Did You Know that the first book of fiction to be “blessed” by a pope was Ben Hur. Yes, Pope Leo XIII did the honors. Well, for what it’s worth, there’s the fact of it. Lew Wallace wrote the story with the intention to “sort out” his own beliefs about Christianity. It was published in New Mexico in 1880. An interesting aside, or at least Wallace claimed it so, is that a conversation with Billy the Kid inspired his recounting in the book of the crucifixion scene — i.e. Ben Hur meeting Our Lord on the way of the Cross. Go figure! I don’t see the connection. (Maybe more on this subject later.) BTW, the only reason I am posting this is because the clue about Wallace came up in a crossword puzzle that I was doing last night. There is no record of Lew Wallace becoming a Catholic; I do hope that he did. As far as I know, to all appearances, he died Protestant.
Hold on, wait a minute! Yes, I do have an interesting aside on Billy the Kid. I heard it from Brother Thomas Augustine, M.I.C.M., Saint Benedict Center in Still River, Massachusetts. Years back, he told me that he had a fascinating book on the “Wild West.” He told me that he read that Henry McCarty (Billy the Kid) , during his rapacious escapades in the late 1800s, came upon a convent in the New Mexico Territory. The convent was one belonging to Mother Cabrini’s sisters, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. The outlaw was received there with Christian charity. However, when, bombastically, he spilled out his sins to the Mother Superior without any sign of remorse, she was not very “understanding.” She took a red hot fireplace stoking iron and stuck it to his chest saying (words to this effect): “Feel that! So shall you burn for all eternity if you do not repent.”
Mother Cabrini’s sisters were tough Italian girls, very tough indeed. The “non-reception” she got from the Irish bishop of New York (I’m Irish, I can say it) when she arrived there in 1889 (with Pope Leo XIII’s letter of endorsement in hand), and having to rent a room (no room at the inn) with no beds, and rats crawling over the “lounge chairs” that she and a few other sisters tried to sleep in, was an ordeal, to say the least! Yes, these were very tough women!!! After getting established, she sent one of her sisters to the southwest in order to purchase property and open up a convent. If successful, more sisters could follow after and they could open a school and minister to the Italians working in the that part of the country. While on the train, this sister saw “another” sister sitting some rows in front of her. She asked the ticket taker if she could switch seats so as to be with the “other” sister. He laughed, “No, sister, that isn’t possible, there is no “other” sister on this train. You are seeing yourself in the mirror there.” Apparently, there was a rule in the order that the sisters could not have mirrors. This sister must have forgotten what her face looked like. The convent, and school, later prospered in the New Mexico Territory. In fact, in the late 1890s, the hotel magnate, Conrad Hilton, was sent by his pious German mother, Mary Genevieve Laufersweiler, to this very same Catholic school run by the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart for his primary education. Interesting. Poor Conrad! He made a ton of money, but he would have been better off spiritually if he remained poor.
I befriended Hilton’s private secretary back in the early 1980s, when I was doing some fund raising for SBC. She introduced me to Mr. Hotel, who, withered spectacle that he was, still managed to come to his office every day. This woman was English. She had wanted to be a nun, but, as she told me, for whatever reason, it never happened. Nevertheless, she led a single celibate life. She was, probably in her sixties when I met her. She was so charming and sincerely wanted to help SBC; she even called me on the phone once, to alert me to get a letter in by such a date, because the Board would be going over donations. She told me she would make sure my request would make it to the top of the list. Well, it did. I got a nice letter from the Foundation saying “Sorry, try again.”
I met Barron Hilton, too, when I was there, and I spoke to him for quite a while about the SBC apostolate. He seemed politely interested. He told me about a priest friend who was quite close to the family. I understand that this priest reconciled his father to the Church. I used to send out personal Christmas cards, with a brief note, in those years, several hundreds of them, in fact. (Stamps were a bit cheaper.) Barron Hilton replied from Hawaii with a nice note thanking me for the card and the visit. SBC never got a penny from the Hilton Foundation. However, in his will, Conrad specified that Catholic causes receive top priority for donations. In fact, his Foundation is the only one I know of that targets money specifically for Catholic sisters suffering under Communist persecution. I informed Joseph Kung of the Cardinal Kung Foundation (he is the nephew of Cardinal Kung), about this because he sends money to Catholic sisters in China. But, sadly, I think the nuns that are now in charge of this branch of the Hilton Charities are more interested in giving to the sisters allied with the schismatic “Catholic” Patriotic Association. The Cardinal Kung Foundation received nothing from the Hilton Charities. The same thing happened with the Church in Need, founded by Father Werenfried Von Stratten, a Norbertine priest I knew when I was with the Norbertines in the early 1970s. (Father Werenfried died a few years ago). The Church in Need raised money for religious vocations behind the Iron Curtain. I remember, back in 1973, trying to work with Father Von Stratten (known as the “Bacon Priest”) to prevent the blasphemous movie “Jesus Christ Superstar” from being shown in Rome. That effort failed; someone writing for L’Osservatore Romano gave it a qualified thumbs up. This is supposed to be the Vatican’s newspaper. Well, von Stratten’s enormously successful charitable organization refused to give one penny to the Cardinal Kung Foundation. They do give generously, however, to support seminarians in the schismatic Patriotic Association in China. Well, I am signing off. I’ve covered a lot of territory here. I wish I had some happier news.
