CAPG's Blog 

Hail, O Cross! tree of life! noble and noted!
Banner, throne, altar to Jesus devoted!
Cross! to unholy
Men both death and terror,
To Christians truly
Art thou virtue’s mirror,
Safety, victory, all-divine!

Thou, when he hurried
Against Maxentius’ horde;
Thou, when he carried
By Danube’s shores the sword,
Glory wast to Constantine!

Chosroes and his son
Through thee were overthrown,
For Heraclius fighting:
Well may Christians glory
In this tree’s true story,
In such balms delighting!

Length and breadth, Cross! blending
With height, depth, far-reaching,
Thou, four ways extending,
Precious truths thus teaching,
Savest earth’s four quarters.
Balm with true health gifted!

On the Cross-scales lifted,
Christ was there extended,
As the price expended
To redeem death’s charters.

The Cross the balance is to weigh our right,
Our Monarch’s scepter and His rod of might;
The sign of Heaven’s own victory in the fight,
Our strength in war and glory’s palm-branch bright!

Ladder! raft! upbearing
Hearts through grief despairing!
Their last plank, when drowning!
Thou Christ’s beauty sharest,
Since His limbs thou barest,
Cross! the crown kings crowning.

Through thee, Cross! with blessings freighted!
Cross, by Christ’s blood consecrated!
May the grace of God most high
Deathless joys to us supply!
Amen.

Source: The Liturgical Poetry of Adam of St. Victor From the Text of Gautier, Vol. III. Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co. (London: 1881).pp. 2-5.

Church unity Octave.

The Church Unity Octave is observed every year from the feast of St. Peter's Chair, January 18, to that of the conversion of St. Paul, January 25.
It was approved and blessed by the late Pope Pius X in 1909. His Holiness Pope Benedict XV, by a Papal Brief, dated February 15, 1916, extended its observance of the Universal Church enriching it with Indulgences.
(Catholic Missions Vol 13-14 January 1919).

Prayer:

•    Ant. That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that Thou has sent me.
      ℣. I say to thee, that thou art Peter,
      ℟. And upon this rock I will build my Church.
      Let us pray: Lord Jesus Christ, Who didst say to Thine Apostles: peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you, look not upon my sins, but upon the faith of Thy Church; and vouchsafe unto Her that peace and unity which is agreeable to Thy will: Who livest and reignest God forever and ever. Amen.

NB. It is also recommended that one decade of the Rosary (at least) be said for the particular intention of each day; also that Holy Communion be received as often as possible during the Octave, daily if possible, certainly on the First or Last Day of the Octave in order to obtain the Plenary Indulgence. Source: Catholic World, Volume 106 Paulist Fathers, 1918

Traditional Version:
(Father Paul of Graymoor began the Chair of Unity Octave. By 1913 a set of Intentions for each day of the Octave had become fixed)

Jan 18. The return of all the "other sheep" to the one fold of St. Peter, the one Shepherd.
Jan 19. The return of all Oriental Separatists to Communion with the Apostolic See.
Jan 20. The submission of Anglicans to the Authority of the Vicar of Christ.
Jan 21. That the Lutherans and all other Protestants of Continental Europe may find their way "Back to Holy Church."
Jan 22. That Christians in America may become one in Communion with the Chair of St. Peter.
Jan 23. The return to the sacraments of lapsed Catholics.
Jan 24. The Conversion of the Jews.
Jan 25. The Missionary conquest of the world for Christ.

Source: the Living Church Vol 141. 1960

While a great part of mankind looks to its statesmen to devise ways and means by which the diversified and in some instances anti-Christian theories of government of the Allied Nations might be amalgamated and directed towards outlawing future wars, Catholics see in the divinely established unity of the Church the only road by which the concerted action of the true followers of Christ can lead the world to a lasting peace. We possess today a prayer movement for Church Unity, the purpose of which is to gather into the one true Church all those who have unfortunately withdrawn from the Catholic religion and to unite them against the prevailing forces of Liberalism and Materialism. For, as His Holiness Pope Benedict XV remarked in an Apostolic Brief dated Feb. 25, 1916, "in the Unity of Faith the foremost characteristic of the Truth shines forth, and it is thus that the Apostle Paul exhorts the Ephesians to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, by proclaiming that 'there is one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism."" Noting the approval extended to this Octave of Prayer by the Catholic Hierarchy, he asserted that “with a glad heart, therefore, we have heard from the Society which is called 'of the Atonement,' established in New York, that prayers have been proposed to be recited from the Feast of the Chair of Blessed Peter at Rome to the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, in order that this aim of Unity might be obtained from the Lord and at the same time we rejoice that these prayers, blessed by Pope Pius the Tenth, of recent memory, and approved by the Bishops of America, have been circulated far and wide through the United States."

At no time in the past nineteen hundred years has the pendulum of history registered such terrible spiritual, moral, and material catastrophe as has befallen mankind in this tragic moment. For as the old world lies in fragments, the future of Christian civilization in Europe and the rest of the world hangs in the balance. Even the joy of hard-won victory, accompanied by the dawning hope of a new day of peace and reconstruction, cannot offset the knowledge that the progress of the human race in the present confusion of ideologies has been a progress without God and even against God; without Christ and even against Christ. If mankind had but listened to the Church, there is little doubt that the chaos of this age, resulting from a weakening of faith in God and in Jesus Christ, and the darkening in men's minds of the light of moral principles, could have been avoided.

Our generation is reaping the woeful consequences of an incredulity which has succeeded in excluding Christ from modern life, especially from public life. The deep spiritual crisis that has overthrown the sound principles of private and public morality is the result of cleavage from the Church in the course of centuries and the divorcing of civil power from every kind of dependence on a Supreme Being. Cut off from the age-old teaching authority of the Catholic Church, many of the separated brethren have gone so far as to overthrow the central dogma of Christianity, the Divinity of the Saviour, and have hastened thereby the advance of spiritual and moral decay.

Now, in this hour of perhaps irrevocable decisions, the Church may well be envisioned as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, appealing to her wandering children to be united with her in the unity of faith and worship, so that their return to the Christian way of life might be a bulwark against the menace of modern pagan teaching. She alone, in the words of St. Augustine, "is the holy Church, the one Church, the true Church, the Church which strives against all heresies." She alone fully recognizes the widespread atheistic and anti-Christian tendency rampant in the world, threatening to destroy all the ancient Christian institutions, the life of which consists in a supernatural principle, and to erect on their ruins and with their remains an illusory millennium of universal happiness, a new order which would rest on the quicksands of changeable and ephemeral standards contingent upon the selfish interests of groups and individuals.

Already, through the mysterious workings of divine Providence, this invitation extended by the Church has received long awaited welcome from many who now perceive the inability of all human efforts to replace the laws of God and the unifying and elevating influence of Christ's love. But this is not enough. For, however much this hour of disillusionment has become an hour of grace, "a passage of the Lord” for some, sincere Catholics must humbly recognize their grave responsibility to work and pray that the tireless and salutary occupation of the Church in the spiritual and religious re-education of mankind might bear fruit in the reestablishment of the Christian heritage over the whole world. On the minds of all those who seek refuge from the vortex of error and anti-Christian movements they should impress the words Our Holy Father addressed to the College of Cardinals on June 2, 1944. “How much more potent and efficacious would be the influence of Christian thought and Christian life on the moral sub-structure of the future plans for peace and social reconstruction, if there were not this vast division and dispersal of religious confessions, that in the course of time have detached themselves from Mother Church! Who, today, can fail to recognize what substance of faith, what a genuine power of resistance to anti-religious influence is lost in so many groups as a result of separation."

As never before, the collaboration of the laity in the Apostolate of the Hierarchy must have as its central theme Christ resplendent in His Divine Kingship, if He is to "grant the gifts of peace and unity to all nations." For “in the recognition of the royal prerogatives of Christ and in the return of individuals and of society to the law of His truth and of His love lies the only way of salvation." If Christian thought is to succeed in maintaining and supporting the work of restoration in individual, social and international life, then all who are working for a plan that does not conflict with the religious and moral content of Christian civilization must acknowledge that the Church which Christ founded on earth is the infallible spokesman on faith and morals for the whole world. For the Catholic Church alone possesses, in her infallible pronouncements, the fullness of the principles of Christian morality in all its ramifications. Because of the special assistance of the Holy Spirit promised to the Apostles and their successors, the episcopate united to the Roman Pontiff, she alone teaches men to observe all things whatsoever Christ has commanded. Further, only the Church possesses, from her very institution, a visible unity in doctrine, government and worship. Therefore, only she can establish an organic unity of all men-a supernatural union based on an all-embracing love deeply felt and practiced, rather than a unity which is exclusively human, external, superficial, and by that very fact, weak.

