Georgetown's Catholic Heritage

One of Georgetown's distinctive rare book collections is its Parsons Collection, in which are brought together most of the library's holdings of Catholic books (and books written by Catholic authors) printed in the United States prior to 1831. Through the generosity of Associates' trustee Maurice Adelman, the library has had the unusual pleasure of adding to its Catholic books one previously not recorded as existing in any American library: an edition of the catechism bearing the approbation of John Carroll published in Baltimore in 1809.

Early American Catholic books are scarce because the number of Catholics in the new United States was very small, and books like catechisms are among the scarcest because they were very often read to pieces by the people--often children--who used them. Georgetown was fortunate in having early on the collections and interest of three men who worked hard at both identifying and accumulating early American Catholic books.

Fr. Joseph Finotti was both a collector and bibliographer. He began bringing together early American Catholic books in the 1850s, and he was even then aware of how scarce they were; the copy of the 1817 Catholic directory which he bought for the outrageous price of $3.50 in 1853 has never again turned up in the market. In 1872 Finotti published his Bibliotheca Catholica Americana, the first attempt at a listing of books in the field, based largely on his own collection and on that of his close friend, John Gilmary Shea.

Shea had made a major contribution to Finotti's bibliographical work by publishing in the 1850s a tentative listing of Catholic editions of the Bible published in the United States. When Finotti died in 1876, Shea served as his executor. He arranged for the auction of the bulk of Finotti's large library, but he held out the early American Catholic books, adding them to his own collection. When Shea's books were purchased by Georgetown early in the 1890s these seminal collections were among the first acquisitions made for the then-new Riggs Library.

As Georgetown's librarian in the 1930s, Fr. Wilfred Parsons used the Shea-Finotti books as a springboard in the preparation of his new bibliography, Early Catholic Americana (1937), still the standard reference work in the field. But Parsons also made a concerted effort to develop Georgetown's holdings in this area; from alumni and friends he secured gifts of a number of items not previously held, and he made a few relevant purchases.

Taking the Lauinger and Woodstock Library holdings together, Georgetown probably houses examples of a bit more than 70 percent of all early American Catholic books, more than any other single institution with the possible exception of the American Antiquarian Society. Since 1970 the number of relevant items added to Georgetown's book collection has probably totaled less than a dozen. It is in this context that the significance of the 1809 Catechism can best be judged: an inherently fragile, paperbound volume of modest dimensions, its rear flyleaf adorned with the 1813 inscription of its youthful owner--but the only copy known to have survived the 181 years since it was printed.