Father Wattson, Founder of Atonement Society, Promoted Christian Unity

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Father Paul Wattson, S.A., lived a life modeled on St. Francis of Assisi, and it is said he refused to carry money around with him even for subway fares. He would wait patiently for the generosity of strangers to pay for him to pass through the turnstile so no one would think he was pilfering money from the Society of the Atonement.

Interestingly, Father Wattson began life as an Episcopalian and founded the Society along with Laurana White in 1898 at Graymoor in Garrison. The Society is comprised of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement and the Sisters of the Atonement.

When Father Wattson became a Catholic in 1909, he brought the whole Society with him, the first time a religious community was received corporately into the Catholic Church since the Reformation.

Father Wattson was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1910 by New York Archbishop John Farley, who became a cardinal the next year.

On Nov. 11, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops endorsed Father Wattson’s cause for canonization at their fall meeting in Baltimore.

The second half of the 19th century and the first part of the 1900s were a time of strife for America with the Civil War, the Mexican-American War and the American-Indian War all fought during the period. Father Paul was born Lewis T. Wattson in 1863.

“It was a terrible time of division and pain,” said Father Brian Terry, S.A., the current minister general of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement at Graymoor, in an interview with Catholic New York.

One of Father Wattson’s deepest desires was to unify people. To do so, he began the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, a year before he became a Catholic.

“He was hoping we could accept God’s gift of unity,” Father Terry said. “He didn’t want people to all be the same. He wanted people to be different but to unify at the same time.”

In the early 1900s, the Society began to accept and care for homeless wanderers, the unemployed and those addicted to alcohol and drugs, particularly opiates, which were especially abused at the time. This ministry would become St. Christopher’s Inn, which is still in existence more than a century later.

“He saw one-ness where people only saw brokenness,” Father Terry explained.

The next step on the path to sainthood for Father Wattson will be a formal opening of the cause in the archdiocese. The postulator, Father Gabriel O’Donnell, O.P., will begin collecting Father Wattson’s writings, testimonies and other documents for review. Father Wattson died in 1940.

“This is the Year for Consecrated Life. It underlines the importance of what our charism is about. We hope people would come and join us, we also hope it lets people know that we are here for them. For us to know that his sainthood cause is opened is really exciting. He would be angry, but he would be happier that the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is still going on,” Father Brian explained.