One of the most efficacious means for assuring a just and lasting peace is a Catholic Unity of all those who, seeking brotherly communion in Christ, humbly submit themselves and obey the Vicar of Christ as teacher and ruler of the Church. That is the end of the Prayer Octave for Church Unity founded by Father Paul James Francis, S.A., in 1908. It seeks to restore to God the honor denied Him for so many centuries and to acquire for men the fullness of the Christian heritage which alone can determine the most firm foundation of true peace, that interior peace which cannot be found except by coming close to the spiritual light of Bethlehem's cave.

Catholics especially must unite with Christ who prayed to His Heavenly Father "that they all may be one, even as thou, Father, in me and I in thee; that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou has sent me." And it is incumbent on them to make known the observance of this Octave to all others who sincerely seek eternal salvation, the promotion of the temporal welfare of peoples, their true prosperity, order, and tranquillity. During this Church Unity Octave, from Jan. 18 to Jan. 25, all should pray especially that God the Father may send His Holy Spirit to direct and guide statesmen, that He might inspire their thoughts, their feelings and deliberations, making them spiritually and materially vigorous and firm against obstacles, mistrust, and peril, so that as a result of their deliberations, a new order under the patronage of Christ the King may be established which will lead many wanderers back to the Unity of supernatural faith and love as found in His Mystical Body. For, says St. Ambrose, "great is the glory of justice; for she, existing rather for the good of others than of self, is an aid to the bond of union and fellowship amongst us. She holds so high a place that she has all things laid under her authority ... but the Church, as it were, is the outward form of Justice, she is the common right of all. For all in common she prays, for all in common she works, in the temptation of all she is tried ... For this reason, Paul has made Christ to be foundation, so that we may build upon Him the works of Justice."

Source: GREGORY FIGUEROA, S.A. Atonement Seminary, Washington, D. C. The American Ecclesiastical Review, Volume 114 Herman Joseph Heuser Catholic University of America Press, 1946

Rev Eugene Joseph McGuinness

2nd Bishop of Raleigh, NC (1937-1944)

"A Bishop is the supreme ecclesiastical ruler of the Diocese. Bishops are successors of the Apostles as the Pope is the Successor of St. Peter. They govern their flocks, in the name of God, as representatives of Christ; they are not delegates of the Holy See, though they are subject to its authority. They experience their own powers by virtue of their office. They can note act against common law; but subject to this a Bishop can enact those laws which he considers for the good of his Diocese, and he is in the first instance in all ecclesiastical trials. He has the direction of his clergy, the conduct of divine worship, the administration of ecclesiastical property, building of churches, erection of parishes. It is the duty of Bishops to enforce the observance of Canon law, safeguard the faith, and correct abuses. Bishops are bound to reside in the Diocese and are to preach in person. They offer Masses for the people on prescribed days, and as the first opportunity offers, they complete the pastoral visitation of the Diocese.
[...]
In the centuries-old history of the Catholic Episcopate, men of faith and men without faith have alike paid tribute to that noble succession of priestly leaders who have ever shared the lot of the people entrusted to their care.

From that pulpit shall be defended the sanctity of marriage, the dignity and responsibility of marriage, the dignity and responsibility of parenthood, the loving care of little children in the holiness of home life. There will be expounded the conscientious duty of a faithful laborer and his right to a fair share in the product to his work that he may care well for those he loves. Yet, on the other hand, there will be defended, the right of private property and wealth rightly gained be safeguarded, in the possession of its owner, while he is taught that over what he needs for prudent provision for himself and his loved ones, his possession is a stewardship from God for which his charity must answer. Such the preaching of a Catholic Bishop.

This attitude of a Catholic Bishop is the Church's guarantee to the State of the fidelity and loyalty of the Catholic people to their duties, both as citizens and Christians. These significance, so heartening in these distressing times, make clear why Bishops, priests, and people, led by a Cardinal of Holy Church, have flocked to your City of Raleigh for the installation to a new Bishop latest proof of the vitality in the life and work of the Church of Christ."

