John J. Burke, ca. 1918

Fr. John J. Burke (1875-1936) was born in New York City to immigrant Irish parents, and entered the Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle, known as the Paulists, as a young man. Burke embraced a national view of Catholicism drawn from the ideals of American individualism and the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ. "Catholic unity must," he wrote, "be employed in the solution of the national problems." Such thinking informed his establishment of the National Catholic War Council to coordinate the Catholic war effort and represent the Catholic perspective to the American government during the First World War.

ca. 1918

American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives