devise the kind of institutions, contacts, forms of cooperation and policy which the Church can adopt, to secure full Catholic participation in the worldwide attack on poverty.” His concerns were incorporated in Gaudium et Spes, the Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. He became a member of the Post-Conciliar Commission on the Apostolate of the Laity and participated in the efforts leading to the creation by Pope Paul VI of the Pontifical Commission (later Council) ‘Justice and Peace’ in 1967. Four years later, the same Pope created the Pontifical Council Cor Unum to coordinate various national Catholic relief agencies. Norris was a charter member of both entities.

Text from the honorary degree conferred to James Norris by CUA, 1965. Special Collections, Catholic University.

Paul VI designated Norris the Holy See’s representative at the funeral of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and appointed him an ‘Expert’ in the 1971 Synod of Bishops on the subject of Justice in the World. Norris was also a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, in Washington, D.C., and a member of the Shrine’s Marian Devotion Committee. His activity on behalf of the Holy See was conducted while he continued his own efforts through Catholic Relief Services and the International Catholic Migration Commission to aid the new refugees emerging from such places as Biafra, Burundi, and Vietnam. In November 1976, he was notified by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that he was to be the recipient of their highest humanitarian award, but died before the medal could be conferred. His old friend, Pope Paul VI, offered Mass for the repose of his soul as thousands of tributes and letters of condolence to Norris’ family poured in from every corner of the globe.

Norris’ archival papers reside at both Notre Dame University Archives and Catholic University’s Special Collections. Additionally, CU has the records of several organizations that employed Norris, including the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the National Catholic Community Service (NCCS), Second Vatican Council, and the currently processing Catholic Relief Services. For more information, please contact us. See also Trinity Missions James J. Norris Award. Special thanks to Stephen Norris for the extensive biographical information and to Shane MacDonald and Alexis Howlett for assistance on the images.

The Archivist’s Nook: Unlikely Connections – Thomas Jefferson and Catholic University

Posted on April 13, 2026April 14, 2026 by William J. Shepherd

Iconic image of Thomas Jefferson adorning the U. S. $2 bill since 1869. WikiCommon.

April 13 is the birthday of Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), an American Founding Father, primary author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and Governor of Virginia (1779-1780) as well as the first Secretary of State (1790-1793), second Vice President (1797-1801), and third President of the United States (1801–1809). A Virginia planter and Enlightenment thinker (i.e. Humanism, Deism), he promoted democracy, agrarianism, and religious freedom, while expanding the nation through the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. Contradictory to modern minds, but apparently not to his, Jefferson embraced the affluent lifestyle into which he was born, owning over six hundred enslaved people, the most of any American president. While Jefferson was the proud author of the 1786 Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom, he was critical of the Roman Catholic Church, and having departed this Earth six decades before the 1887 founding of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., there are nevertheless several surprising Jefferson connections to the university and its grounds.

St. Thomas Hall, the former Middleton mansion and ‘Sydney,’ 1930s. Catholic University, Special Collections.

A grassy knoll on the Catholic University campus, northwest of Mullen Library, is where one of the city’s most historic country farmhouses named ‘Sydney’ once stood. Built in 1803 on 160 acres known as Turkey Thicket by Samuel Harrison Smith (1772-1845) and his wife Margaret Bayard Smith (1778-1844), became both a refuge and a social center from the grime, both partisan and physical, of the early capital. Smith, a prominent newspaperman in Philadelphia, came to Washington when newly elected Thomas Jefferson suggested he move to Washington to create an official record of his presidential administration. He became the semi-official reporter for Congress, producing transcripts that are the only written record of early sessions, and established The National Intelligencer, an important contemporary source, albeit partisan, of national government news. Smith later served President James Madison as Secretary of the Treasury during the War of 1812. Many notable Washingtonians are known to have visited, including Jefferson on several occasions, as well as Madison and his notable wife and First Lady, Dolly. In the late 1830s Mr. Smith sold the property and it later passed from the Middleton family to Catholic University in 1886. The Paulist Fathers, one of the first religious communities to affiliate with the new university, occupied the building, 1889-1914, as St. Thomas Hall, thereafter a dormitory, then a classroom until it was demolished in 1970.

Title pages of two Jefferson works held in Rare Books, Special Collections, Catholic University.

