Background

Louis Aloisius Lambert was born at Charleroi, Pennsylvania. His father, William Lambert, had come from Ireland in 1811. His mother was Lydia Jones, a Quakeress who had entered the Catholic Church.

Education

He was educated at St. Vincent's College, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, and subsequently at the archdiocesan seminary, Carondelet, Missouri.

Career

Lambert was ordained a priest in 1859, for the diocese of Alton, Ill. He was then stationed at Cairo and served missions in several counties. When the Civil War broke out he was commissioned chaplain of the 18th Regiment, Illinois Infantry, by Governor Yates. With the rank of a captain of infantry, he saw service in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi.

When peace came he returned to Cairo, but went to New York in 1868 to become professor of philosophy in the novitiate of the newly established Congregation of St. Paul. On May 20, 1869, he received official excardination from the diocese of Alton, and on October 16, 1869, was appointed pastor at Waterloo, New York. There in the next twenty years he began and virtually completed the building of a church.

Meanwhile, however, he deepened his interest in writing and lecturing. During 1877 he founded the Catholic Times, a weekly, which was merged some time later in the Catholic Times of Rochester. In 1892 he founded and until 1894 edited the Catholic Times of Philadelphia, which in its third year was combined with its rival as the Catholic Standard and Times.

Meanwhile an unusual opportunity had presented itself. In August 1881, the North American Review had published a debate between Robert G. Ingersoll and Judge Jeremiah S. Black. A new wave of agnostic rationalism was gaining momentum at the time, and the circumstances under which the Ingersoll-Black debate was conducted lent strength to the atheist argument. Father Lambert took up the cudgels in a series of papers contributed to the Catholic Union and Times of Buffalo, New York. These were reprinted as Notes on Ingersoll (1883). Lambert's Tactics of Infidels (1887) continued the argument, in the same manner. Thus Lambert became the champion of orthodoxy in the United States, and as such was bitterly attacked in such "infidel" pamphlets as B. W. Lacy's Reply to Rev. L. A. Lambert's Notes on Ingersoll (1885) and Charles Watts's Orthodox Criticism Tested (Toronto, n. d. ). Lambert's other published writings include: Thesaurus Biblicus (1880), the first Catholic Biblical concordance in English, adapted from a German work by Philip Merz; and Christian Science at the Bar of Reason (1908). He also edited Catholic Belief (1884), by Joseph Fa. .. di Bruno, and Indifferentism (1917), by Rev. John MacLaughlin.

During these years he was widely termed the "American Newman" and he was certainly the first American Catholic apologist to reach a wide audience outside his own communion, but his writings are so closely identified with controversies peculiar to a definite era that they have not lasted beyond their day. He must be judged primarily as a journalist, and here his most important achievement, apart from his books, was his editorship of the New York Freeman's Journal from 1894 to 1910.

During several years he was involved in a bitter quarrel with his ordinary, Bishop Bernard J. McQuaid of Rochester. The charges against Father Lambert were these: that he had written in a spirit of opposition to the bishop; that he was the leader of a group of rebellious priests, who sought unjustifiable control over a "clergy fund" and other matters; and that his attitude with regard to certain Irish patriotic demonstrations had been antagonistic to episcopal authority. The Bishop summarized these charges in a letter to Cardinal Simeoni, of the Propaganda (Feb. 18, 1888), adding that he had been "shamefully deceived" about Father Lambert's character and claiming that the latter had been dismissed from Alton diocese for bad conduct. These personal accusations were quite mistaken, as the facts prove, but the Bishop had some cause for complaint. He was, no doubt, a little autocratic, but he faced the problem of maintaining discipline among frequently recalcitrant priests.

Father Lambert was, perhaps, spoiled in a measure by his literary and oratorical successes, so that he failed occasionally to pay the Bishop due respect. The controversy was carried to Rome, elicited the interest of many other clergymen and prelates, was tentatively decided several times, and finally settled (Jan. 22, 1890) after both Bishop McQuaid and Lambert had journeyed to the Vatican. The terms were that Lambert should remain in the diocese of Rochester, but be transferred from Waterloo to Scottsville. During these years his popularity had increased, and crowds gathered to listen to his addresses. After a period of decline, he died at Newfoundland, New Jersey, and was buried at Scottsville, New York.

Achievements

• Lambert was known as a founder and editor of the "Catholic Times of Rochester" and "Catholic Times of Philadelphia". His major contribution was his work "Notes on Ingersoll" (1883). It ran through many editions and it was written in a form of literary dialogue, in which passages from Ingersoll's addresses were quoted and commented upon.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Tactics of Infidels

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • Notes on Ingersoll

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • Thesaurus Biblicus, Or, Hand-Book of Scripture Reference

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Christian Science Before the Bar of Reason (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Christian Science Before the Bar of Reason ...)

  • Christian Science Before the Bar of Reason

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

Connections

Father:

William Lambert

Mother:

Lydia Jones