Life of Father Hecker

by Walter Elliott

What amazed and no less irritated Father Hecker was the political apathy of Catholics. All the active spirits seemed to hate religion. A small minority of anti-Christians was allowed entire control of Italy and France, and exhibited in the government of those foremost Catholic commonwealths a pagan ferocity against everything sacred; and this was met by "timid listlessness" on the part of the Catholic majority. These latter evaded the accusation of criminal cowardice by an extravagant display of devotional religion. To account for this anomaly and to offer a remedy for it, Father Hecker in the winter of 1875 published a pamphlet of some fifty pages, entitled An Exposition of the Church in View of Recent Difficulties and Controversies and the Present Needs of the Age. It is a brief outline of his views, held more or less distinctly since his case in Rome in 1857-8, but fully unfolded in his mind at the Vatican Council and matured during his present sojourn in Europe; the reader has already been given a summary of them in a letter treating of the providential meaning of the Vatican decrees.

What is the matter with Catholics, that they allow their national life, in education, in art, in literature, in general politics, to be paganized by petty cliques of unbelievers? How account for this weakness of character in Catholics? The answer is that the devotional and ascetical type on which they are formed is one calculated to repress individual activity, a quality essential to political success in our day. Energy in the world of modern politics is not the product of the devotional spirit dominant on the continent of Europe. That spirit in its time saved the Church, for it fostered submission when the temptation was to revolt.

"The exaggeration," says the Exposition, "of personal authority on the part of Protestants brought about in the Church its greater restraint, in order that her divine authority might have its legitimate exercise and exert its salutary influence. The errors and evils of the times [the Reformation era] sprang from an unbridled personal independence, which could only be counteracted by habits of increased personal dependence. Contraria contrariis curantur. The defence of the Church and the salvation of the soul were [under these circumstances] ordinarily secured at the expense, necessarily, of those virtues which properly go to make up the strength of Christian manhood. The gain was the maintenance and victory of divine truth, and the salvation of the soul. The loss was a certain falling off in energy, resulting in decreased action in the natural order. The former was a permanent and inestimable gain. The latter was a temporary and not irreparable loss."

The passive virtues, fostered under an overruling Providence for the defence of threatened external authority in religion, and producing admirable effects of uniformity, discipline, and obedience, served well in the politics of the Reformation and post-Reformation eras, when nearly all governments were absolute monarchies; but the present governments are republics or constitutional monarchies, and are supposed to be ruled by the citizens themselves. This demands individual initiative, active personal exertion and direct interference in public affairs. Vigilant and courageous voters rule the nations. Therefore, without injury to entire obedience, the active virtues in both the natural and supernatural orders must be mainly cultivated; in the first order everything that makes for self-reliance, and in the second the interior guidance of the Holy Spirit in the individual soul. This, the Exposition maintains, is the way out of present difficulties. That it is the Providential way out, is shown by most striking evidence: the diversion of the anti-Catholic forces from the attack against authority to one against the most elementary principles of religion—God, conscience, and immortality; the drift of Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic minds of a religious cast towards the Church, calling for spiritual attractions in accordance with the independence of character peculiar to those races; the hopeless failure of the post-Reformation methods to meet the needs of the hour; and especially the Vatican decrees, which have set at rest all controversy on authority among Catholics. The needs of the times, therefore, call for virtues among Catholics which shall display the personal force of Catholic life no less than that which is organic. These must all centre around the cultivation of the Holy Spirit in the individual soul.

"The light the age requires for its renewal," says the Exposition, "can only come from the same source. The renewal of the age depends on the renewal of religion. The renewal of religion depends upon the greater effusion of the creative and renewing power of the Holy Spirit. The greater effusion of the Holy Spirit depends on the giving of increased attention to His movements and inspirations in the soul. The radical and adequate remedy for all the evils of our age, and the source of all true progress, consist in increased attention and fidelity to the action of the Holy Spirit in the soul. 'Thou shalt send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created: and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.'"

The following extract gives the synthesis of the twofold action of the Holy Spirit, showing how external authority and obedience to it are amply secured by the interior virtues:

"The Holy Spirit in the external authority of the Church acts as the infallible interpreter and criterion of divine revelation. The Holy Spirit in the soul acts as the Divine Life-giver and Sanctifier. It is of the highest importance that these two distinct offices of the Holy Spirit should not be confounded. The supposition that there can be any opposition, or contradiction, between the action of the Holy Spirit in the supreme decisions of the authority of the Church, and the inspirations of the Holy Spirit in the soul, can never enter the mind of an enlightened and sincere Christian. The Holy Spirit, which through the authority of the Church teaches divine truth, is the same Spirit which prompts the soul to receive the divine truths which He teaches. The measure of our love for the Holy Spirit is the measure of our obedience to the authority of the Church. . . . There is one Spirit, which acts in two different offices concurring to the same end, the regeneration and sanctification of the soul.

"In case of obscurity or doubt concerning what is the divinely revealed truth, or whether what prompts the soul is or is not an inspiration of the Holy Spirit, recourse must be had to the Divine Teacher or criterion, the authority of the Church. For it must be borne in mind that to the Church, as represented in the first instance by St. Peter, and subsequently by his successors, was made the promise of her Divine Founder, that 'the gates of hell should never prevail against her.' No such promise was ever made by Christ to each individual believer. 'The Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of Truth.' The test, therefore, of a truly enlightened and sincere Christian will be, in case of uncertainty, the promptitude of his obedience to the voice of the Church.

"From the above plain truths the following practical rule of conduct may be drawn: The Holy Spirit is the immediate guide of the soul in the way of salvation and sanctification; and the criterion, or test, that the soul is guided by the Holy Spirit, is its ready obedience to the authority of the Church. This rule removes all danger whatever, and with it the soul can walk, run, or fly, if it chooses, in the greatest safety and with perfect liberty, in the ways of sanctity."

"The practical aim of all true religion is to bring each individual soul under the immediate guidance of the Divine Spirit. The Divine Spirit communicates Himself to the soul by means of the sacraments of the Church. The Divine Spirit acts as the interpreter and criterion of revealed truth by the authority of the Church. The Divine Spirit acts as the principle of regeneration and sanctification in each Christian soul.