author
Walter Elliott
1842–1928
A Civil War veteran turned Paulist priest, he became one of the best-known Catholic writers and preachers of his day. His biography of Isaac Hecker helped spark the wider debate later known as the Americanism controversy.
1 Audiobook
Life of Father Hecker
by Walter Elliott
About the author
Born in Detroit in 1842, Walter Elliott studied at the University of Notre Dame, began training in law, and then served in the Union Army during the Civil War. After the war he joined the Paulists, the Congregation of St. Paul the Apostle, and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1872.
Elliott became widely known as a missionary, speaker, and author. His most famous book, Life of Father Hecker (1891), told the story of Paulist founder Isaac Hecker and drew attention far beyond the United States, especially because it became tied to the church controversy called Americanism.
He spent much of his life explaining Catholic belief to a broad public in an energetic, accessible way. By the time of his death in Washington, D.C., in 1928, he was remembered as a prominent Paulist voice whose writing captured an important moment in American Catholic history.