WATTSON, LEWIS THOMAS. - Founder of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, b. at Millington (Maryland, U.S.A.) on 16 Jan. 1863, d. at Graymoor (New York) on 8 Feb. 1940.
The son of an Episcopal minister, when in 1893 he was ordained minister of the church of St. James at Kingston (New York) he felt more keenly the desire, already cherished in his youth, to found within the Anglican Church a religious community dedicated to the Franciscan ideals of "reconciliation." Having entered into correspondence with the Anglican sister Frances Lurana, he persuaded her to become foundress of the women's branch of the community he had conceived, and in 1896 together they laid the foundations of the new institution, at Graymoor (New York). W., ever more convinced of the need to rest upon the Rock of Peter, created in 1900 the work "Pro unione," which he supported from 2 Feb. 1903 with the new periodical The Lamp, and in 1907 he instituted the Octave of prayers (v.) for the Union with Rome of all dissidents, fixing its days from 18 to 25 Jan. and a particular intention for each day. In the second year the Octave bore its splendid fruit; the two communities of the Atonement passed bodily into the Catholic Church and were recognized as a religious institute. From that day the two institutions developed rapidly, and in 1946 the church of St. Onofrio al Gianicolo was entrusted to the Franciscans of the Atonement, where the center of the Octave for the Unity of the Church was established, by then become a universal practice and supported from 1946 by the periodical Unitas. Numerous are the works of W., both for assistance to the Missions by means of The Lamp, and for the "Union"; to him is also due the original institution of the "Hour of the Hail Mary," in which very many radio stations at a set hour broadcast episodes from the lives of the Saints as a stimulus to a more Christian life.
Bibliography2 works
Celestino Testore.