And the History of Saint Benedict Center
Described as colorful, talented, devoted and controversial, Father Leonard Feeney holds a unique place in 20th Century Catholicism.
Throughout his 50 years of priestly service, Father Feeney taught and defended the Catholic faith with apostolic fervor. As poet, essayist and lecturer he entertained as he taught. As preacher he warned with prophetic zeal.
Most people know Father Feeney as the principle figure in a storm of doctrinal controversy back in the 1940s and into the early 1950s. He is known as the priest who taught that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. And most people are under the impression that he was excommunicated for his stubborn profession of faith.
The mixing of fact and fiction, truth and misrepresentation has clouded Father Feeney’s story throughout the years. It is our hope that this presentation will clarify and bring to light the story, the issues – the man and his mission.
I
In 1940, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a Catholic woman named Catherine Goddard Clarke founded, “Saint Benedict Center.” It was located in Harvard Square, in the shadow of St. Paul’s Church. The Center provided Catholic literature, discussion groups and lectures for students attending non-Catholic universities in the area.
Soon after it’s founding, the well-known Jesuit, Father Leonard Feeney, became associated with the work of the Center. Father Feeney had already achieved notoriety as a popular author, poet, and speaker. From Lynn Massachusetts, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1914 and was ordained in 1928. His two brothers also became priests, one a Jesuit and the other of the diocesan clergy.
After completing graduate studies at Oxford, Father Feeney quickly rose to prominence in the United States as one of the Jesuit’s foremost intellectuals and theologians. His book Fish on Friday, sketches and stories on Catholic themes, became a national best seller in 1934. From 1936 to 1940 he served as literary editor for the Jesuit magazine America. As a popular speaker, Father Feeney was often called upon to preach, to give retreats and lectures. NBC Radio aired a series of his talks on the Catholic Hour.
Under Father Feeney’s direction, Saint Benedict Center attracted many students especially from Harvard and Radcliff. It is not surprising that his Thursday evening lectures drew overflowing crowds. The students, Catholic and non-Catholic had found something unique at the Center: clear refutations of the slanted secularism taught in the neighboring academic institutions; and solid, eloquent presentations of authentic Catholic doctrine.
Hundreds of conversions, religious vocations, and good Catholic marriages were the tangible fruits of Father Feeney’s preaching and personal direction. Both Archbishop Cushing and the Jesuit Provincial superior, Father John McEleny, publicly expressed their appreciation for the exceptionally good work being done at Saint Benedict Center.
II
The wheels of activity at Saint Benedict Center continued in full motion during World War II. The Church was apparently thriving as never before.
The Allied victory, however, brought with it new concerns about international issues of vital importance. The first use of weapons of mass destruction and the alarming spread of atheistic communism challenged the modern world.
At Fatima Portugal, in 1917, Our Lady had made urgent requests for reparation and for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart. If not heeded, she had warned, God would punish the world.
The punishments came - World War II, the annihilation of nations – the spread of communism throughout the world - all precisely as Our Lady of Fatima had foretold.
In the Marxist assault on religion, innumerable Catholics were imprisoned, tortured and martyred for their faith. In Europe, in the Far East, wherever the Communists launched their revolutions, the pattern was the same… terrorism, the persecution of the Church and the exaltation of atheism.
Anti-Communist sentiment in the United States was strong but not as strong as might have been expected. The foundations for Marxist ideology – materialism, secularism and atheism – were alive and well in the U.S., especially among American liberals.
Universities throughout the country - from Berkley to Harvard - had become the seedbeds for atheism. The anthropology of Darwin, the philosophy of Hegel, the psychology of Freud and the sociology of Marx had become well entrenched in American higher education. These Godless “evangelists” of the New Age proclaimed the autonomy of man in every aspect of his private and social life. These were the very same doctrines that had brought on Nazism and the War… and now the spread of Communism.
III
The work of Saint Benedict Center became all the more intense, all the more necessary at this time. The Catholic faith was the answer, the remedy for the morbid and destructive doctrines of atheism threatening the world.
Following the war, Father Feeney and his associates at the Center were determined to give the challenge of Christ – not only to students – but to any one willing to listen.
In September 1946 they published the first issue of a quarterly magazine, From the Housetops. With the approbation of Archbishop Cushing, the periodical presented the thoughts of many distinguished Catholic writers. The Archbishop himself contributed several articles.
The more clearly the Center taught the full, uncompromising message of the Catholic faith, the more converts Father Feeney received into the Church. Many were the students from influential families who became Catholics and resigned from their respective schools to protest the anti-Catholicism taught there. The grandson of New York financier, J.P. Morgan, for example, attended lectures at the Center and eventually came into the Church in the spring of 1947. Soon after, he resigned from Harvard just weeks before commencement.
Tension between the Center and the secular schools in the area began to mount. America’s elite had no intention of allowing their sons and daughters to be influenced by Father Feeney. With powerful allies at Harvard, they established contacts with Archbishop Cushing and the Jesuit Provincial. Their objective: to remove Father Feeney from Saint Benedict Center.
The Center soon began to encounter opposition from where it least expected it. Auxiliary Bishop John Wright informed Father Feeney that there were complaints against Saint Benedict Center – issues involving, first, the students who left their colleges, and second, certain articles in From the Housetops that supported the teaching “outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation.”
The Center, in a word, had become controversial; prominent Catholics in Boston were embarrassed, and Archdiocesan authorities were not pleased.
Peaceful co-existence had become a longstanding tradition for Catholics in Boston. William Cardinal O’Connell had virtually wiped away the prevailing controversy between Catholics and non-Catholics of the 19th Century. His successors in the Archdiocese were determined to keep the status quo.