Another Jefferson connection are valuable editions of his various writings held in the Rare Books Department of Special Collections in Mullen Library. These include A summary view of the rights of British America/Set forth in some resolutions intended for the inspection of the present delegates of the people of Virginia, now in convention. By a native, and member of the House of Burgesses (1774), written for Virginia delegates to the First Continental Congress listing grievances against he Crown and Parliament; Notes on the state of Virginia: written in the year 1781, somewhat corrected and enlarged in the winter of 1782, for the use of a foreigner of distinction, in answer to certain queries proposed by him respecting; (1782), privately printed in Paris responding to queries proposed by Francois Barbe-Marbois, a French diplomat serving in Philadelphia; Notes on the establishment of a money unit, and of a coinage for the United States (1785?), proposing a decimal-based currency system for the new nation; Draught of a fundamental constitution for the commonwealth of Virginia (1786?), proposing a progressive, checks on power and personal freedoms later incorporated into the U.S. Constitution; and Notes on the state of Virginia. With an appendix relative to the murder of Logan’s family (1803), which included a 1774 story about a band of white Virginians seeking revenge for an Indian attack and instead massacred an innocent Indian family. The most audacious and controversial of Jefferson’s works, was not published until long after his lifetime, being his ca. 1819 rewrite of the Bible, the so-called Jefferson Bible, to reveal Jesus in Jefferson’s view as a human philosopher freed from later accumulations of religious mythology and deification, titled The life and morals of Jesus of Nazareth, extracted textually from the Gospels in Greek, Latin, French, and English/by Thomas Jefferson, With an introduction {by Cyrus Adler} (1904).

Jefferson letter to Harrison, December 31, 1783. Special Collections, Catholic University.

The most recent Jefferson connection is the cherry on the cake. It is an original letter signed by Jefferson addressed to Virginia Governor Benjamin Harrison V, great grandfather of the later U.S. President of same name, written from Annapolis, Maryland, on December 31, 1783 at the time of the ratification of the Treaty of Paris ending the War of the American Revolution. Jefferson, representing Virginia, was a member of the Second Continental Congress, then meeting in Annapolis. The letter was purchased by Robert F. Duckworth from the Pennsylvania based Raab Collection, a former U. S. Army paratrooper and Catholic University alumnus in Politics, Class of 1965, and generously gifted to the University in 2025 with the intent to foster among political science students, and others, a deeper research understanding of Jeffersonian Democratic Republicanism. The letter has special meaning to Mr. Duckworth as it was written from the same city where he served for 26 years as Clerk of the Court. He also took classes in St. Thomas Hall.

Robert Duckworth with Special Collections staff and the Jefferson 1783 letter, October 2025, Mullen Library, Catholic University.

For more information, see the ‘America at 250’ exhibit in Mullen Library, especially the Jefferson letter. For other information or to schedule a visit, contact Special Collections. Special thanks to Shane MacDonald, Sally Kendrick, and Alexis Howlett for their assistance.

The Archivist Nook at 300 Posts and 11 Years – A Few of Our Favorite Things

Posted on March 3, 2026 by William J. Shepherd

Pope Leo XIII 1887 Letter and CU 1885 Property Deed. Archives, Special Collections, Catholic University.

As Special Collections at Catholic University celebrates our three hundredth blog post and eleven years with The Archivist’s Nook we reflect upon how we got here and offer a few staff favorites from across the spectrum of our holdings of university records, museum objects, rare books, and American Catholic History manuscript collections. Eleven years ago, this month, our parent Mullen Library asked us to consider writing a monthly blog post highlighting our varied collections. Upon reflection, and wishing to avoid common blog pitfalls of being lengthy and esoteric, we decided to have a rotating cast of authors (nearly fifty so far) including staff, students, and researchers to provide diverse viewpoints and experience, combined with a consistent format of brief texts with supporting weblinks and a select few embedded images. Honorable mention should go to our former colleague, Dr. Maria Mazzenga, who authored 47 notable posts, including our most popular ‘The Dress at the End of the Rainbow’.

Oversize Framed Knights of Columbus Check, 1904. Museum, Special Collections, Catholic University.

