Life of Father Hecker Part 33

ONE Sunday forenoon, happening to cross Broadway near a fashionable Protestant church, we saw the curb on both sides of the street lined with carriages, and the coachmen and footmen all reading the morning papers. The rich master and his family were in the softly-cushioned pews indoors, while their servants studied the news of the world and worshipped at the shrine of the Press outside: a spectacle suggestive of many things to the social reformer. But to a religious mind it was an invitation to the _Apostolate of the Press._ The Philips of our day can evangelize the rough charioteer by means of the written word as easily as they can his cultured master.

To Father Hecker the Press was the highest opportunity for religion.

The only term of comparison for it is some element of nature like sunlight or the atmosphere. In the Press civilized Man lives and breathes. Father Hecker was as alive to the injury done to humanity by bad reading as a skilful physician is to the malaria which he can smell and fairly taste in an infected atmosphere; and he ever strove to make the Press a means of enlightenment and virtue. He began to write for publication almost immediately after his arrival in America as a Redemptorist missionary; the _Questions of the Soul_ and the _Aspirations of Nature_ were composed amidst most absorbing occupations between 1853 and 1858. Throughout life he was ever asking himself and others how the Press could be cleansed, and how its Apostolate could be inaugurated. To this end he was ready to devote all his efforts, and expend all his resources and those of the community of which he was the founder. It is true that no man of his time was better aware of the power of the spoken word, and few were more competent to use it, the natural and Pentecostal vehicle of the Holy Spirit to men's souls. But he also felt that the providence of G.o.d, in making the Press of our day an artificial medium of human intercourse more universal than the living voice itself, had pointed it out as a necessary adjunct to the oral preaching of the truth. He was convinced that religion should make the Press its own. He would not look upon it as an extraordinary aid, but maintained that the ordinary provision of Christian instruction for the people should ever be two-fold, by speech and by print: neither the Preacher without the Press nor the Press without the Preacher. He was heard to say that in reading Montalembert's _Monks of the West_ he had been struck with the author's eloquent apostrophe to the spade, the instrument of civilization and Christianity for the wild hordes of the early middle ages. Much rather, he said, should we worship the Press as the medium of the light of G.o.d to all mankind. He felt that the Apostolate of the Press might well absorb the external vocation of the most active friends of religion.

In the Press he found a distinct suggestion from above of a change of methods for elevating men to truth and virtue. In the spring of 1870, while on his way home from the Vatican Council, he wrote to Father Deshon from a.s.sisi:

"I felt as if I would like to have peopled that grand and empty convent with inspired men and printing-presses. For evidently the special battle-field of attack and defence of truth for half a century to come is the printing-press."

He believed in types as he believed in pulpits. He believed that the printing-office was necessary to the convent. To him the Apostolate of the Press meant the largest amount of truth to the greatest number of people. By its means a small band of powerful men could reach an entire nation and elevate its religious life.

This being understood, one is not surprised at the extent of his plans for this Apostolate. He was never able to carry them out fully.

Not till some years after the founding of the community could he make a fair beginning, although the first volume of the Paulist Sermons appeared in 1861. Delays were inevitable from the difficulties incident to the opening of the house and church in Fifty-ninth Street, and these were aggravated by the war, which for over four years bred such intense excitement as to interfere with any strong general interest in matters other than political. But the very month it ended, in April, 1865, Father Hecker started _The Catholic World._ Its purpose was to speak for religion in high-grade periodical literature. The year following he founded The Catholic Publication Society, with the purpose of directing the entire resources of the Press into a missionary apostolate. In 1870 he began _The Young Catholic._ In literary merit and in ill.u.s.trations it equalled any of the juvenile publications of that period, and was the pioneer of all the Catholic journals in the United States intended for children. And finally, in 1871, he projected the establishment of a first-cla.s.s Catholic daily, securing within a year subscriptions for more than half the money necessary for the purpose, when the work was arrested by the final breaking down of his health.

_The Catholic World_ was considered a hazardous venture. At the time it was proposed, such modest attempts at Catholic monthlies as had struggled into life had long ceased to exist. The public for such a magazine seemed to be small. The priesthood had little leisure for reading, being hardly sufficient in number for their most essential duties; the educated laymen were not numerous, nor remarkable for activity of mind in matters of religion; nearly the entire Church of America was foreign by birth or parentage, and belonged to the toiling ma.s.ses of the people: "not many rich, not many n.o.ble." And, Father Hecker was asked, whom are you going to get to write for the magazine? How many Catholic literary men and women do you know of?

