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.
Son of an Episcopal Church minister, when he was ordained priest of the church of St James at Kingston (New York) in 1893, he felt more keenly the desire, already cherished in his youth, to found within the Anglican Church a religious community devoted to the Franciscan ideals of “reconciliation.” Having entered into relations with the Anglican nun Frances Loraine, he became convinced that she should be the foundress of the female branch of the community he had envisaged, and in 1896 they laid the foundations of the new institution at Graymoor (New York).
Wattsson, increasingly convinced of the necessity of relying on the Rock of Peter, founded in 1900 the work “Pro Unione,” which he supported from 2 Feb. 1903 with the new periodical The Lamp, and in 1907 PRAYER BOOK (v.) for the Union with Rome of all dissenters, fixing its days from 18 to 25 Jan., with a special intention for each day. In the second year the Octave bore splendid fruit: the two communities of the Atonement entered the Catholic Church and were recognized as a religious institute. From that day the two institutions developed rapidly, and in 1946 the Franciscans of the Atonement were entrusted with the church of St Onuphrius on the Janiculum, where the centre of the Octave for Church Unity was established, an observance now universal and supported since 1946 by the periodical Unitas. Wattsson’s works are many, both for assistance to the Missions through The Lamp and for “Union”; he also originated the “Hour of the Hail Mary,” in which very many radio stations at a fixed hour broadcast episodes from the lives of the Saints as a constant call to a more Christian life.