W.J. Shepherd, University Archivist and Head of Special Collections, who coined the title ‘The Archivist’s Nook’ and author of seventy-two posts, had a difficult time selecting from the wealth of materials that he has already written about with great joy, from the museum’s Etruscan (Faliscan) Vase and rare books’ Scottish Church texts to the Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact comic book and labor history collections. However, he chose a trinity of university foundational records, without which we would have none of these precious holdings and he would not have such a rewarding career! These are the 1885 deed signed by the DC Recorder of Deeds Frederick Douglass conveying the property to founder and first chancellor Cardinal James Gibbons, the April 10, 1887 Vatican letter from Pope Leo XIII to Cardinal Gibbons formally approving the establishment of the university, and the 1904 check generously donated to the university by the Knights of Columbus to enable its financial survival.

Fr. Gilbert Hartke DC Vanity Plates, ca. 1970s. Archives, Special Collections, Catholic University

Shane MacDonald, Curator of Digital and Museum Collections, and author of sixty-eight posts, reflects upon Fr. Gilbert Hartke, O.P. who casts a long shadow over both CatholicU and the story of drama in DC. Not only did he found the Drama program on campus – and head it for nearly 40 years – but he was instrumental in DC theater desegregation, connected to every President from Truman to Reagan, and knew many celebrities (and inspired numerous) of the stage and screen. He was a beloved teacher, encouraging young actors like Jon Voigt and Susan Sarandon, and getting students involved in USO tours. Hartke’s papers tell a story of his love of the theater and of teaching/mentoring. Among all the objects that stand out to Shane are Hartke’s license plates – items he held alongside other keepsakes as honorary doctorates and framed letters from Presidents. His personal car bore these custom plates, which embody his life and legacy, and that listed the standard start time for CatholicU productions during his tenure – 8:30pm. He is reported to often hand the keys to his car and have students drive him to prominent city events, having them join him in meeting dignitaries of stage and politics.

Blue Room Christmas Tree, 1967. Museum, Special Collections, Catholic University.

Abigail Hibbs, Graduate Library Pre-Professional (GLP), enjoys the Robert Laessig watercolor prints for President and First Lady, Lyndon Baines and Lady Bird Johnson’s Christmas cards sent to members of their staff, Congress, military, diplomats, and of course friends and family. During the Johnson administration (1963-1969), they had Laessig paint a White House scene each year that could be used for the card. While a majority of the recipients received a widely produced standard sized holiday card, a select number received original large prints. Among these lucky few, was Fr. Hartke, who donated the prints to the University Archives, which are listed as ‘White House East Facade 1964’, ‘Winter Scene Back Portico 1965’, ‘Winter Scene Front Portico 1966’, ‘Blue Room Christmas Tree 1967’, and ‘Summer Scene 1968’. Johnson’s final holiday card in 1968 also happens to hold the Special Collections ID number NMC 300 making it extra appropriate for our 300th blog post!

A representative page of the 1507 Cologne edition of De Imitatione Christi. Rare Books, Special Collections, Catholic University.

Sarah (Sally) Kendrick, Rare Books Librarian, admires an early 16th-century copy of The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. Following rapid dissemination in manuscript form during the second and third quarters of the 15th century, the first printed edition of this text was published in 1471 or 1472. By 1500, publishers had produced a staggering 98 additional printed editions. Its popularity has continued, with the total number of published editions by the late 20th century approaching 6,000! We hold several dozen editions, including one published in 1507 by Martin von Werden in Cologne, Germany. This copy is particularly noteworthy not only as an example of a long-term bestseller, but also as evidence of the way a Kempis’ words were treasured by one particular reader. In the 16th century, an as-yet-unidentified reader marked nearly every page with handwritten underlining, Latin annotations, and manicula (pointing hands drawn to indicate important passages), a testament to the seriousness and care with which he (or possibly she) read the text. Subsequent generations preserved these annotations, and the book was gifted to Catholic University by Msgr. Arthur Connolly, who donated many museum items, manuscripts, and early printed books to the University between 1915 and 1933.

‘A Recollection of such Treatises … by Jos. Hall, Dr. of Diuinitie’, 1615. Rare Books, Special Collections, Catholic University.

