Thomas Frederick Price, MM (August 19, 1860 - September 12, 1919) was the American co-founder of the Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, better known as the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.
Youth and education
Thomas Frederick Price was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, the eighth of ten children of Alfred and Clarissa Bond Price. His parents were converts to the Catholic faith, and he was raised as a devout Catholic amid Southern apathy toward Catholicism. His older sisters, Margaret and Mary, left to become Sisters of Mercy.
As a youth, Price was deeply influenced by his parish priests (St. Thomas, Wilmington, North Carolina). One cleric who figured prominently in his early life was James Gibbons, newly appointed the first Vicar Apostolic of North Carolina. Gibbons established his headquarters at St. Thomas Church; Price often served Mass for Gibbons and accompanied him on official trips throughout the Vicariate.
With his religious background (especially the deep devotion of his mother to the Blessed Virgin Mary), Price soon felt an attraction to the priesthood. He confided his interest to the parish priest, Mark Gross, and arrangements were made for him to enter St. Charles College at Catonsville, Maryland, in August 1876. En route to the seminary by ship, Price escaped death in the shipwreck of the Rebecca Clyde. Price attributed his survival to the Blessed Virgin Mary's intercession. After the accident, he returned home until January 1877.
Price attended St. Charles College from January 1877 until his commencement on June 28, 1881. In September 1881, he entered St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore. He was ordained to the priesthood on June 20, 1886, by Gibbon's successor, Henry P. Northrop, at the pro-cathedral in Wilmington, North Carolina. (Both of Price's parents had died before his ordination.) Price was the first native North Carolinian to be ordained to the priesthood, and he was assigned to missionary work in the eastern section of his home state.
Early priesthood
Within the first year of his ordination, Price was appointed pastor of the few Catholics in Asheville and New Bern. He later obtained permission from Leo Haid, the current Vicar Apostolic, to begin a statewide evangelization program. His methods were influenced by Walter Elliott, a famous Paulist preacher. Based out of New Bern, Price traveled by buggy a "circuit" comprising seventeen missions. He was pastor at New Bern for nine years. From there he was transferred to Sacred Heart Church in Raleigh. Two churches built by Price remain in North Carolina. St. Mary's Church in Goldsboro c.1889 is today served by the Society of Saint Pius X. The other surviving church is the Church of the Immaculate Conception (Halifax, North Carolina) c.1889, which belongs to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Raleigh.
One of Price's tools for evangelization was the publication of the magazine Truth, which he began to edit and publish in April 1897. In 1912, the magazine passed into the hands of the International Catholic Truth Society, with the guarantee that the Truth Society would enable the publication to reach its full potential. Fr. Price's active role in the Foreign Mission Seminary by this time made his continued involvement in the publication impossible.
In 1899, Price, along with his sister, Sister Mary Agnes of the Sisters of Mercy, founded a Catholic Orphanage on a large tract of land which he purchased in Nazareth, North Carolina. Price's plan was first to help the underprivileged of an area and thereby win the general population's favor, who would then be more inclined to listen to the missioner's message. (The location later became the site of the first Cardinal Gibbons Memorial High School and is now the site of Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral.)
Following the success of the Nazareth Orphanage, Price organized summer catechizing teams of seminarians. Finally, in 1902, Price opened a missionary training house at Nazareth. It was a preparatory seminary whose sole purpose was the education and formation of missioners for the home missions. It was called Regina Apostolorum. Price directed the Regina Apostolorum and acted as its primary teacher and spiritual director.