d to the senses their
legitimate place in divine worship, this excessive spiritualizing
having brought about a reaction.

V

Father Hecker often spoke of the future reserved for Catholicity in
the United States, saying that it was there that the union of the
Church with democracy would first take place. In that nation the
prejudice against the Church is not so strong as in Europe, and her
position is free from the embarrassments of traditional difficulties.
Catholicity is there valued for its immediate effect upon human
nature, and the rancor born of historical recollections is not in
such full control of men's minds; hence conversions are more easily
made. Furthermore, Father Hecker believed that it would finally be
discovered that the Protestant spirit is contrary to the political
spirit of the American Republic. America has based her Constitution
on the fact that man is born free, reasonable, and capable of
self-government. The Protestant Reformers, on the contrary, never
ceased to teach that original sin deprived man of his free will and
made him incapable of performing virtuous acts; and if Protestants
seek to escape from this whirlpool of fatalism, they fall into
infidelity. The day will come when Americans will admit that if they
are to be at once religious and reasonable, they must become
Catholics. Therefore, whether it be acknowledged or not, every
development of political liberty in the United States contributes to
the advance of Catholicity. The Constitution of the United States has
formulated the political principles most conformable to the Canons of
the Council of Trent.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Life of Father Hecker, by Walter Elliott

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF FATHER HECKER ***

***** This file should be named 18283.txt or 18283.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/8/18283/

Produced by David McClamrock

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electroni