Robert Grosseteste, then Bishop of Lincoln, marvelled that the people "run to the friars for instruction as well as for confession and direction. They are transforming the world."
Vincent Long Van Nguyen OFM Conv, auxiliary bishop for the western region and former assistant superior general for the Conventual Franciscans for Asia and Oceania
Having received his education in classics from the priests of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri, he afterwards entered the novitiate of the Conventual Franciscans at their friary in Lago, at the close of which he professed religious vows and received the religious habit of the Order on September 11, 1722.
Thomas Grassmann, OFM Conv, (December 18, 1890 - October 1, 1970) was a Conventual Franciscan friar and historian and archaeologist of Colonial New York, who discovered the site of the Mohawk American Village of Caughnawaga near Fonda, New York.
The name 'Whitefriars' (and also Greyfriars) comes from a Coventry monastery of the same name founded in around 1342, and gradually expanded as charitable donations and funding became available.