THE APOSTOLATE OF THE PRESS
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
God, 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 God 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 Assisi:
"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 illustrations 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-class
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 masses of the people: "not many rich, not many noble." 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. Hassard,
who had already succeeded as a journalist, was chosen by Father
Hecker as his assistant 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
assistance 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 illustrated 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 constituency were from his own pen. It has
always been edited by Mrs. George V. Hecker, assisted 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
associates 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 God, 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 classes 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 institutions 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 assert 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 God 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 God, through his Son, Jesus Christ our
Lord, who alone is our Saviour and Redeemer--
When "asking their prayers and influence with God" 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 God, 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
space 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
assistance 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
principal 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 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.
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 spacious 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 principal
reasons for visiting this place. My surprise has been most gratifying
in finding that he has organized, or rather begun, an association of
girls to set types, etc., who live in community and labor for the
love of God 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 God'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.
"6. With all this in view, to be the most earnest and ardent friend
of all true progress, and to work with all my might for its promotion
through existing organizations and authorities."
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