The Paulist Fathers are the first American religious community, founded in 1858 by convert Isaac Thomas Hecker. After a long religious search, Hecker held the dream that, if Americans heard and understood the Catholic Church in their own language, surely, they would wish to be Catholic. At the same time, if Rome truly understood the American experience of religious freedom, surely the Church would want to be more American, more democratic. Which was more visionary-or illusionary-is up to you to decide, but it is clear that Hecker loved both the intellectual life and this country, and he saw no contradiction between one's intellectual life and one's faith-life. To love Christ is to love all that God has created. And his vision inspired a new religious community.

In 1908, San Francisco's Archbishop Riordan invited the Paulists to be Catholic chaplains to the University of California. At the time, many considered such a move to be quite radical: should we not encourage our young Catholic men and women to go to Catholic colleges? Doesn't having priests at a secular university legitimate their abandoning their Catholic education?

On the contrary, the Paulist Fathers saw in Newman Hall the opportunity to reflect the life and mission of its namesake, John Henry Cardinal Newman. Newman was the great 19th Century English intellectual who, like Hecker, searched history and Scripture for authentic Christianity. After many years of study, he concluded that his religious home was to be the Catholic Church. Thus he serves as the ideal for all Catholics seeking to reconcile the intellectual life with the life of faith. Indeed, through the intellectual life, one may love God "with all our mind." Appropriate it is, then, that he stands as our patron and model.

Today the Paulists continue to live Hecker's vision. Through the experience of the Second Vatican Council (1963-65) and Paulist Assemblies, they seek a threefold mission: Evangelization, Reconciliation, and Ecumenism/Interfaith relations. Numbering close to 200, the Paulists serve at Universities, parishes, information centers around the United States and Canada (and at a center in Rome and one in Jerusalem). They also use modern means of communication to share the message of Christ in publishing and radio, television, and movie production.

For more information, check out the official Paulist website at www.paulist.org
Also there is a website "Busted Halo" which is a Paulist ministry for young adults. www.bustedhalo.com