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R e v i e w s
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This Rock
Volume 13, Number 2
 February 2002 
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A Thousand Secret Graces
With a style both comprehensive and readable, Fr. Connor tells the conversion stories of over two dozen well-known converts to Catholicism from the 19th and 20th centuries -- Americans and Europeans, men and women, Jews and gentiles, married and unmarried, Protestants, lapsed Catholics, and even anti-Catholic atheists.
Such stories are of immense value to every Catholic. Those blessed to be born into Catholic families will find here stories of men and women who spent years earnestly seeking the "pearl of great price" which has been theirs from infancy. How enlightening they must find it to ponder the lives of believers who sacrificed so much to obtain what so many take for granted.
Those, both Christian and pagan, who are not yet Catholic will discover in Fr. Connor’s stories answers to many of their questions and might even encounter a question or two they haven’t yet thought to pose. Finally, those who themselves are converts will see these stories as riveting examples of something they, too, have experienced in a slightly different way. For each story is unique, and each is precious.
Among the famous converts whose stories are told are Elizabeth Ann Seton, John Henry Newman, Edith Stein, Ronald Knox, G. K. Chesterton, Dorothy Day, Malcolm Muggeridge, Evelyn Waugh, and Graham Greene. While each of the lives warrants an entire book (and readers may want to explore some of the 85 books from which Fr. Connor gleaned information), the sketches in Classic Catholic Converts are more than just glimpses of the individuals. These are fine distillations of the faith journeys of interesting people, and most include meaty quotations from the convert’s own writings which bring depth and immediacy to the telling.
In a chapter about several prominent people led into the Church by Archbishop Fulton Sheen, Fr. Connor quotes Bishop Sheen’s definition of conversion: ". . .a gift of God, an invasion of a new Power, the inner penetration of our spirit by the Spirit and the turning over of a whole personality to Christ." It is heartening -- and amazing -- to read these tenderly written accounts and see how relentless and yet how diverse this invasion can be.
The subjects of Fr. Connor’s stories have a few things in common, chiefly a profound spiritual restlessness and a burning necessity to know truth coupled with the courage and tenacity to wrestle with what they hear, read, and learn until they have wrung every drop of authenticity from it. And, following their reception into the Roman Catholic Church, each spoke of experiencing great inner peace, the contentment that had always eluded them, and joy.
Although certain influences -- serious study and thought, sensing the presence of God in Catholic churches, the writings of Thomas Aquinas and Pascal -- occur in many of the converts’ lives, the differences among them are remarkably individual. Those reared by churchgoing parents benefited from that foundation even as they realized that it wasn’t enough. Those from homes where religion was ignored or despised learned from their early years as well. Some, such as Edith Stein and Clair Booth Luce were damaged by sadness in their lives.
Several of the converts encountered priests or devout Catholic families who influenced them. But perhaps the best example of the mysterious bending of circumstances by the Holy Spirit is that Karl Stern, son of an orthodox Jewish family which included a number of rabbis, was sent to "the town’s only kindergarten, one conducted by Catholic sisters."
There is interesting variation, too, in how these people lived after conversion, and how they influenced others to follow them into the Church. Prompted by their newfound peace and joy, almost all of the converts in the stories became evangelical to some degree, and many of them sought to correct what they perceived to be problems within the Catholic Church.
Ranging from Ignatius Spencer’s gentle "I believe you to be in error, and. . .I most ardently desire to lead you to believe as I do" to the scathing criticism by Orestes Brownson of the Church and his fellow Catholics (which, mercifully, subsided as he matured), these converts remained passionate.
The book’s only shortcoming is that in its final chapter, "Some Other European and American Converts," the stories, while good, are frustratingly brief. One longs to know more about such interesting converts as Nobel Prize novelist Sigrid Undset, writer Fulton Oursler, physician-author A. J. Cronin, and Dr. Alexis Carrel.
Fr. Connor mentions another definition of conversion, this one by convert Clare Booth Luce, who wrote of conversion as "the climax of a thousand secret graces." His collection of conversion histories demonstrates exactly how these graces work in the lives of truth seekers to bring them into full communion with the Church of Jesus Christ.
