Sylvan Mattingly

Sylvan Mattingly, C.F.X., (1882 – December 1951) was a Catholic Brother who served as a teacher in the United States. In an effort to support the labors of missionaries working to spread the Catholic faith in underdeveloped countries, he founded what grew to be the largest Catholic rosary-making organization in the United States.

He was born Michael Alphonsus Mattingly, the son of James Thomas Mattingly and Mary Eliza Edelen, a family descended from Catholic colonists from England who settled in Maryland in the 17th century. An older brother entered the Xaverian Brothers, a religious congregation dedicated to teaching, where he became known as Brother Alexander (1880–1955). Michael entered the same congregation about the year 1900, being given the religious name of Brother Sylvan. At the end of his life, he taught at St. Xavier High School in Louisville, Kentucky.

Brother Sylvan was inspired by the message of Our Lady of Fatima to spread the use of the rosary in prayer. He made a trip to Denver, Colorado, in 1949 in order to teach a group of people to make rosaries. Upon his return, with $25 donated by an elderly couple for a typewriter, he formed "Our Lady of Fatima Rosary Making Club" in the basement of St. Xavier High School. That organization later grew to be Our Lady's Rosary Makers, which has 17,000 active members in the United States and has distributed hundreds of millions of free rosaries worldwide.

Mattingly died in his sleep during December 1951, and was buried in the Brother's plot in St. Louis Cemetery in Louisville, where his brother was later buried alongside him.