Father Isaac Hecker, C.S.P.

Convert, Priest, Founder

Isaac Thomas Hecker was born on December 18, 1819, in New York City to German immigrant parents. He spent his early years working in his family’s bakery and flour business while searching restlessly for spiritual truth. At nineteen, he met the Catholic thinker Orestes Brownson, who introduced him to deeper philosophical and religious questions. Hecker explored Transcendentalist communities, visiting Brook Farm and meeting figures such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, but found these movements ultimately unsatisfying.

His search led him to the Catholic Church, and he was received into the faith on August 2, 1844, at the age of twenty-four. He entered the Redemptorist novitiate in Belgium and was ordained a priest in England in 1849. Returning to America, he threw himself into preaching parish missions, reaching both Catholic immigrants and non-Catholics with equal fervor. He became convinced that the Catholic faith and the American democratic spirit were not only compatible but mutually enriching.

In 1857, Hecker traveled to Rome to advocate for English-speaking missions in America. When the Redemptorists dismissed him for making the journey without formal permission, Pope Pius IX personally received him and encouraged him to found a new religious community. On July 7, 1858, Hecker established the Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle, known as the Paulist Fathers, in New York City. It was the first religious community of men founded in the United States. The Paulists were dedicated to evangelizing Americans through preaching, publishing, and engaging the culture.

Hecker founded The Catholic World magazine in 1865 and the Catholic Publication Society in 1870. Between 1867 and 1869, he delivered more than fifty-six lecture series, traveling from Boston to Missouri and speaking to over 30,000 people, two-thirds of whom were not Catholic. His health declined in the 1870s, and he died on December 22, 1888, at the Paulist House on 59th Street in Manhattan. As his community gathered around his bed in prayer, Father Hecker raised his hand, made the Sign of the Cross in blessing, and died. His cause for canonization was formally opened in 2008, and in 2023, the U.S. Bishops voted to affirm its advancement.

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