Hecker, Isaac Thomas

views updated May 18 2018

HECKER, ISAAC THOMAS

Founder of the paulists, author, editor; b. New York, N.Y., Dec. 18, 1819; d. New York, Dec. 22, 1888. He was the son of John and Caroline (Freund) Hecker. He left school in his early teens to join his brothers John and George in their rapidly expanding bakery business. Although he had received little formal religious training, in 1842 he became convinced that God was calling him away from all ordinary pursuits of life. He turned for advice to his friend Orestes brownson, who suggested a sojourn at Brook Farm, a new social experiment in West Roxbury, Mass. There, with Ralph W. Emerson, Henry Thoreau, and Bronson Alcott, Hecker and his friends, George Ripley, Charles Dana, George Curtis, and George Bradford, discussed the problem of man's destiny. Hecker was dissatisfied with their answers, and guided by Brownson, he examined the various forms of Protestantism. None satisfied him and he turned to Catholicism, making his profession of faith and receiving Baptism on Aug. 2, 1844. A year later he joined the Redemptorists and was sent to Europe for his novitiate and seminary studies.

Two years after his ordination in England on Oct. 23, 1849, he returned to the U.S. With four other American convert Redemptorists, Augustine F. hewit, Clarence A. walworth, George deshon, and Francis A. baker, he gave missions to Catholics throughout the country. Although he was engrossed in the work, the conversion of his non-Catholic countrymen was uppermost in his thoughts. To interest them in the faith he wrote two highly successful books: Questions of the Soul (1855), an appeal to the longings of the heart, and Aspirations of Nature (1857), an answer to the questionings of the mind. Early in 1857, an opportunity arose for the Redemptorists to open an English-speaking house in New York City for American Redemptorist missionaries. With the encouragement of Abp. John Hughes of New York and Bp. James R. Bayley of Newark, N.J., Hecker went to Rome to plead for the new foundation before the rector major. Three days after his arrival, he was expelled by the rector major for having made the journey without the necessary permission. Convinced that his superior's action was the result of a misunderstanding, Hecker appealed the sentence to the Holy See. After months of litigation, Pius IX released the five Americans from their Redemptorist vows and suggested to Hecker that he begin a new religious community in America. Upon his return, he founded the Society of Missionary Priests of St. Paul the Apostle, or Paulists, with Hewit, Deshon, and Baker as associates; Walworth had withdrawn because of disagreement with the objective and nature of the new community. On July 10, 1858, Hughes approved their Programme of Rule and authorized the establishment of the Paulists in his archdiocese.

With the new community established, Hecker enthusiastically began his work for non-Catholics. To correct misunderstandings and especially to convince men that the Church was not the enemy but the guardian of liberty, he took to the public lecture platform. His warm personality, ringing sincerity, and forthright manner captivated audiences wherever he spoke throughout the country. He utilized the press, which he hailed as "the most important weapon in modern intellectual and religious warfare." In April 1865 he launched a monthly publication, the Catholic World, and a year later organized the Catholic Publication Society (later the Paulist Press) to distribute inexpensive literature on a national scale. He pleaded this cause before the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore (1866) with such earnestness that he won the support of many bishops, notably Abp. Martin John Spalding. As the latter's theologian he attended Vatican Council I (1869–70). In 1870 he began the Young Catholic, an illustrated monthly for boys and girls, and in 1872 raised necessary funds to buy a secular newspaper and convert it into a first-class Catholic daily. However, failing health prevented the realization of this plan since it forced him to relinquish active work. Until his death he edited the Catholic World, wrote in defense and explanation of the Church, and guided the destinies of his community. The Church and the Age (1887) was his last book. His remains are interred in a special sarcophagus in the Paulist Fathers' Church in New York City.

Bibliography: v. f. holden, The Yankee Paul: Isaac Thomas Hecker (Milwaukee 1958) bibliog. 415–422. j. mcsorley, Father Hecker and His Friends (2d ed. St. Louis 1953). w. elliott, The Life of Father Hecker (1891; repr. New York 1972). j. farina, An American Experience of God: The Spirituality of Isaac Hecker (New York 1981). d. j. o'brien, Isaac Hecker: An American Catholic (New York 1992).

[v. holden]

New Catholic Encyclopedia HOLDEN, V.

Isaac Thomas Hecker

views updated May 18 2018

Isaac Thomas Hecker

Isaac Thomas Hecker (1819-1888), American Catholic churchman, was the founder of the Congregation of Missionary Priests of St. Paul the Apostle, known as the Paulist Fathers.

Isaac Thomas Hecker was born on Dec. 18, 1819, in New York to German Protestant immigrants. After 6 years of schooling he went to work. The family was close, and Isaac's mother was an admirable woman who greatly influenced him. Hecker's thoughts increasingly turned to religion and theology, and in his quest he sojourned at two utopian colonies, Brook Farm and Fruit-lands. His mentor was Orestes A. Brownson, a Catholic convert and social reformer.

In 1844 Hecker converted to Roman Catholicism. He soon became a priest in the Redemptorist order, which worked with German immigrants. Frustrated by the crippling regulations of this order and finally expelled from it, he founded a new order in 1858 with St. Paul as patron. Hecker served as superior general of the Paulists until his death in 1888. Although plagued by ill health, he displayed prodigious energy—planning, directing, writing, speaking, traveling—all in the hope that the Roman Catholic Church might find itself at home in America and that increasing numbers of Americans might find their spiritual home in Catholicism.

Though the Paulists remained small in number, their influence was great. Hecker was not a rebel, but he held that a rigid authoritarianism would blight the development of Christian perfection. The Paulists demanded no vows of its members, shifting emphasis from rules to conscience and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Hecker was convinced that the Church would prosper in the free environment of the United States and that the way to make Catholicism attractive to Protestants was by infusing it with the "American" spirit. He won converts by emphasizing partial agreement and inviting Protestants to inspect the virtues of the True Church, and by not denouncing all Protestants as heretics. A confirmed humanitarian, Hecker understood that the Church must serve man's needs and that Catholicism would spread to the degree that the Church's deeds matched its creeds.

Hecker was angrily denounced by conservative churchmen both in America and abroad. After his death the controversy over what some termed the heresy of "Americanism" (sparked in part by the French translation of an 1891 biography of Hecker) resulted in the condemnatory papal letter Testem benevolentiae (1899).