Life of Father Hecker

by Walter Elliott

"The Vatican Council has placed the Church in battle array, unmasked the concealed batteries of her enemies; the conflict will be on a fair and open field, and it will be decisive. The recent hostility of the governments of Europe, and especially of Italy, against the Church, has shown the wisdom of the Vatican Council in preparing the Church to meet the crisis. The definition leaves no longer any doubt in regard to the authority of the Chief of the Church.

"For my part I sincerely thank the Jesuits for their influence in bringing it about, even though that were as great as some people would have us believe. . . . This had to be done before the Church could resume her normal course of action. What is that? Why, the divine external authority of the Church completed, fixed beyond all controversy, her attention and that of all her children can now be turned more directly to the divine and interior authority of the Holy Ghost in the soul. The whole Church giving her attention to the interior inspirations of the Holy Spirit, will give birth to her renewal, and enable her to reconquer her place and true position in Europe and the whole world. For we must never forget that the immediate means of Christian perfection is the interior direction of the Holy Spirit, while the test of our being directed by the Holy Spirit and not by our fancies and prejudices, is our filial obedience to the divine external authority of the Church.

"If for three centuries the most influential schools in the Church gave a preponderance in their teaching and spiritual direction to those virtues which are in direct relation to the external authority of the Church, it must be remembered that the heresies of that period all aimed at the destruction of this authority. The character of this teaching, therefore, was a necessity. There was no other way of preserving the children of the Church from the danger of this infection. If the effect of this teaching made Catholics childlike, less manly and active than others, this was under the circumstances inevitable.

"The definition of the Vatican Council, thanks to the Jesuits, now gives us freedom to turn our attention in another direction, and to cultivating other virtues. If one infidel was equal to two Catholics in courage and action in the past, in the future one Catholic, moved by the Holy Spirit, will be equal to half-a-dozen or a thousand infidels and heretics.

"The stupid Döllingerites do not see or understand that what they pretend to desire—the renewal of the Church—can only be accomplished by the reign of the Holy Spirit throughout the Church, and that this can only be brought about by a filial submission to her divine external authority. Instead of their insane opposition to the definition of the Vatican Council and to the Jesuits, whose influence they have exaggerated beyond all measure, they ought to embrace both with enthusiasm, as opening the door to the renewal of the Church and a brighter and more glorious future. . . . To my view there is no other way or hope for such a future."

He left Rome and his many warm friends there early in the spring of 1870, and, as he thought, for the last time. He was full of courage, he was conscious of not only perfect agreement with every credential of orthodoxy, but of interior impulses of a marvellously inspiring kind. In a very familiar letter to his brother's family he says that just before his departure, while standing in one of the great piazzas, looking at the concourse of representatives of all nations passing back and forth, gathered to take counsel with the Vicar of Christ for the well-being of the human race, he was so exhilarated that he could hardly refrain from calling out, "Three cheers for Paradise, and one for the United States!"

"I return with new hope and fresher energy," he writes, "for that better future for the Church and humanity which is in store for both in the United States. This is the conviction of all intelligent and hopeful minds in Europe. They look to the other side of the Atlantic not only with great interest, but to catch the light which will solve the problems of Europe. Our course is surely fraught with the interests, hopes, and happiness of the race. I never felt so much like acquitting myself as a Christian and a man. The convictions which have hitherto directed my course have been deepened, confirmed, and strengthened by recent experience here, and I return to my country a better Catholic and more an American than ever."

That he might say Mass daily and at convenient hours while in Rome, crowded as it was at the time with bishops and priests, he obtained leave to do so in his own rooms. He made little pilgrimages to the great shrines of the Holy City, especially those of the Apostles and the typical martyrs, not forgetting, of course, his favorite modern saints, Philip Neri and Ignatius Loyola. The following are extracts from letters home telling of his celebration of St. Paul's Conversion and of the martyrdom of St. Agnes. The reader will remember that the "association of women" here mentioned was one of his earliest ideas, and one of the many whose realization Providence has given over, let us hope, to some souls especially favored by Father Hecker's gifts:

"I pray much for each member of the community, and for light to guide it in the way of God. Within a short period much light has been given to me, and the importance of our work and its greatness have impressed me greatly, more than ever before. Yesterday I went to the Basilica of St. Paul, being the feast of his conversion, especially to invoke his aid. I felt that my visit was not in vain. . . . I forgot no one of our dear community. . . . On the 21st I said Mass in the catacombs of St. Agnes; it was the day of her feast. More than twenty persons were present, friends and acquaintances. I gave eleven communions, and made a little discourse at the close of the Holy Sacrifice. The scene was most solemn and affecting.

"What did I pray for? [during my Mass in St. Agnes's Catacomb]. For you all, especially for the future. What future? How shall I name it? The association of women in our country to aid the work of God through the Holy Church for its conversion. My convictions become fixed, and my determination to begin the enterprise consecrated.