-- Anne Applegarth
Classic Catholic Converts
By Fr. Charles P. Connor
Ignatius Press (2001)
220 pages
$14.95
ISBN: 0-89870-787-0
A Twentieth-Century Doctor of the Church
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's forward to Alice von Hildebrand's biography of her late husband draws together the several threads of a most extraordinary life:
"Dietrich von Hildebrand was exceptional in many ways. His extensive writings on Christian philosophy, spiritual theology, and in defense of the Church's teaching, place him among the great thinkers of the twentieth century. His steadfast and determined opposition to totalitarianism, whether in the form of National Socialism or Marxist Leninism, a conviction that would cost him greatly during his life, illustrates the profound clarity of his moral vision and his willingness to suffer for what he knew was true" (9).
Dietrich von Hildebrand was the author of several dozen books of philosophy and spirituality, among them Traniformation in Christ, Liturgy and Personality, and The Trojan Horse in the City of God. His wife, Alice, emeritus professor of philosophy of Hunter College in New York City, is a popular EWTN personality (and a contributor to This Rock).
Dietrich was born into a household of intellectuals and artists. In marked contrast to his ethically relativistic and morally "unconscious" surroundings, von Hildebrand displayed an early attraction to religion. At the age of five he was defending the divinity of Jesus in family discussions. By fourteen, he was refuting his family's philosophical shallowness and pressing them to consider the critical question of an immortal soul. "His love for beauty, his passionate devotion to truth, his reverence toward the religious and sexual spheres: all these were unmerited graces evident in his youth that ‘predestined’ him to embrace Roman Catholicism in his twenties.
Dietrich von Hildebrand entered the University of Munich firmly persuaded that he was called to study philosophy, transferring after two and a half years to the University of Gottingen where he studied under Edmund Husserl. Von Hildebrand's spiritual journey, seeded by his teachers, was given its final push by the conversion of his sister to Catholicism.
Alice von Hildebrand reflects on Dietrich's conversion: "One crucial factor in Dietrich's conversion was the discovery of authority. Up to that time, his opinions, his wishes, his outlook had been the decisive factor in the decisions he made. Through God's grace, he discovered that every true authority comes from him, the Master and Creator of all things, and that Christ, the Son of God and Redeemer of the world, had delegated this authority to his holy Bride, the Roman Catholic Church. . . . All that he was called upon to do was to be receptive to her teaching and gratefully accept it. It is remarkable how easily he gave up the intellectual sovereignty that he had enjoyed until then" (132).
Von Hildebrand's life was deeply entwined with the political events of twentieth-century Europe. After World War I, he began teaching at the University of Munich, did a great of writing, and lectured widely throughout Europe. He also commenced a friendship with Eugenio Pacelli, then papal nuncio in Munich, and later Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), who has called von Hildebrand a twentieth-century Doctor of the Church.
The turbulence of his times shaped von Hildebrand's life: "As nationalism and militarism continued Germany, Dietrich von Hildebrand responded to the moral call to speak against a movement that was not only politically abominable but explicitly anti-Christian. His farsightedness was bound to set him on a course of confrontation with the deadly Nazi regime led by Adolf Hitler" (219-220).
When Hitler became chancellor and president of Germany in 1933, the von Hildebrand family was forced to fleet Munich with nothing but a couple of suitcases. Exiled in Austria, von Hildebrand co-founded a weekly magazine "dedicated to combating National Socialism-to unveil its dangerous and poisonous philosophy and open people's eyes to the threat it constituted, not only for Germany, but for the whole of Europe, for Christianity, and possibly for the whole world."
A year later, however, the anti-Nazi Austrian chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss was assassinated, and von Hildebrand lost the funding for his magazine. Shunned by fellow professors and the victim of assassination threats, von Hildebrand lived "under the constant burden of activity and danger." German documents placed von Hildebrand near the top of the list of persons to be arrested upon German invasion of Austria, which became imminent and forced the family once again to flee persecution.
The Soul if a Lion ends with the von Hildebrand family's 1940 arrival in New York. One of the book's few flaws is that it ends twenty-five years too soon without describing Dietrich von Hildebrand's best-known battles: those against modernism.
– Stephanie Block
The Soul of a Lion
By Alice von Hildebrand
Ignatius Press (2001)
322 pages
$14.95
ISBN: 0-89870-801-X
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