Alexis Howlett, Special Collections Librarian, shares her regard for an early 17th c. printed book A Recollection of such Treatises as haue been heretofore seuerally published and are nowe reuised, corrected, augmented / by Jos. Hall, Dr. of Diuinitie ; With addition of some others not hitherto extant includes several of Hall’s earlier works: Meditations and Vowes, Heaven upon Earth, The Art of Divine Meditation, Characters of Vertues and Vices, and Epistles in sixe Decads[Cite wikipedia]. She encountered this significant volume of religious, devotional, satirical, and controversial prose from this English Bishop 411 years later at Catholic U’s own Rare Books Library. Illustrations at the end of each chapter depict varying angles of the human skull, a few miniature skeletons, and even an execution scene– each framed within an ornate divider. These spooky details quickly made Hall’s book her favorite rare books edition. Considering Hall’s text is primarily concerned with the higher virtuous qualities of life and ponderance of the divine, why is it filled with so many awesome skulls and skeletons? The reason for the memento mori emphasis seems clear enough: Life is short; therefore, live each day virtuously.

The Archivist’s Nook: Just War or Just Physics – Karl F. Herzfeld

Posted on February 24, 2026 by William J. Shepherd

Professor Herzfeld in his office at CU, ca. 1960. Special Collections, Catholic University

February 24 is the birthday of noted Austrian born physicist and humanitarian, Dr. Karl Ferdinand Herzfeld (1892-1978), who was also an esteemed professor at The Catholic University of America (CUA) in Washington, D.C. from 1936-1968. Having arrived in the United States in 1926 to teach at Johns Hopkins University, Herzfeld was not a refugee from the Nazis, but his later presence at CUA helped set the stage for it to be a welcoming refuge for many German and Austrian scientists and scholars, some of whom we have chronicled in this blog, including Lise Meitner and Rudolph Allers.

View of the Italian lines from Herzfeld’s artillery battery on Mt. Orsere, ca. 1917. Special Collections, Catholic University.

Herzfeld was born in Vienna, Austria, and received his primary education from the Benedictines and earned his doctorate at the University of Vienna in 1914 after studying with Einstein at Zurich. During the First World War, he served as a First Lieutenant of Artillery in the army of Austria-Hungary and fought on the Italian and Russian fronts. After the war he returned to academics as a Privatdozent (junior faculty) and Assistant Professor at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, 1920-1926. As mentioned above, he came to the United States in 1926, first to John Hopkins and then to CUA, where he met his future wife, then Regina Flannery, who was studying anthropology under the renowned John Montgomery Cooper before going on to her own distinguished career as an anthropologist. After a brief courtship, the two were married by Msgr. Cooper on June 9, 1938.

Professor Herzfeld at a U.S. Navy Mine Countermeasure Station, 1954. Special Collections, Catholic University.

In the Second World War, Herzfeld was a consultant to the Naval Ordnance Laboratory to improve artillery shells, and after the war he created and chaired the Mine Advisory Committee, which studied the scientific issues of mine warfare for the Chief of Naval Research. Although he did weapons research for the U.S. Navy, as a devout Roman Catholic influenced by ‘Just War Theory’, he declined to do atomic bomb research, believing it immoral as such weapons would not discriminate between civilians and combatants. Herzfeld served as chair of the Physics Department at CUA, 1936-1961, and was named Professor Emeritus in 1969, remaining active thereafter as a scholar and teacher. During his long career, he won international recognition for significant contributions physics and physical chemistry.

Karl Herzfeld with wife, Regina Flannery Herzfeld, and CUA rector Msgr. William J. MacDonald, ca. 1960. Special Collections, Catholic University.

Through his fourteen books and well over a hundred scholarly journal articles, written in both German and English, he advanced the fields of ultrasonics, liquids and gases, chemical kinetics, and interior ballistics. His achievements were recognized with many awards, including the Mendel Medal of Villanova University (1931), the Sechi Medal of Georgetown University (1938), and the Cardinal Gibbons Medal of the Catholic University (1960). He was also recognized with a certificate of exceptional service by the Secretary of War and the Navy for his wartime service. In 1960 he was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences and on his 80th birthday, Catholic University struck a medal in his name to be awarded for outstanding contributions in the field of science. For more on Herzfeld, see the finding aid for his papers in Special Collections of email us at lib-archives@cua.edu

(1) Special thanks to Alexis Howlett for images.

