September 16: Seeking Truth

Welcome to the American Catholic Daily Reader podcast. Today is September 16th, and our story is Seeking Truth. Orestes Brownson was, by his own description, an old man before he entered his teens. Born on September 16, 1803, and raised by an elderly Protestant couple in rural Vermont, Brownson had neither toys nor children to play with during his childhood.

Instead, he had the Holy Bible, which so preoccupied Brownson's young mind that by the time he turned eight, religion was the only topic that interested him. By the time he turned 12, the great question of his life was what religious sect he should join. In Vermont, Brownson's options included the Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, and Christians. The trouble was that he didn't like those options. In 1822, a chance encounter with Presbyterians led him to seek baptism in their community, but that too failed to satisfy.

After two years, he moved on, rejecting traditional Christianity in the process. Over the next two decades, Brownson's search for a spiritual home led him to become a universalist minister and Unitarian preacher, a prominent transcendentalist, a militant atheist, and a subscriber to the utopian schemes of Robert Owen and Fanny Wright. Brownson even founded his own church in 1836, the Society for Christian Union and Progress. All the while, as Bronson searched, he also wrote, lectured, and dabbled in politics.

His prose was forceful, and his pen prolific, so by 1843, America considered him one of its greatest intellectuals. Then, rumors started circulating that Bronson might convert to Catholicism. Rumor became fact in 1844. Most critics believed this was just another phase, but Bronson surprised them all. For the next 32 years, until his death in 1876, Bronson remained one of the church's most ardent apologists, writing more on church, culture, and politics than perhaps any other Catholic ordained or lay in the 19th century.

In honor of his lasting contributions to Catholic intellectual life in America, the University of Notre Dame granted Brownson a final resting place in the crypt of its Basilica of the Sacred Heart. Brownson's persistence, curiosity, and refusal to settle for superficial answers allowed him to contribute profoundly to American Catholic intellectual life. Spiritual growth often requires patience, exploration, and the courage to admit when our previous beliefs fall short. Reflect on your own spiritual journey. Identify one area of belief or practice that could benefit from deeper study or honest questioning this week.

Thank you for listening to the American Catholic Daily Reader podcast. Join us tomorrow, September 17th, for another story of faith and courage in America.