Monsignor Corrigan, January 29, 1938 on the Eve of the installation of Bishop McGuinness. Source: The Bulletin

Source: Wikipedia

"We must pray and do penance and hope in God and His Holy Mother; for the saints say: From the day on which Christ died souls must be bought by blood. If only, by sacrificing my own life, I could bring all people to know and love God as He deserves. But let God's holy will be done in all things." - Blessed Peter Donders (1809 - 1887) Quotes of the Day

"Born October 27, 1809, at Tilburg in North Brabant, was obliged to spend his boyhood in privation and self-denial. From his very early years his heart was drawn toward the priesthood. But three considerable obstacles stood in the way; viz., his parents were very poor, he had poor health, and possessed but little talent. So much the greater, therefore, were Peter's piety, his purity of morals, and his confidence in God. To help his parents he learned the weaver's trade. When he was twenty-two he was received into the boys' seminary at St. Michiels-Gastel as a servant, with permission to avail himself of whatever instruction he could get. It was no small humiliation for a student who was so much older than his fellows to be almost last in everything; but his strong will and his confidence in prayer won him the victory over all difficulties. Twice he asked admission into a religious body and was each time refused. After six years he was admitted into the priests' seminary.

Some years after his ordination to the priesthood his desire to work as a missionary in foreign lands was gratified. On September 2, 1842, he landed at Paramaribo, capital of Dutch Guiana, which mission was then in the care of Dutch secular priests. Great patience and self-sacrifice was required to protect the 4000 Catholics scattered throughout the colony from the dangers which threatened their faith and morals in consequence of their heathen environment and the enervating climate. Donders paid special attention to the young, rightly foreseeing that it is easier to protect them from vice than to reclaim them when once in its power. When yellow fever raged at Paramaribo in 1851, he won the admiration of the whole colony by his heroism, in caring for both the spiritual and the corporal welfare of the sick, nearly falling a victim of his vocation.

Batavia, a remote place in the colony, had been set apart by the government for the residence of lepers. In 1856 Donders undertook the pastoral care of this difficult post, and persevered here for thirty years, shirking no sacrifice to be all things to his poor flock and to win all to Christ. When the mission of Dutch Guiana was adopted by the Redemptorists in 1865, Donders asked to be received into the Congregation. What was denied to the young petitioner thirty years before was gladly granted to the deserving and saintly missionary. After a year of noviceship at Paramaribo he took up again his post at Batavia.

“There was never a prince, perhaps," we read in a sketch of his life, “who, crowned with fame and splendid success, entered his capital in triumph after his victories and found so great an overflow of joy and happiness as did Donders when, surrounded by his beloved lepers, he again directed his steps to his poor little church.”

He went forth to his work with renewed courage and energy. At last, seventy-seven years of age, he laid down his arms to receive, on January 6, 1887, the reward of his holy and mortified life."

Source: The Holiness of the Church in the Nineteenth Century: Saintly Men and Women by Fr. Konstantin Kempf 1916

"Rev. Thomas Price: What explanation can be given to the questions: When a person has been thoroughly educated in the Catholic Faith, having had great care bestowed on his training, but who when he reaches manhood falls away from the Church and says he does not believe in the religion of his childhood?

The general reply is that faith is a gift of God whereby we trust God and all that He says simply because He says it, and that a person loses this trust in God because of his faithlessness to God's grace. Education and training, the very best education and training, are after all only a means, a great means, but after all only a means, to strengthen this trust in God and what He says, and after it is all done a person may and sometimes does through faithlessness to God's grace fall, that is, lose this belief in God and God's words. No man ever loses faith in God or the Catholic Church except by his own fault. The fault may be hidden. It may be pride, especially of intellect; it may be wilful trifling with temptations against faith, it may be a loss of grace through immoral life, or it may be a neglect of the means of grace, the sacraments, etc. But in every particular case, if the truth can be reached, it will be found to be faithlessness to God's grace. Neither any amount of education nor training nor anything else can save a man against his own will, nor cause him to retain Catholic faith if he is untrue to God's grace. Such persons as you speak of are usually led away from the Church by pride, or baneful associations of one kind or another, terminating in faithlessness to the graces of faith. They often yield to these influences for a time and then return to God and the Church. Let our correspondent pray, as St. Monica prayed for St. Augustine, and the same God who listened to Monica's prayers will not fail our correspondent."

Source:  Truth Magazine   page 74. June 1908 Founded 1897 by Rev. Thomas Frederick Price

The diocesan phase for the Cause for Beatification and Canonization of Father Price was opened on March 9, 2012. 

Please join us in prayer for its success.

