WOLFF, GEORGE DERING. - Journalist, b. at Martinsburg (western Virginia) on 25 Aug. 1822, d. at Norristown (Pennsylvania) on 29 Jan. 1894.
Born to a father who was a minister of the Reformed Church in Pennsylvania, W. set out to become a minister in turn; but after long spiritual crises, in 1871, already fifty years old, he entered the Roman Church. A journalist of wide renown, he then founded the Catholic Mirror of Baltimore, and subsequently the Catholic Standard of Philadelphia. In 1876, at the invitation of James J. Corcoran and Fr. O'Connor—later bishop and apostolic vicar of Nebraska—he also founded the American Catholic Quarterly Review of Philadelphia. His numerous articles on the dogmatic differences among the various Protestant Churches, a subject with which W. was thoroughly acquainted, gave it considerable importance. The journal thus became one of the most authoritative voices of American Catholicism, carrying out an effective work of clarification and persuasion among the educated classes.