(2) See also CUA College of Engineering, Physics, and Computing website on Herzfeld

The Archivist’s Nook: Impetratio – Rare Book Acquisitions, 2024-2025

Posted on October 8, 2025October 10, 2025 by William J. Shepherd

Special Collections, which includes Rare Books, had another highly successful year of notable and carefully considered rare book acquisitions via purchase, with eight items from three national and four international professional vendors, including Italy, France, and the Netherlands. Four of the recent arrivals are discussed in detail below, while space issues result in two others related to Scotland having a separate post and the remaining two are mentioned in the footnotes (1). For additional information, see our previous related blog posts and, as always, thank you to both Special Collection and University Libraries staff, especially our former and current Rare Book librarians, who help make these vital additions possible. We also appreciate the university faculty members who sagely advise us on potential books to consider for obtainment, or, impetratio, in Latin.

Sammelband – Affairs Religieuses Duels.melanges 1567-1626. Rare Books, Special Collections, Catholic University.

Our first purchase of the fiscal year, in May 2024, was obtained from the Librairie Hogier of the Rue de Savoie in Paris, France. It is a Sammelband titled Religious Affairs. Duels. Mixtures 1567-1626, a seventeenth century collection of sixteen French and Latin published opinions and critiques of the Roman Catholic clergy about several issues including dueling. The volume is marbled calf, ribbed spine, gilt title, with worn binding, and torn caps. Among the sixteen titles are Rouillard, a treatise on the ancient veneration and privileges of the Sainte Chapelle of the Palais Royal in Paris. Paris, Thomas de la Ruelle, 1606, 68 pp., first edition, and Hebert, a remonstrance to King Louis XIII against duels, pronounced at Fontainebleau in the name of the general assembly of the clergy of France on June 19, 1625 by the Archbishop of Bourges, Paris, Antoine Estienne, 1625, 24pp. As an added bonus, our cataloger discovered that this sammelband, purchased by Hogier in auction, was once part of the library of the Chapter of Bayeux, “one of the oldest libraries in France and Europe“, and well known to medievalists for their Tapestry depicting the 1066 Norman Conquest of England, which J. R.R. Tolkien used to base the image of his Rohirrim from Lord of the Rings. (2)

Petri Delphini Veneti prioris sacre Eremi: & Generalis totius ordinis Camaldulensis Epistolarum volumen, 1524. Rare Books, Special Collections, Catholic University

Purchased in July 2024 from the Libraria Alberto Govi in Modena, Italy, on the suggestion of Professor Nelson Minnich, of Petri Delphini Veneti prioris sacre Eremi & Generalis totius ordinis Camaldulensis Epistolarum volume, Venice, 1524. This very rare first edition, folio with 391 of 392 leaves, collects together about 1,200 letters of Petri Delphini (or Dolphin) from his years of religious life and as examples of Latin style to be used for spiritual edification. Delphini was born in Venice in 1444 to a noble family, studied under the humanist Pietro Pierleoni da Rimini, and entered the Camaldolese Monastery of San Michele in Murano. He rose quickly, becoming Abbott in 1479 and General of the Camaldulensian Order in 1480. He promoted the reform of the Order and met several members of the Medici family, who ruled Florence at the time. In his later years, facing consideration opposition, he resigned in 1514, dying in 1525 in the convent of Murano. He is remembered as one of the outstanding humanists of the period and a promotor of ecclesiastical reform. His extensive correspondence with both nobles and prelates is a rich source on Italian history and intellectual life. (3)

Julio Oliva Ramos. El Problema Religioso de Mexico, 1926 – 1929. El Paso: 1938. Rare Books, Special Collections, Catholic University.

In September 2024, with support from Professor Julia Young, we bought from McBride Rare Books of Dobbs Ferry, New York, a Spanish work titled El Problema Religioso de Mexico Durante los Anos de 1926 a 1929, El Paso, 1938. This unrecorded treatise, in 20^th century buckram with gilt lettering, reviews events of the Cristero War in Mexico during the 1920s, with a focus on the Roman Catholic clergy. The conflict emerged in the aftermath of the Mexican Constitution of 1917 that prompted renewed enforcement of longstanding anticlerical policies. In 1926, Catholic loyalists, or Cristeros, in western and central Mexico, supported by the Church, rebelled in arms against the Mexican government in fighting that raged until 1929 with occasional overspill into Texas and the American Southwest. El Paso, where this work was written and published, was a Cristeros stronghold. (4)

Psaltērion prophētou kai basileōs tou Dabid. Printed
in Ancient Greek. Strasbourg, 1524. Rare Books, Special Collections, Catholic University.