Heavenly Father, You so inspired Father Thomas Frederick Price with love for You and zeal for the Gospel that he dedicated his life to serve You and Your Church, first in North Carolina, his home state, and then in the foreign missions. Grant that by his example we may grow in holiness and into a deeper union with Our Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to be authentic witnesses of the Gospel and proclaim the Holy Name of Jesus throughout the Diocese of Raleigh and to all the people and in all the places we are sent to love and serve.

If it be according to Your Will, glorify Your servant, Father Thomas Frederick Price, by granting the favor I (we) now request through his prayerful intercession (mention your request here). I (we) make this prayer confidently through Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen.

The Most Blessed Sacrament is Our Lord Jesus Christ, both God and man, really, truly, and substantially present beneath the veil of the Eucharist.
Adore His Divinity, present in the Host. The Blessed Sacrament is God, the infinitely perfect Being, the Creator of heaven and earth, and the Sovereign Lord of all things.
Adore the holy Humanity of Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament; His body, His blood, His heart, His soul; be sure that He is really living, really present in His own person, and not in remembrance, or in symbol, but in reality.
Proclaim Him to be your God, your Savior, Your king, your end, and your all. Acknowledge yourself to be His creature, His subject, His servant. Before Him as Mary and Joseph did at Bethlehem, as the Angels do in heaven; make acts of faith in His presence, of submission to His authority, of abandonment to His will, Give yourself to Him; swear to be faithful to Him and to love Him forever.
The Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament By Albert Tesnière

Virtue of Diligence

Sloth is a disgust which makes us neglect our duty, it becomes deadly when grave obligations are neglected. Its children are hatred of spiritual things, despair, want of courage, torpidity and languor, wanderings in prayer, neglect of communion.
The opposite virtue is diligence.
The remedies are a consideration of the labors of Christ, of the brief evil for eternal reward, the shortness of life, the strictness of the judgment, and the terrors of hell, pious reading, prayer, and church going. Catholic Champion

The Mass is certainly a function the most excellent, the most holy, the most acceptable to God and useful to us, that can be imagined. And so, while it is going on, the angels assist in crowds with bare feet, with earnest eyes, with downcast brows, with great diligence, with incredible amazement and veneration. With what purity, attention, devotion, reverence, then, ought the priest to celebrate it? he should approach the sacred altar as Jesus Christ, assist there as an angel, minister there as a Saint, offer there the prayers of the people as a high-priest, interpose there for reconciliation between God and men as a mediator, and pray for himself as a simple human being. St. Lawrence Justinian

Pietro Novelli

Prayer to the Holy Virgin of Mount Carmel

O Most Blessed and Immaculate Virgin, ornament and splendor of Carmel, thou who regardest with an eye of special kindness those who wear thy blessed habit, look down also benignly upon me and cover me with the mantle of thy special protection. Strengthen my weakness with thy power; enlighten the darkness of my mind with thy wisdom; increase in me faith, hope, and charity. Adorn my soul with such graces and virtues as will ever be pleasing to thy divine Son and to thee. Assist me in life, and console me in death, with thy most amiable presence, and present me to the most august Trinity as thy devoted servant and child; that I may eternally bless and praise thee in paradise. Amen
2 Hail Marys and Glory be to the Father.  The New Raccolta 1903

Bring back the Cloistered Nuns! (Sensus Fidelium Video)

From the Past: Carmelites in North Carolina

Seven Carmelite Nuns of the Strict Ancien observance of the Mother-Carmel at Lanark, Allentown, Pa., will soon be transferred to Asheville, N.C. , to found a new Carmelite Monastery there under the title of "Carmel of St. Joseph and the Holy Child."
The nuns are going to North Carolina at the invitation of the Most Rev. Vincent S. Waters, Bishop of Raleigh. Their establishment in the Raleigh Diocese will be the first monastery for strictly cloistered nuns in North Carolina.

Bishop to Pontificate
Solemn opening services and the first Mass will be celebrated at the new Asheville Carmel by Bishop Waters on March 19..
Authorization for the new monastery has come from Pope Pius XII through the Sacred Congregation for the Religious, since the nuns are members of a Papal Institute. Previous approval had been granted by the most Rev. John F. O'Hara, C.S.C., Archbishop of Philadelphia.
This will be the second Carmelite monastery to be founded in the United States from the Allentown Mother-Carmel. In November 1954, seven nuns left there to establish a new Carmel in Wahpeton, North Dakota.

