John Francis Noll played an instrumental role in the development of American Catholic life and identity. He was born and raised in the heartland of America, a Hoosier from the city of Fort Wayne, of German and Irish heritage. He lived during the first half of the twentieth century, when America was developing its industrial might and flexing its muscle as a world power. This was a time of unprecedented growth and change for the nation and the Church. He witnessed the impact of the world at war, the Depression, and the advent of the atomic age. As immigrants poured into the country by the tens of thousands, many were Catholics who came from Ireland, Germany, Italy, Eastern Europe, and Mexico. Their cultural diversity presented a unique challenge in the Church’s effort to educate and assimilate them into American Catholic life.
As a Catholic priest, and later as Bishop of Fort Wayne, John Noll was the editor of the national Catholic weekly, Our Sunday Visitor. He believed that the Catholic Church must claim its providential role in the shaping of America. Through his paper and his numerous books and pamphlets, he spoke to a nation of Catholics to educate them in their faith and promote the spirit of Catholic Action. He organized his readers — “the Friends of Our Sunday Visitor,” as he called them — to be the catalyst for the work of the Church. He shared with them the belief that by being good Catholics, they were also being good, loyal Americans. For a largely immigrant population, this became an important part of their assimilation into American life. As an accomplished apologist, Noll also presented the teachings of the Catholic faith to Protestants and demonstrated to them that Catholicism was not incompatible with American ideals.
John Noll was a missionary at heart, whose influence extended through the printed word and his work as a bishop in the Catholic hierarchy. Through his leadership and strength of character, he aspired to educate against religious bigotry, racism, and prejudice. He fought anti-Catholicism in all its forms. He promoted the values of a nation based on the principle of “One Nation Under God.” In a time of mounting secularism and materialism, he encouraged the principles of marriage and family life and urged that education and politics be rooted in religious truths. He supported the rights of labor and capital and the care of immigrants. He raised awareness against the enemies of society by working for public decency in movies and magazines and showed a deep concern for America’s youth. He strongly opposed the spread of atheistic Communism and totalitarian governments that used war and social unrest to threaten the progress of Church and society.
This is the story of a man who committed his life to the Christian principles that made him a faithful Catholic and a loyal American. He was industrious and dedicated to the American spirit of tolerance and civility. Like many of his contemporary bishops, who were builders with “brick and mortar,” Archbishop Noll also used his numerous skills to organize and advance the apostolate of the laity to be a catalyst for the good of the Church and society. As the “Harmonizer,” a title associated with his paper, he promoted an America rooted in the firm conviction “In God We Trust.” As an American and Catholic, then, John Francis Noll was right on the money.
— Fr. Leon Hutton
Chapter One
That’s a Lie!
That, sir, is a bare-faced lie!”
Shaking with anger, his face flushed as red as the hair on his head, a sturdy young priest jumped to his feet and challenged a man at the front of the room. It was 1901, and Fr. John Noll, in the company of a few other priests, was attending an anti-Catholic talk at Island Park in Rome City, Indiana, given by a certain Rev. F.F. De Long.
Young Fr. Noll
Talks of this sort, directed against Catholics, were popular at the time. Based on intolerance and black, unreasoning hatred, the talks purported to “expose” the immorality and false religion of the Catholic Church. For the audience, primarily simply badly informed country people, the lectures provided something to do to alleviate the boredom of a Friday night in a small country town with little means of entertainment. But unfortunately, sometimes the alleged “outrages of the Papists” caused audiences to become so inflamed that they went out and rioted. For the organizers of these sessions, however, there was a substantial financial reward from entry fees and collections; largely unchallenged in their assertions, they didn’t care much about the consequences of what they said or how they said it.
That was all about to change.
“Mr. DeLong,” Noll continued, “you have just said that gross immorality is the general rule in our convents, and you allege that these things don’t leak out because we priests are the only ones permitted inside a convent. That’s a lie, Mr. DeLong!”
“I can substantiate that assertion,” DeLong retorted. “I’ll give you fifty dollars if you’ll get me inside a certain convent I shall name in Fort Wayne.”
At that, Fr. Quinlan, pastor of the cathedral parish in Fort Wayne, stood up beside Noll.
“I’m a pastor in Fort Wayne,” he said. “We’ll take you up on your offer. Hand your wager to one of the committee members up there on the podium with you, and I’ll even pay your way. We’ll go to Fort Wayne, and I’ll make certain you are allowed to inspect any convent you wish!”
Seeing that his bluff had been called, DeLong immediately began to backpedal, stating that he couldn’t break God’s commandment against gambling. But, having regained the floor, he quickly concluded the evening with an invitation to his next talk, two days later. At that time, he said, he would prove his allegations by appearing with an ex-priest ready to detail the horrors of the “Church of Rome.”
Fr. Noll, of course, was one of the first to arrive at the next lecture. With disgust, he heard more of the same misrepresentation, with the “ex-priest Delaney” painting a lurid picture of the wickedness of his fellow priests which resulted in his leaving the priesthood. He spoke at length of a priest named Chiniquy and his supposed depredations. These bigoted, hateful, and untrue remarks whipped the audience into a frenzy to the point that young John Noll was afraid some would grab up baseball bats or other weapons and go to seek out the closest “nest of Romans,” as some people called Catholics.
But Fr. Noll had done his homework. He had with him notes on DeLong’s unsavory reputation, including a letter from the preacher’s wife saying that DeLong had attempted to kill her by forcing her to drink carbolic acid. From comments the man made during his speech, Fr. Noll also knew that Delaney had never been a priest. But he had no intention of attempting to inform the henchmen of their errors; it was the audience that needed to be convinced. Delaney had to be discredited. So, politely, Fr. Noll waited until the end of the lecture and then arose to take the floor.
“What diocese are you from, sir?” he called out to the self-styled former priest.
The man responded, “Chicago.”
Nodding, Fr. Noll turned and addressed the audience directly. “My dear people, I am a priest myself, the pastor at Kendallville, and I happen to know that your speaker has never been a priest. It is true that the Fr. Chiniquy1 was a priest, but he was booted out of the ministry for misconduct. But Mr. Delaney has never been a priest. Let me ask him a single question, and you can judge for yourself. Mr. Delaney, what is an Ordo?”
There was a dead silence in the auditorium as all eyes turned to hear Delaney’s answer. After thirty long seconds, Noll repeated his question, “What is an Ordo?” Still, the supposed former priest did not answer,