By DONALD DeMARCO
Helen Hull Hitchcock passed away after a brief illness on October 20, 2014 at age 75. Accolades poured in from around the globe in honor of this extraordinary woman.
Mary Shivanandan, a retired faculty member at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, and a longtime friend of Helen, provided a concise and accurate summation of Mrs. Hitchcock’s life and contribution to the Church:
“In the midst of an increasingly secular culture and a strident feminism, Helen embodied the true ‘woman’s genius’ of John Paul II by bringing to bear her feminine gifts to the pressing problems of our day without compromising her role as wife, mother, and grandmother. Not only by her words, but also by her witness, Helen was and will continue to be an inspiration to Catholic women.”
She was a good friend to many. I had the pleasure of knowing Helen and always found her, despite her many talents and accomplishments, to be most unassuming. At a conference for priests in Erie, Pa., she prefaced her talk by confessing that she was at a distinct disadvantage, especially addressing the clergy, because did not know a single joke.
She prevailed upon one of the clergy, just prior to her presentation, to supply her with one. Thereupon she told her audience about a mother who came to the checkout counter with a package of diapers. “That will be five dollars for the diapers and ten cents for the tax,” said the clerk. “Oh no,” replied the mother. “We don’t use tacks, we use safety pins.”
Helen, like so many women, was a person of great humor though not a joke teller. Nonetheless, she enjoyed a good witticism. We were talking to each other on the phone one time about the important role the mother plays in the moral education of her child. I fully agreed with her and said that if a child does learn his moral values at his mother’s knee, he will probably get them at some other joint. She laughed heartily and said, “That’s good enough to invite you to our next convention.” I always found it easy to get her to laugh.
She was an excellent draughtsman. Fr. George William Rutler once informed an audience that Helen drew his portrait several times, revealing him in various stages of “decrepitude.” Despite the seriousness of her work, people felt at home with her. Laughter and good cheer are infectious. She customarily signed memos about the Church in the United States to various officials in Rome, “HHH.” No one would have confused her with Hubert Horatio Humphrey, though Helen had referred to the former presidential candidate in her writings.
Helen and Francis Cardinal Arinze were on the same program at Christendom College. When a friend barely uttered Hitchcock’s name in introducing Helen to the cardinal, the then-prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments threw out his arms and exclaimed, “HHH”! Helen was thrilled to know that her memos were read in high Vatican circles.
In 1984, along with several other women, Helen Hull Hitchcock organized Women for Faith and Family, a movement of Catholic women which circulated the Affirmation for Catholic Women, a statement of fidelity to and unity with Church teachings. The Affirmation has been signed by more than 50,000 Catholic women throughout the world, including St. Teresa of Calcutta. The affirmation has been translated into Spanish, Chinese, Dutch, Polish, French, Italian, and German.
HHH edited The Politics of Prayer: Feminist Language and the Worship of God (Ignatius Press: 1992), a collection of essays by various scholars. Her superb introduction proves her to be a scholar among scholars. Moreover, her dedication to her parents is a thumbnail sketch of her life: “For my parents Downer Lee Hull and Thelma Kelly Hull, who taught me (and countless others) to speak, read, and esteem the English language — and through whose example I learned to love the Word of God.”
The lessons she learned from her parents and ancestors provided a solid ground in her eloquent defense of the Catholic Church against those who wanted to tear it apart.
“As Catholics, who have been formed, inspired, and sustained by the sacraments of the Church through participation in the liturgy,” she wrote, “the Church’s central action and principal means of transmission of the Catholic faith, we are strongly aware of the power of symbol in human consciousness. We, therefore, deplore attempts to distort and transform language and liturgy, both of which make such potent symbolic impressions on the human mind, to conform to a particular contemporary ideological agenda at odds with Catholic belief and practice.”
Helen and 26 other converts to the Church of Rome told their conversion stories in Spiritual Journeys Toward the Fullness of the Faith (St. Paul’s Books & Media, 1987).
Hers is an unbroken journey from the family farm in northern Kansas where members of seven generations of her family are buried, to St. Louis, Mo., and the Church of Rome. She tells us of how her “discovery” of Thomistic philosophy was “intensely exhilarating, both intellectually and spiritually” and that she became a Catholic “because it is within the Catholic Church that I can affirm the Christian truth which I was taught as a child, and have believed, by the grace of God, all my life.”
Helen published and edited Voices, Women for Faith and Family’s quarterly journal, and The Adoremus Bulletin. The former has lapsed since her demise, though the latter, after a hiatus, is back in circulation under the guidance of a new editor (see adoremus.org).
Fr. Joseph Fessio, SJ, once described this gentle soul as “a bulwark of the faith in the U.S.”
“But as I think of her now,” he later added, “the refrain that I hear again and again is: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’ Wife. Mother. Warrior. Journalist. Liturgist. Musician. Friend. Humorist. Helen.”
Helen Hull Hitchcock’s legacy is very much alive. This servant leader will continue to light the way for troubled Catholics and families that are searching for answers. She and her husband Jim, the noted historian, have given to the world four daughters and six grandchildren.
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