Prudence, therefore, stood sponsor to courage. The cautious policy of an eclectic was adopted, and for more than a year the magazine, with the exception of its book reviews, was made up of selections and translations from foreign periodicals. The late John R. G. Ha.s.sard, who had already succeeded as a journalist, was chosen by Father Hecker as his a.s.sistant in the editorial work. Efforts were at once made to secure original articles; but before the magazine was filled by them three or four years were spent in urgent soliciting, in very elaborate sub-editing of MSS., and in reliance on the steady a.s.sistance of the pens of the Paulist Fathers. As a compensation, _The Catholic World_ has introduced to the public many of our best writers, and first and last has brought our ablest minds on both sides of the water into contact with the most intelligent Catholics in the United States. All through its career it has represented Catholic truth before the American public in such wise as to command respect, and has brought about the conversion of many of its non-Catholic readers. Since its beginning it has been forced to hold its own against the claims of not unwelcome rivals, and against the almost overwhelming attractions of the great ill.u.s.trated secular monthlies, to say nothing of the vicissitudes of the business world; and it has succeeded in doing so, Father Hecker's purpose in establishing it has been realized, for it has ever been a first-rate Catholic monthly of general literature, holding an equal place with similar publications in the world of letters. He was its editor-in-chief till the time of his death, except during three years of illness and absence in Europe. He conducted it so as to occupy much of the field open to the Apostolate of the Press, giving solid doctrine in form of controversy, and discussing such religious truths as were of current interest. He kept its readers informed of the changeful moods of non-Catholic thought, and furnished them with short studies of instructive eras and personages in history. These graver topics have been floated along by contributions of a lighter kind, by good fiction and conscientious literary criticism. Meantime, the social problems which had perplexed Father Hecker himself in his early life, have caught the attention of the slower minds of average men, or rather have been thrust upon them; and their consideration, ever in his own sympathetic spirit, now forms a prominent feature of _The Catholic World._

_The Young Catholic_ was an enterprise dear to his heart. His interest in it was constant and minute, and some of the articles most popular with its young const.i.tuency were from his own pen. It has always been edited by Mrs. George V. Hecker, a.s.sisted by a small circle of zealous and enlightened writers. It has held its way, but has had to encounter the not unusual fate of bold pioneers. It created its own rivals by demonstrating the possibilities of juvenile Catholic journalism, calling into existence more than a score of claimants for the support which it alone at first solicited. The lowest estimate of juvenile publications of a purely secular tone yearly sold in America carries the figure far into the millions. Some of these, and it is well to know that they are the most widely sold, are first-rate in a literary point of view and employ the best artists for the pictures. To say that they are secular but feebly expresses the totally unmoral influence they for the most part exert.

They are the extension of the unreligious school into the homes of the people. When Father Hecker and Mrs. George V. Hecker and their a.s.sociates began _The Young Catholic,_ this vast mirage of the desert of life had but glimmered upon the distant horizon; they saw it coming and they did their best to point Catholic youth away from it and lead it to the real oasis of G.o.d, with its grateful shade, its delicious fruits, and its ever-flowing springs of the waters of life.

As already said, The Catholic Publication Society was begun a year after _The Catholic World_ was started, its aim being to turn to the good of religion, and especially to the conversion of non-Catholics, all the uses the press is capable of. It was a missionary work in the broadest sense seeking to enlist not only the clergy but especially the laity in an organized Apostolate of the Press, to enlighten the faith of Catholics and to spread it among their Protestant fellow-citizens. Its first work was to be the issuing of tracts and pamphlets telling the plain truth about the Catholic religion. Local societies, to be established throughout the country, were to buy these publications at a price less than cost, and distribute them gratis to all cla.s.ses likely to be benefited. To catch the eye of the American people, to affect their hearts, to supply their religious wants with Catholic truth, were objects kept in view in preparing the tracts. Although some of them were addressed to Catholics, enforcing important religious duties, nearly all of them were controversial.