Departure Ceremonies
Special departure ceremonies were conducted at the Allentown Monastery on March 7. The Rt. Rev. Msgr. Leo G. Fink, P.A., V.F., presided and presented Mission Crosses to the seven nuns who will form the new North Carolina community. They are: Reverend Mother M. Bernadette of Our Lady of Lourdes, a native of Philadelphia, who entered the Allentown Carmel on March 5, 1934. She will serve as Mother Prioress to the new community.
Sister Mary Magdalen of Jesus, of Allentown, who entered the Allentown Carmel on July 16, 1933, Assistant to the Mother Prioress.
Also, Sister Mary Anne of St. Bartholomew, of Philadelphia; Sister Mary Veronica of the Holy Face, Jersey City, N.J.; Sister Mary Patricia of the Nativity, of Philadelphia; Sister Mary Genevieve of the Holy Face, of Philadelphia; and Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, candidate for the new novitiate of New Bedford, Mass.

Note 25th Anniversary
The Allentown Carmelites are currently celebrating the 25th anniversary of their establishment in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which marks their first foundation in the United State, under the leadership of the late Reverend Mother Therese of Jesus and her companion, Mother Clement Mary of the Guardian Angel. The Carmelites were established by the General of the Carmelite Order, Blessed John Soreth, Ord. Carm. , on October 14, 1453, at Guelder, Holland. About 26 years before, St. Teresa of Avila began her reform of the Carmelites, in Spain, a branch of the original monastery was founded in Naples, Italy, in 1536. it was from this Carmelite Monastery of Naples in Italy that Carmel of the Strict Ancient Observance extended to American soil its first Foundation on May 22, 1931, at Lanark, near Allentown.

Life of a Carmelite
These Carmelite nuns take Solemn Vows of obedience, chastity and poverty, and observe strict Papal Enclosure. The choir religious chant the Divine Office in common. In addition to the Divine office, the cloistered religious observe perpetual adoration of the Holy Sacrament. Day and night, one or two Sisters kneel before the tabernacle, adoring, praising, petitioning for the needs of Mother Church throughout the world, for the Vicar of Christ on earth, for personal sanctification, and for the sanctification of all. The greater part of the day and night of the cloistered nuns is spent in prayer, meditation and other spiritual exercises. A certain part of the day is devoted to manual labor.

Source: The Catholic Standard and Times, Vol. 61, 9 March 1956

Bishop Leo Haid, Wikipedia

"Belmont, NC July 25.
The Rt. Rev. Leo Haid, OSB, Abbot of Belmont Abbey and Vicar Apostolic of North Carolina, died at the abbey here last night. He was 75 years old and one of the oldest and best known members of the Catholic hierarchy in the United States. For the past thirty-six years he had presided over the vicariate of North Carolina.
The venerable abbot was known chiefly as a result of his labors in the cause of Catholic education. He either founded or had a prominent part in the establishment of the following institutions: Belmont abbey and the college in connection with it; St. Leo's abbey and college, Fla; the Benedictine school, Savannah, GA; Benedictine college, Richmond, VA; and St. Joseph's industrial school, Bristow, VA.
Abbot Leo was a native of Latrobe, Pa, and received his early education under the direction of the Benedictines. He joined that order in 1860 at St. Vincent's abbey, PA, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1872. During the thirteen years immediately following his ordination he spent most of his time at St. Vincent's college as chaplain and professor. When, in 1885, the Benedictines undertook the establishment of Belmont abbey, Father Haid was chosen as superior of the new community. Under his guidance the abbey has become one of the great centers of Catholicity in the South. His appointment as Titular Bishop of Messene and Vicar Apostolic of North Carolina was announced December 7, 1887. He was consecrated July 1, 1888, in the Cathedral of Baltimore with the late Cardinal Gibbons as the consecrating prelate. Two weeks later the Cardinal went to Wilmington, NC, where the newly consecrated prelate was solemnly enthroned in St. Thomas' Pro-Cathedral.
Abbot Leo was the only prelate in the United States to whom the Pope has ever granted the distinction of presiding over an "Abbatia Nullius," or Cathedral-Abbey. Such an abbey is one "having its own domain and jurisdiction therein, subject only to the Holy Father himself. " He was also made an assistant to the Pontifical throne, a distinction which carried with it a title of Papal nobility.
In 1919 the abbot celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his affiliation with the Benedictine order and in April, 1923, another celebration marked his golden sacerdotal jubilee."
Denver Catholic Register July 31, 1924