HECKER, ISAAC THOMAS. - Preacher, publicist, founder of the Paulists, b. of German emigrants in New York on 18 Dec. 1819, d. there on 22 Dec. 1888. H. had no religious education, for his father professed no religion and his mother had turned from Lutheran to Methodist. At the age of 11 he worked in a baker's shop. Studious, he read enormously. Received into the Church by Dr. McCloskey (later cardinal) in Jan. 1844, he entered the novitiate of the Redemptorists at St. Trond (Belgium) in Sept. 1845. Of an impulsive nature, at the studentate of Wittem (Holland) he manifested strange mystical phenomena. Ordained priest at Clapham (London) on 23 Oct. 1849 by the apostolic vicar Wiseman, the future cardinal, he returned in Jan. 1850 to America, where he carried on an intense and fruitful apostolate. In New York his gifts as a preacher won him wide influence over Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
The Redemptorists, established in America in 1832, were at that time mainly occupied with German-speaking emigrants; H., with some confreres of American origin, wished to found a purely American house. He therefore made a journey (Aug. 1857) to Rome to confer with the general, who expelled him (29 Aug.) from the Congregation, because H. had made the journey at his own expense and without permission. H. appealed to the Holy See; the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, by decree of 6 March 1858, released H. and his 4 companions from their vows, expressly permitting them to devote themselves to missionary work in their homeland, under the guidance of the bishops. Thus was born, in 1859, the Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle in the State of New York, commonly called that of the "Paulists," which remained, like H. himself, always on excellent terms with the Redemptorists. H. was elected superior and remained so until 1871.
He gave impetus to the apostolate of the press, founded the Society for Catholic publications The catholic world. He wrote three works, among them The Church and the age. He was at the same time a fervent American and an inflexible Catholic. Some attempted to defame him when Leo XIII took occasion from the preface to F. Klein's French version (1897) of the Life of H., published by W. Elliott (2nd ed., New York 1894), to issue his Testem benevolentiae (22 Jan. 1899) which condemned "Americanism" (v.), the heresy that adapts Catholic doctrine to the modern American way of life and, in practice, exalts natural virtue above the supernatural. H.'s absolute orthodoxy and fidelity to the Holy See were widely vindicated by the American bishops and by many others.
(from W. Elliott, Le p. H., Paris 1897)
HECKER, ISAAC THOMAS - Portrait, with autograph signature.