More than seventy different tracts were printed first and last, and many hundreds of thousands, indeed several millions, of them distributed in all parts of the country, public, charitable, and penal inst.i.tutions being, of course, fair field for this work. They were all very brief, few of them covering more than four small-sized pages. "Three pages of truth have before now overturned a life-time of error," said Father Hecker. The tract _Is it Honest?_ though only four pages of large type, or about twelve hundred words, created a sensation everywhere, and was answered by a Protestant minister with over fifty pages of printed matter, or about fifteen times more than the tract itself. One hundred thousand copies of this tract were distributed in New York City alone. It is printed herewith as a specimen, both as to style and matter, of what one may call the aggressive-defensive tactics in Catholic controversy:

IS IT HONEST _To say that the Catholic Church prohibits the use of the Bible_-- When anybody who chooses can buy as many as he likes at any Catholic bookstore, and can see on the first page of any one of them the approbation of the Bishops of the Catholic Church, with the Pope at their head, encouraging Catholics to read the Bible, in these words: "The faithful should be excited to the reading of the Holy Scriptures," and that not only for the Catholics of the United States, but also for those of the whole world besides?

IS IT HONEST _To say that Catholics believe that man by his own power can forgive sin_--When the priest is regarded by the Catholic Church only as the agent of our Lord Jesus Christ, acting by the power delegated to him, according to these words, "Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained?"

(St. John 20:23).

IS IT HONEST _To repeat over and over again that Catholics pay the priest to pardon their sins_--When such a thing is unheard of anywhere in the Catholic Church--When any transaction of the kind is stigmatized as a grievous sin, and ranked along with murder, adultery, blasphemy, etc., in every catechism and work on Catholic theology?

IS IT HONEST _To persist in saying that Catholics believe their sins are forgiven merely by the confession of them to the priest, without a true sorrow for them, or a true purpose to quit them_--When every child finds the contrary distinctly and clearly stated in the catechism, which he is obliged to learn before he can be admitted to the sacraments? Any honest man can verify this statement by examining any Catholic catechism.

IS IT HONEST _To a.s.sert that the Catholic Church grants any indulgence or permission to commit sin_--When an "indulgence," according to her universally received doctrine, was never dreamed of by Catholics to imply, in any case whatever, any permission to commit the least sin; and when an indulgence has no application whatever to sin until after sin has been repented of and pardoned?

IS IT HONEST _To accuse Catholics of putting the Blessed Virgin or the Saints in the place of G.o.d or the Lord Jesus Christ_--When the Council of Trent declares that it is simply useful to ask their intercession in order to obtain favor from G.o.d, through his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who alone is our Saviour and Redeemer--

When "asking their prayers and influence with G.o.d" is exactly of the same nature as when Christians ask the pious prayers of one another?

IS IT HONEST _To accuse Catholics of paying divine worship to images or pictures, as the heathen do_--When every Catholic indignantly repudiates any idea of the kind, and when the Council of Trent distinctly declares the doctrine of the Catholic Church in regard to them to be, "that there is no divinity or virtue in them which should appear to claim the tribute of one's veneration"; but that "all the honor which is paid to them shall be referred to the originals whom they are designed to represent?" (Sess. 25).

IS IT HONEST _To make these and many other similar charges against Catholics_-- When they detest and abhor such false doctrines more than those do who make them, and make them, too, without ever having read a Catholic book, or taken any honest means of ascertaining the doctrines which the Catholic Church really teaches?

Remember the commandment of G.o.d, which says: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."

Reader, would you be honest, and do no injustice? Then examine the doctrines of the Catholic Church; read the works of Catholics. See both sides. Examine, and be fair; for AMERICANS LOVE FAIR PLAY.

In preparing these little messengers of truth every style of writing was used, narrative, allegory, dialogue, and positive argument. They are as good reading to-day as when first issued, and the volume which they form may be placed in an inquirer's hands with excellent effect.

To keep them agoing Father Hecker laid all his friends of any literary ability under contribution, the series being opened by Archbishop Spalding with a tract on _Religious Indifferentism._ Did s.p.a.ce permit, an entire list of the subjects dealt with might be given, and the reader could the better see how they embrace the entire controversy between Catholics and Protestants and infidels, many of the tracts being masterpieces of popular argumentation.

As to the business side of these enterprises, Father Hecker confided it to Mr. Lawrence Kehoe, who was publisher of _The Catholic World_ and of _The Young Catholic_ from their beginning until the Paulists became their own publishers, shortly before Mr. Kehoe's death. He was placed in charge of the Publication Society as manager when it was started, and so continued until the formation of the present firm, remaining then the active partner in its management. No more ardent advocate of a good cause could be desired than Lawrence Kehoe. Father Hecker cherished him as a friend, and he was his zealous and efficient agent in his entire Apostolate of the Press.

