Priest and Beggar: The Heroic Life of Venerable Aloysius Schwartz

Yet within fifteen years, he had changed the course of Korean history, founding and reforming orphanages, hospitals, hospices, clinics, schools, and the Sisters of Mary, a Korean religious order dedicated to the sickest of the sick and the poorest of the poor. He himself—like the Sisters—lived all the while in the same hard poverty as the people he served and loved.

Nonetheless, Father Al prayed to be unknown. The reason you don’t know about him is that he didn’t want you to know. He was a very humble priest and servant of the poor. Kevin Wells tells the story of a different kind of American hero, an ordinary priest who stared down corruption, slander, persecution, and death for the sake of God’s poor. “What Father Al managed to do is beyond the pale”, said his long-time collaborator Monsignor James Golasinski. “He was the boldest man I ever knew. He feared nothing.”

Known for his joy and humor, even in the teeth of Lou Gehrig’s Disease, Schwartz was declared a “Servant of God” by Pope Francis in 2015, the first major step toward canonization. By the time of his death in 1992, his work with the order he started, Sisters of Mary, had spread into the Philippines and Mexico, and since then, the order has founded Boystowns and Girlstowns across Central and South America, as well as in Tanzania. He died calling out to his beloved “Mary, the Virgin of the Poor.” Includes 16 pages of photos.

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