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Founder of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement Biography: Born January 16, 1863 in Millington, Maryland (USA) Died February 8, 1940 at Graymoor, Garrison, New York (USA) The third son of Rev. Joseph Wattson and Mary Electa, he was baptized Lewis Thomas Wattson. |
| Studied at St. Mary's Hall, Burlington, New Jersey and St. Stephen's (now Bard) College, Annandale, New York. Seminary studies at General Theological Seminary, New York City. Ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church in 1886. On December 15, 1898, together with Mother Mary Lurana White, an Episcopal nun, he founded at Graymoor (Garrison, New York), the Society of the Atonement, comprising Franciscan Friars and Franciscan Sisters of the Atonement. Following a year's novitiate under the Anglican Fathers of the Holy Cross at Westminster, Maryland, he received the religious habit of the Friars of the Atonement in 1900 and the name of Paul James. 1903 he began The Lamp, a monthly magazine devoted to Christian unity. 1908 he inaugurated an 8 day period of prayer called the Church Unity Octave, from the Feast of St. Peter's Chair in Rome (January 18) to the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul (January 25). October 30, 1909, the Graymoor community of 17 friars, sisters and laity was received corporately into the Catholic Church. 1910 ordination of Fr. Paul at Dunwoodie, New York Besides directing his society, he founded St. Christopher's Inn, a refuge for homeless men, organized the Graymoor Press and the "Ave Maria Hour" on radio; established a major seminary in Washington, DC; and collaborated with Richard Barry Doyle to found the Catholic Near Welfare Association which was incorporated in 1924 with his Union-.That-Nothing-Be-Lost, initiated in 1904. |
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