TONY'S JOURNAL
Father Turkington OHC asked Tony Hearn while he was a simple postulant in the novitiate to write a tract promoting ("fostering," he called it) interest in the religious life. This is the cover of the tract printed by Holy Cross Press in 1958.
A second printing of the original Anglican Monk's Story with my name "in religion."
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All stories © 2007 by H.W. Tony Hearn +
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I may as well tell the story of how I, Brother John OHC, departed from Holy Cross and the monastery in West Park. When I was received into the order as a postulant, I was regarded by my peers in the novitiate as "That Prot!" I was coming from a low-church background. I had worked previously as a layman at the National Council of the Episcopal Church in Manhattan at the old headquarters at 281 Fourth Avenue (Park Avenue South). But I loved Father James Otis Sargent Huntington OHC (though the founder of the Order of the Holy Cross had died a year after I was born). I had read his biography by Vita Dutton Scudder. He was for the working man, and I was from a working class family. I wanted to follow him as I wanted to follow Christ!
However, after months and months of reading in the lives of Catholic saints and Catholic theology, my heart led me to want to leave Protestantism (Holy Cross WAS a Protestant order, say what you want, but we Anglican monks always waited at least a week before we said "bless you!" after the pope sneezed). Whatever!
Well, one day after months of prayer, while on a shopping trip to Poughkeepsie (I drove alone to make authorized purchases for the community including many, many cartons of Lucky Strike cigarettes, etc.) I was led by the Spirit to visit Saint Andrew-on-Hudson, the house of studies of the Society of Jesus (now it is the home of the Culinary Institute of America - the "other CIA" - the Jesuits sold it when they downsized). To make a long story short, I received "instructions" clandestinely from a Jesuit named Father Thomas Bermingham SJ. Well, at any rate, as Father Hughson OHC had written in one of his books on the religious life, a religious can be released from his vows to take more stringent vows.
After a number of weeks, I requested an interview with the superior of Holy Cross. By that time, it was Father Lincoln Taylor OHC. I recall our conversation vividly in his cell. "Father, I am very happy in the religious life, but I have a matter of conscience!" I said.
"Tell me what's on your mind, Brother John!" he responded.
"I need to convert to the Roman Church!" I said.
Father Taylor looked at me like I was Benedict Arnold. "Forget it!" he said. "Put it out of your mind!" he said, blowing off what I was telling him. Our conversation ended. I kept my own counsel for two additional months and I asked Father Taylor again.
"Father! I would like to be dispensed from my temporary vows!"
"Forget it!"
"I can't, Father! It is a matter of conscience!"
"I can't bless you, then! Do what you have to do!"
I did. Within several days, I departed Holy Cross. I walked up the hill to Route 9-W, slipped off my habit, left it at the gatehouse, and thumbed a ride to Highland, caught a bus to Poughkeepsie across the Mid-Hudson Bridge and thumbed a ride back north to the Jebbies. I was received there. That night I sent a telegram to Father Taylor, assuring him I was safely within the Roman Communion and among the Jesuits. I was "conditionally re-baptized" by Father Bermingham, and I was assigned to be the secretary of a Jesuit priest, Father Thomas Magan SJ, who had founded the Gonzaga Retreat Center, Monroe, New York. There I lived for the next year.
What occurred next is another story. I do recall, however, that Father Taylor dispatched a Father Pickett, an Associate of Holy Cross, to try to talk me out of my conversion to Rome. I thanked him very much, but I declined his offer of transportation back to West Park. I have never since regretted my conversion. I have, however, missed my very happy days ("daze") at Holy Cross Monastery. I have also regretted that Father Taylor introduced a resolution to have me deposed from the Order of the Holy Cross at the following annual chapter of the order. I became a non-person to the friends I had made at Holy Cross. Maybe some day, or maybe in heaven, there will be a healing. It was a transition that was not without pain, hurtful pain!
A view up the Hudson River toward West Park from Saint Andrew-on-Hudson. I had visited this House of Studies of the Jesuits with the original intention of making a pilgrimage to the grave of Father Pierre Tielhard de Chardin SJ, the renowned French paleontologist and author of such books as The Phenomenon of Man and his Divine Milieu, that had greatly influenced my thoughts. He died on an Easter Sunday in Manhattan. (His entry in Wikipedia: Teilhard died on April 10, 1955, in New York City, where he was in residence at the Jesuit church of St Ignatius of Loyola, Park Avenue. He was buried in the cemetery for the New York Province of the Jesuits at the Jesuit novitiate, St. Andrew-on-the-Hudson in Poughkeepsie, upstate New York.) Actually, a diligent amateur historian, such as myself, knows that Father Tielhard died in the apartment of a woman friend who had invited him to Easter Sunday dinner. "I want to become a Catholic like Father Tielhard," I said to myself as I walked away from his grave. And then the Spirit entered me. I sought instruction to become a full-blown, authentic Catholic.
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More stories are coming shortly . . . +
Monks wearing the white habit of the Anglican Order of the Holy Cross in Saint Augustine's Chapel at Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, Ulster County, New York, 90 miles up Route 9W from Manhattan. Tony, who took the name in religion of Brother John, is pictured in the middle, front row, in 1957-1961.
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Here are some photographs of My Life after my life in and memories of Manhattan and the monastery. You see, I did go "over the wall" from the monastery and into a long and troubled marriage, later annulled by the Church, with a lovely Catholic nurse from the mid-Hudson River valley in the Village of Glasco near the City of Kingston. Her name was Rosemary (nee) DePoala. Some are sad; some are happier. Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa!
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Monastic Tales
Continuing Memories of My Months in Manhattan
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Part Three -
Any part thereof may be shared with anyone via email for pleasure, not for profit
They are all in good fun!
At least most of them are, I think . . . !
