Wattson, Lewis Thomas

Wattson, Lewis Thomas (Father Paul James Francis) (1863–1940) Catholic religious leader; born in Millington, Md. After a decade as an Episcopalian pastor, he cofounded, with Lurana Mary White, the Society of the Atonement, a Franciscan-type religious congregation, at Graymoor in Garrison, N.Y. (1898). There he sheltered homeless men, started a religious magazine, the Lamp, and launched the Church Unity Octave to pray for Christian unification. The society became Catholic in 1909 and he became a Catholic priest. A tireless fundraiser, he authorized missions in southwestern United States and abroad and cofounded (1924) the Catholic Near East Welfare Association.