More Bishop Broderick
“…in cranky moods and…pleasant moods.”
I’m happy to share The Wit & Wisdom of Bishop Bonaventure Broderick: His Millbrook Round Table Columns is now available from Serif Press and can be ordered from Amazon here. The first review is in:
“I really loved getting to know the mind of Bishop Broderick, in his cranky moods as well as his pleasant moods.” - Christopher Bailey
In 2022, Serif Press published my biography of Bonaventure Broderick - arguably the most obscure, forgotten, and undiscovered twentieth-century bishop in the Catholic Church - and often referred to as “the gas station bishop.” If you’ve read it, you will recall that for three years, 1937-1939, the bishop wrote a newspaper column titled “Things, Events and Men” for the Millbrook Round Table, the weekly paper in his adopted hometown in the Hudson Valley.
In the summer of 2023 Father Edward Looney of the Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin interviewed me on his podcast about the biography. He mentioned how wonderful it would be if those columns were published. I agreed and spent many (enjoyable!) hours locating, reading, organizing the corpus by topic, and selecting appropriate pieces for publication. I thank Fr. Edward for the idea and for writing the Introduction, which can be read here.
Broderick’s columns appeared in 148 consecutive issues of the Round Table. Each column covered more than one topic, often four or five, at times totaling 2,000 words or more with the total number of topics exceeding 540. It was never my intention to print the entire corpus but rather to present a selection giving readers an insight into the discerning intellect and personality of the bishop.
The wide-range of themes include:
life in Connecticut as a young man
his near decade in Rome (1890s)
his time in Havana, Cuba (1900-1905)
his pastoral pieces on virtue, vice, morality & critiques of education
his fondness of nature, birds and flowers
his love of poetry - especially Emily Dickinson - & language & its use
events of the day, the Great Depression, 1939 World’s Fair, lead-up to WWII, strides in aviation, etc.
columns reflecting his keen sense of humor
tidbits of life in his adopted hometown (1926-1939)
his personal profiles of several men, some famous such as Elihu Root and General Leonard Wood, and obscure characters such as “The Learned Blacksmith” and “The Paper Collared Gentleman”
His compositions varied from the narrative to staccato style, but always his wit and wisdom front and center. It is my hope that readers enjoy meeting Bonaventure F. Broderick, the bishop-columnist - in his cranky moods and his pleasant moods! You can find the book here.
Thanks Jim for an early Saturday morning read. Keep the faith, brother. 😎