In April 2025, we purchased from Adam Weinberger of New York City, a very rare miniature Greek psalter, Psaltērion prophētou kai basileōs tou Dabid. Printed Ancient Greek by Wolfgang Kopfel in Strasbourg, 1524, in an exceptionally small size, the title within an ornamental border and ruled margins. The volume of 198 leaves has Psalms, ‘Odai’or Greek iambic verses on the Psalms, and the ‘Symbolon tou Hagiou Athanasiou.’ This psalter is part of a humanist tradition of Greek typographic production in the Holy Roman Empire and Kopfel had a reputation for meticulous Greek editions, all of which contributed to the promotion of Hellenistic scholarship in the West. This process also reflected the growing influence of Erasmian textual criticism and broader engagement with the Greek Biblical tradition in Reformation Europe. (5)

Notes:

(1) Two books related to the Scottish Catholic Church history, Il cappuccino scozese, or, The Scottish Capuchin, (1645) and De duplici statu religionis apud Scotos (1628), were purchased in October 2024 and March 2025, respectively, from Italian rare book dealer Federico Orsi Libraio Antiquario in Milan, featured in a recent and separate blog post, Libri rari ecclesiae catholicae Scoticae.

(2) See Librairie Hogier catalog Livres anciens & modernes, Bulletin 3/2024 and also thanks to Alex Audziauk.

(3) See Libraria Alberto Govi Catalog, July 2024.

(4) See McBride Rare Books catalog entry, May 2024, and also records, especially the so-called ‘Mexican Files’ of the Office of the General Secretary, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (then known as the National Catholic Welfare Conference) at Catholic U’s Special Collections.

(5) See Adam Weinberger Catalog, p. 97, April 2025.

(6) Honorable mention should be made for a Franciscan Order of Friar Minor Rules for Entry into the Order received in May 2024 from Artem Rare Books of The Hague, Netherlands. This is a single sheet of vellum, manuscript in Spanish with illuminated margins and initials, published in Spain, 1588.

(7) We also obtained a Sammelband of 17^th and 18th Century Spanish Works from Second Story Books of Rockville, Maryland, in March 2025. This Sammelband, bound in full vellum, contains nineteen items, some only partial, nine of which were published 1682-1684, and two recorded as lost works. Topics ranges from comedy and law to astronomy and current events. We hope to have this cataloged by 2026.

(8) Special thanks as always to Alexis Howlett for her invaluable assistance.

The Archivist’s Nook: Msgr. Robert Frederick Trisco – A Church History Life

Posted on September 10, 2025September 10, 2025 by William J. Shepherd

Monsignor Robert Frederick Trisco, ca. 2020. Special Collections, Catholic University.

Robert Frederick Trisco (1929-2023) was a renowned Professor of Church History at The Catholic University of America (CU) and a longtime editor, especially for book reviews, of The Catholic Historical Review (CHR), the official publication of the American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA), an organization he also served as Secretary and Treasurer. An only child and Chicago native, Trisco was an avid reader, credible athlete, and lifelong devotee of opera. A dedicated scholar and devout Roman Catholic, he graduated from Quigley Preparatory Seminary in 1948 and St. Mary of the Lake Seminary at Mundelein in 1951. He then studied in Rome at the Pontifical Gregorian University, earning an STB in 1953, STL in 1955, and a Hist. Eccl. D. in ecclesiastical history in 1962 with his dissertation ‘The Holy See and the Nascent Church in the Middle Western United States, 1826-1950.’

Msgr. Richard Burns and Robert Trisco as a student in Rome at the Pontifical Gregorian University, ca. 1954. Special Collections, Catholic University.

Trisco was ordained in December 1954 by Bishop Martin J. O’Connor, whose papers are also at Catholic University. Following ordination, Trisco served at CU from 1959 as both professor of Church History, and part-time Archivist (until 1962), and was granted emeritus status in 2000. According to James Garneau, former student and executor of his will. Trisco had a daily 7 am mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, effectively opening it up on a daily basis. He also did weekly confessions there. In recognition of his contributions to both Church and Academia, he was named an honorary prelate with the title of Monsignor in 1992 and a Protonotary Apostolic Supernumerary in 2005. Among many other honors, he was named a Knight Commander of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem in 1998 and given the Centennial Award by the ACHA in 2019.

Robert Trisco, former CU Archivist with a later successor, George Hruneni, ca. 1975, Mullen Library, Special Collections, Catholic University.

