Life of Father Hecker

by Walter Elliott

From the Pastoral Letter of the same Council we extract the following:

"In connection with this matter [the Catholic Press] we earnestly recommend to the faithful of our charge The Catholic Publication Society, lately established in the city of New York by a zealous and devoted clergyman. Besides the issuing of short tracts with which this Society has begun, and which may be usefully employed to arrest the attention of many whom neither inclination nor leisure will allow to read larger works, this Society contemplates the publication of Catholic books, according as circumstances may permit and the interests of religion appear to require. From the judgment and good taste evinced in the composition and selection of such tracts and books as have already been issued by this Society, we are encouraged to hope that it will be eminently effective in making known the truths of our holy religion, and dispelling the prejudices which are mainly owing to want of information on the part of so many of our fellow-citizens. For this it is necessary that a generous co-operation be given both by clergy and laity to the undertaking, which is second to none in importance among the subsidiary aids which the inventions of modern times supply to our ministry for the diffusion of Catholic truth."

How elated Father Hecker was by this action of the Council, and how over-sanguine, as the event proved, of the future of the Society, is shown by the following extracts from letters to a friend:

"My efforts in the recent Council were completely successful, owing to the many prayers offered to God—yours not the least. Could you have seen the letters from different quarters, from good pious nuns, and persons loving and serving and fearing God in the world, written to me, and their writers all praying and doing works of mercy and mortification for the purposes I had in view, you could not wonder at my success. God did it. What is more, I was fully conscious of the fact, and it is this that made my great joy.

"The Catholic Publication Society has the unanimous consent, and sympathy, and co-operation of the entire episcopate and clergy. Every year there is a collection to be taken up in the principal churches for its support. I have drawn an elephant, but I do not feel like the man who did not know what to do with him after he had got him."

"It is good in God to place me in a position in which I can act efficiently. The disposition towards me is, I know, most pleasant and favorable. I have been placed where I shall be at liberty to act and direct action. Quietly pray for me as the Holy Spirit may suggest. On my part I will also seek the same guidance. How good God is to give it!"

The Council had hardly adjourned when it began to be plain that in legislating for The Catholic Publication Society the prelates had been over-stimulated by the zeal of Archbishop Spalding and the personal influence of Father Hecker himself, who was present in his capacity of Superior of the Paulists. He went among the bishops and pleaded for the Apostolate of the Press with characteristic vigor, and with his usual success. Aided by the archbishop, he lifted the Fathers of the Council for a moment above what in their sober senses they deemed the exclusive duty of the hour. This was to provide churches and priests, and schools and school-teachers, for the people. Already far too numerous for their clergy, the Catholic people were increasing by immigration alone at the rate of more than a quarter of a million a year. Every effort must be concentrated, it was thought, and every penny spent, in the vast work of housing and feeding the wandering flocks of the Lord. And certainly the magnitude of the task and the success attained in performing it can excuse the indifference shown to the Apostolate of the Press, if anything can excuse it. But it seemed otherwise to Father Hecker, as it does now to us. For the Catholic people could have been better and earlier cared for in their spiritual concerns if furnished with the abundant supply of good reading which the carrying out of Father Hecker's plan would have given them, and that at no great expense. What substitute for a priest is equal to a good book? What vocation to the priesthood has not found its origin in the pages of a good book, or at any rate been fostered by its devout lessons? And all history as well as experience proves that the best guarantee of the faith of a Catholic, moving amidst kindly-disposed non-Catholic neighbors, is the aggressive force of missionary zeal. The Publication Society, if brought into active play, would have done much to create this zeal, and would have supplied its best arms of attack and defence by an abundance of free Catholic reading. It would have helped on every good work by auxiliary forces drawn from intelligent faith and instructed zeal.

A closer view of the case shows that antecedents of a racial and social character among the people had something to do with the apathy we have been considering. To a great degree it still rests upon us, though such organized efforts as the Catholic Truth Society of St. Paul, Minnesota, and the Holy Ghost Society of New Orleans indicate a change for the better.

Had Father Hecker continued in good health there is a chance, though a desperate one, that he might have overcome all obstacles. Many zealous souls would have followed his lead. As a specimen we may name the Vicar-General of San Francisco, Father Prendergast, who, with the help of a few earnest friends, raised several thousand dollars in gold in that diocese alone. But in 1871 Father Hecker's strength began to fail, and in the following year his active life was done. As already shown, it had been the intention to establish branch societies everywhere, whose delegates would regularly meet and control the entire work, giving the Church in America an approved, powerful auxiliary dominantly made up of laymen. In that sense the Society never was so much as organized, the number of branch societies not at any time warranting such a step as a general meeting of their representatives. The money actually collected was all spent in printing and circulating the tracts and other publications given away or sold below cost, Father Hecker and the Paulists managing the entire work. When the collections gave out, Mr. George V. Hecker contributed a large sum for continuing the undertaking. The result was his finding himself in the publishing business, which he was compelled to place as far as possible on a basis to meet the current outlay. The Society, as far as its name went, thus became a Catholic publishing firm, with Mr. Hecker mainly involved financially and Mr. Kehoe in charge of the business. Mr. Hecker sunk a small fortune in the Apostolate of the Press, much of it during the hard times between 1873 and 1876. The history of the whole affair is as curious as it is instructive, and hence we have given a pretty full account of it. It weighed heavy on Father Hecker's heart, though he astonished his friends by the equanimity with which he accepted its failure. His work, if it did not perish in a night like the prophet's gourd, withered quickly into very singular form and narrow proportions. The amazement of Protestant bigots at the appearance of the Catholic tracts, speechless and clamorous by turns; the quaker guns of the Second Plenary Council, and the bright dreams of a vigorous attack upon the enemy all along the line and by all classes of clergy and laity—how Father Hecker did in after years discuss these topics, and how he did inspire all about him with his own enthusiastic hopes of a future and more successful effort! When he went to Europe in 1873, too feeble to hope for recovery, leaving the enterprise behind him in the same condition as his own broken health, how unmurmuring was his submission to the Divine and human wills which had brought all to naught!

Not more than a few words need be said of his undertaking to buy a New York daily paper. It happened that in 1871 a prominent journal, a member of the Associated Press, could be bought for three hundred thousand dollars. In an instant, as it seems, Father Hecker grasped the opportunity. By personal appeals to the rich men of the city more than half the sum required was subscribed, Archbishop McCloskey heading the list with a large amount. But soon the doctors had to be called in, and the enterprise went no further.