Religion: Trailer Fathers

When Isaac Hecker, member of a German Protestant family which grew rich in Manhattan in the grain and baking business (Hecker’s Rolled Oats), was converted to Catholicism and became a priest in 1849, there was no indigenous U. S. Catholic missionary order. With the zeal of a convert. Father Hecker founded an order—the Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle. Today no part of the U. S. is too remote to interest Paulist Fathers and last week they had good news from Winchester, Tenn.

To Winchester went last year the superior general of the order, Very Rev. John B. Harney. He was not satisfied that his priests were getting out among the 175,000 people (375 of whom are Catholics) who inhabit their parish of 13 counties. Father Harney returned to Manhattan. A lay friend suggested that a trailer-chapel, such as many a minister now employs in rural districts, might be helpful. The friend supplied $5,200 for a trailer, which was specially built, named St. Lucy,— and turned over to two young priests, Rev. James F. Cunningham and Rev. Thomas M. Halloran.

Paulists Cunningham (who had preached before in non-Catholic Tennessee) and Halloran (who was born in McEwen, Tenn.) set out from Manhattan last September with St. Lucy attached to their Ford. St. Lucy is 23 feet long, contains living quarters forward, and in the rear, a confessional, a chapel with a folding altar, which can be opened for outdoor meetings. There is space in the trailer for phonograph records, sound film equipment, a public-address system. By last week Fathers Cunningham and Halloran were well accustomed to parking St. Lucy in likely spots, playing phonograph records to attract a crowd and then exhibiting about 50 minutes of religious movies with a 20-minute sermon sandwiched between. Said Father Cunningham before they left Manhattan: “They can take it down there. If you give a 15-minute sermon you’re a sissy.”

Last week the trailer Paulists reported to headquarters that they were doing well. Their first mass, in Cowan, Tenn., attracted only three people, but their second, in Tullahoma, drew 15. At Decherd, trucks brought curious and friendly Protestants to see St. Lucy. Children gaped and enjoyed the services. On a return trip to Cowan, 250 people attended a meeting and the mayor urged the Paulists: “Hurry back.”

—For the donor’s daughter, and for a Third Century Sicilian martyr, patroness of the blind.