Please see the wonderful autobiographical sketch Msgr. Trisco dictated in 2018 to Nelson Minnich, his long-time colleague at CHR. There is also an excellent biographical note about Msgr. Trisco written by the late Rev. Thomas J. Shelley that leads the excellent festschrift, Building the Church in America: Studies in Honor of Monsignor Robert F. Trisco on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday (1999), part of the Melville Studies in Church History by The Catholic University Press. It was edited by his former students, Joseph C. Linck, C.O., and Raymond J. Kupke, and includes a dozen fine historical essays showcasing the work of the major figures that Trisco mentored in American Catholic Church History such as Gerald Fogarty, Philip Gleason, Joseph Chinnici, Christopher Kauffman, and Douglas Slawson. One expects that Msgr. Trisco would have been especially pleased to see Slawson’s new biography of John Burke, C.S.P., founder of the Bishops’ Conference and Catholic University alumnus.

Trisco edited Bicentennial essays titled Catholics in America, 1776-1976. Special Collections, Catholic University.

In addition to his work educating a generation of scholars, Msgr. Trisco was also active in serving the U.S. Bishops’ Conference, today’s United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), whose records reside at Catholic University. He was a consultant to the planning committee for the Bicentennial in 1976 and recruited scholars to write essays published on a weekly basis in Catholic newspapers and magazines. Later he collected them for a volume titled Catholics in America, 1776-1976 (1976), which has endured as a major reference work. He was also instrumental in supporting American Catholic archives and record keeping, chairing for many years a committee helping oversee and assist Catholic University’s Archives, now the expanded Special Collections. I was witness to his heartfelt prayer he gave for the 1996 re-dedication of the Archives and can attest to his longstanding interest and support. This is epitomized by his 2020 bequest of a significant sum to support the processing of his substantial archival papers and the voluminous records of the ACHA. He also generously bequeathed a separate, almost monumental amount for the Mullen Library general collection as well as Rare Books, part of Special Collections, to be able to comfortably expand the acquisition of both new and venerable works of church history.

For more on Msgr. Robert F. Trisco and the ACHA, please contact Special Collections at lib-archives@cua.edu.

Open House in Rare Books for Mullen Staff and Student Workers on August 19, 2025

Posted on August 5, 2025August 5, 2025 by William J. Shepherd

Erasmus, In Novum Testamentum, Volume I (Before and After)

Special Collections invites our Mullen colleagues and friends, including student workers, to visit Rare Books in Room 214 for an open house on Tuesday, August 19, 2025 at either 10 am or 2 pm. We will introduce our new Rare Books Librarian, Sarah (Sally) Kendrick, if you have not already met her, plus display some of our treasures as well as new acquisitions. Sally and our staff will be to answer any questions. It would be helpful to know who is coming and when, so please reply directly to Sally at kendricks@cua.edu

The Archivist’s Nook: Libri rari ecclesiae catholicae Scoticae

Posted on July 14, 2025 by William J. Shepherd

Giovanni Battista Rinuccini, Il cappuccino scozese, Rome, 1645, 225 pages, Rare Books, Special Collections, purchased 2024.

Catholicism in Scotland was almost extirpated in the wake of the Reformation of 1560, banning Mass and abolishing the authority of the Pope. New laws changed a millennium of worship, and although the Presbyterian Church was not fully established until 1682, Scottish religious life was forever altered. Scottish universities were closed to Catholics and priestly training forbidden so noble Catholic families sent their sons to Scots Colleges in Europe, where many clerics had fled, and trained seminarians in France, Italy, and Spain. Additionally, there were Scottish monasteries (Schottenklosters) in Germany that effectively functioned as Scots Colleges, especially St. James Abbey in Regensburg.

In Scotland, young men also continued to train for the priesthood in secret colleges across the remote Highlands and Islands. These efforts were restricted by reprisals against several largely Catholic rebellions in the 17th and 18th centuries by supporters, known as Jacobites for the Latin version of the name of the exiled King James II (in England) and VII (in Scotland) and his descendants. Easing tensions and liberalization in the 19th century resulted in The Emancipation Act of 1829 that approved civil and political liberty to Scottish Catholics and three years later the first convent since the Reformation was founded in Edinburgh. The arrival of largely Catholic famine migrants from Ireland from the 1840s swelled the numbers of Catholics, especially in Glasgow. On 4th March 1878, Pope Leo XIII, who nine years later founded Catholic University in D.C., re-established the Scottish hierarchy of bishops. After centuries of persecution, Scotland was no longer classified as a missionary country and was once again administered by its own system of bishops.

