The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Hecker, Isaac Thomas

HECKER, Isaac Thomas, an American clergyman, born in New York, Dec. 18, 1819. He became connected in 1843 with the Brook Farm association at West Roxbury, Mass., and subsequently spent some time with the “consociate family” at Fruitlands, in Worcester co., Mass. In 1845 he was received into the Roman Catholic church, and in 1847 became a member of the congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. He was ordained priest in London in 1849, and after two years of missionary labor in England he returned to New York. In 1857 he and several of his brother Redemptorists were released from obedience to their order, and founded, with the approbation of the archbishop of New York, a missionary society since known as the congregation of St. Paul the Apostle (commonly called Paulists), having its first house in New York city. In 1865 Father Hecker established the “Catholic World,” a monthly magazine. In 1869 he was present at the Vatican council as procurator of Bishop Rosecrans, of Columbus, O. In 1873, on account of ill health, he travelled in Europe and the East. He is the author of “Questions of the Soul” (12mo, New York, 1855) and “Aspirations of Nature” (1857).