The purpose of the Publication Society was missionary, and the intention was that its books, tracts, and pamphlets should be either given away or sold at cost price, or below it. Therefore it was necessary to secure funds for the running expenses. The reader has seen that this was to have been done by the contributions of subsidiary societies. To aid in the formation of these and to solicit contributions in money, circulars were sent to all the clergy of the United States. Only a few made any practical response. But the meeting of the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1866, the same year the Society was founded, was opportune. The bishops were induced to take the matter up, and a decree, of which the following is a translation, was enacted. After speaking of the need of supplying Catholic literature at a low price the Council proceeds:

"Since a society with this object in view, known as The Catholic Publication Society, has been founded in New York, and has been so far conducted with commendable diligence and with notable success, we therefore consider it to be entirely worthy of the favor and a.s.sistance of prelates and priests, as well as of the Catholic people in general. That the whole country may the better and more certainly share in its advantages, we advise and exhort the bishops to establish branches of this Society in their dioceses, by means of whose officers the publications of the Society may be distributed.

But as without great expenditure of money these societies cannot be kept up and must fail of success, the bishops shall therefore appoint a yearly collection for their support, to be taken up in all the princ.i.p.al churches, or shall make other provision for the same purpose according to their best judgment" (Con. Plen. Balt., -- 500).

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 circ.u.mstances 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 G.o.d--yours not the least. Could you have seen the letters from different quarters, from good pious nuns, and persons loving and serving and fearing G.o.d 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. G.o.d 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 princ.i.p.al 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 subst.i.tute 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 cla.s.ses 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 a.s.sociated 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.

How Father Hecker appeared to men when advocating the Apostolate of the Press, and how he spread the forceful majesty of Catholicity over his personal surroundings, is shown by Mr. James Parton's words in the article in the _Atlantic Monthly_ already quoted from: "The special work of this [the Paulist] community is to bring the steam printing-press to bear upon the spread of the Catholic religion in the United States." The resistless missionary power latent in the Church is thus spoken of by the same writer:

"What a powerful engine is this! Suppose the six ablest and highest Americans were living thus, freed from all worldly cares, in an agreeable, secluded abode, yet near the centre of things, with twelve zealous, gifted young men to help and cheer them, a thousand organizations in the country to aid in distributing their writings, and in every town a s.p.a.cious edifice and an eager audience to hang upon their lips. What could they _not_ effect in a lifetime of well-directed work?"

What follows, taken from a letter of Father Hecker's while sick in Europe in 1874, shows one of his aims in the Apostolate of the Press.

It is suggestive of a result since attained, at least partially, in more than one religious community in America:

"Monsignor Mermillod desired, early in the fall, that I should see Canon Schorderet, of this place [Fribourg in Switzerland], as he was engaged zealously with the press. This was one of my princ.i.p.al reasons for visiting this place. My surprise has been most gratifying in finding that he has organized, or rather begun, an a.s.sociation of girls to set types, etc., who live in community and labor for the love of G.o.d in the Apostolate of the Press. He publishes several newspapers and journals. The house in which the members live is also the store and the publishing house. Each girl has her own room. They are under the patronage of St. Paul. The canon is filled with the idea of St. Paul as the great patron of the Press, _the first Christian journalist._ What has long been my dream of a movement of this nature has found here an incipient realization. Our views in regard to the mission of the press, and the necessity of running it for the spread and defence of the faith as a form of Christian sacrifice in our day, are identical. You can easily fancy what interest and consolation our meeting and conversation must be to each other. His movement is the completion of The Catholic Publication Society of New York."

As there may be some curiosity about Father Hecker's principles as a public writer, in point of view of ecclesiastical authority, we give the following from a letter written just before the Vatican Council:

"1. Absolute and unswerving loyalty to the authority of the Church, wherever and however expressed, as G.o.d's authority upon earth and for all time.

"2. To seek in the same dispositions the true spirit of the Church, and be unreservedly governed by it as the wisdom of the Most High.

"3. To keep my mind and heart free from all attachments to schools, parties, or persons in the Church, Hecker included, so that nothing within me may hinder the light and direction of the Holy Spirit.

"4. In case any conflict arises concerning what Hecker may have spoken or written, or any work or movement in which he may be engaged, to re-examine. If wrong, make him retract at once. If not, then ask: Is the question of that importance that it requires defence, and the upsetting of attacks? If not of this importance, then not to delay and perhaps jeopardize the progress of other works, and condemn Hecker to simple silence.

"5. In the midst of the imperfections, abuses, scandals, etc., of the human side of the Church, never to allow myself to think or to express a word which might seem to place a truth of the Catholic faith in doubt, or to savor of the spirit of disobedience.