George Conn. De duplici statu religionis apud Scotos libri duo, Rome, 1628, 176 pages, Rare Books, Special Collections, Cathoilic University, purchased 2025.

Regarding Scotland, Catholic University’s Rare Books Department, part of Special Collections, houses various works related to the great medieval philosopher, John Duns Scotus, as well as national political history, such as published acts of the Scottish Parliament before the 1707 union with England, but there has been a scarcity of books on the post Reformation Scottish Catholic Church, especially titles dated prior to 1700. We are happy to announce that two recent acquisitions are a serious move in the direction of addressing this lamentable lacuna. In both cases we were fortunate to obtain the services of Italian rare book dealer Federico Orsi of Orsi Libraio Antiquario in Milan, Italy, who combines professional commercial book catalogs with an engaging willingness to barter, that is appreciated by non-profit university Rare Book collectors like us. (1)

Philosophia naturalis Ioan. Duns Scoti…1622, 742 pages, Rare Books, Special Collections, Catholic University, donated in 1911.

The first book, purchased in October 2024 on good terms after polite wrangling with Mr. Orsi, is Il cappuccino scozese, or, The Scottish Capuchin, Rome, 1645, Second Edition, a life of the Scottish Capuchin friar George Leslie (d.1637) written by Giovanni Battista Rinuccini, Archbishop of Fermo. Published in Italian by Gioseppe Corvo in contemporary vellum, this romanticized biography of Leslie, with a First Edition in 1644, became in effect a bestseller, with several continental editions in French, Spanish, and Portuguese. Archbishop Rinuccini, who became acquainted with Leslie in Rome, had also been Papal Nuncio to Ireland where he supported Irish rebels against English rule. Leslie, a son of James Leslie and Janet Wood of Peterstone, Aberdeenshire, was brought up Protestant but converted to Catholicism and was enrolled in 1608 in the Scots College at Rome. Later, as a Capuchin friar known as ‘Father Archangel’, he was a renowned preacher, particularly in Germany, and this work was not only a tribute to him but to Scotland, as well as Ireland, important albeit captive parts of the universal Roman Catholic Church.

The second rare book, purchased in March 2025, also from Orsi, is De duplici statu religionis apud Scotos, or, On the Dual State of Religion Among the Scots, Rome, 1628, First and only edition of a rare Vatican imprint regarding Catholic propaganda in Scotland, by George Conn. Published in Latin, printed on thick paper, and bound in modern brown sheepskin. Conn (d. 1640), a Scot from Aberdeen, was educated at the Scots colleges of Douay and Rome, and the University of Bologna, was also a papal agent of Henrietta Maria, Queen Consort of King Charles I, and namesake of my present home, the State of Maryland. Conn wrote on the coexistence of Catholicism and Protestantism in Scotland, promoting the Catholic faith in Britain and encouraging conversion. He argues the merits of Scotland as a Christian nation and includes the achievements of both Scottish and Irish saints while also extolling recent Catholic missionary events in Scotland and praising the contemporary Scottish writer, Thomas Dempster.

Sir John Skene. The lawes and acts of Parliament : maid be King Iames the First, and his svccessovrs kinges of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1597, 178 pages, Rare Books, Special Collections, Catholic University, donated in 1929.

It is with no small sense of irony that I contemplate my career collecting, housing, and preserving the physical manifestations of Catholic History because I am a distant kinsman of John Knox, founder of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland, through our mutual distaff descent from the Clan Sinclair. Generations of my relatives, including cattle dealers, whisky distillers, cotton weavers, and, above all, coal miners, in both Scotland and America, would be and were mystified by my job as a library professional. One of my grandfathers asked me “What is it you do, again?” and “Who cares about that stuff?” I do, Grandpa, I do, and so do countless others. For more information on these and other items in our Rare Books Department, see our webpage or email us at lib-rarebooks@cua.edu

Notes:

(1) Thanks to Mr. Orsi, especially his catalogs that are a primary source for this blog post.

(2) Special thanks for their assistance to Sally Kendrick, Alexis Howlett, and Abigail Hibbs.