Editing Isaac Hecker (section)

==Conversion to Catholicism and ordination as a priest==
[[File:Hecker2Cut.png|thumb|left|200px|Hecker, circa 1860]]
Shortly after leaving the Brook Farm in 1844, Hecker was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church by Bishop [[John McCloskey]] of New York. One year later, he was entered in the novitiate of the [[Redemptorists]] in [[Belgium]], and there he cultivated to a high degree the spirit of lofty mystical piety which marked him through life.<ref name="BONI"/>

Ordained a priest in [[London]] by then [[Nicholas Patrick Stephen Wiseman|Bishop Nicholas Wiseman]] in 1849, he spent a year as a parish priest and chaplain with the small Redemptorist community at [[St Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Clapham|Our Immaculate Lady of Victories]] in Clapham.<ref>[https://stmarys-clapham.org.uk/news-and-events/history-of-st-marys-parish/ "History of St. Mary's Parish," St. Mary's RC Church, Clapham]</ref> He returned to New York in March 1851 and worked until 1857 as a Redemptorist missionary. With all his [[mysticism]], Isaac Hecker had the wide-awake mind of the typical American. He perceived that the Catholic Church's missionary activity in the United States must remain to a large extent ineffective unless it adopted methods suited to the country and the age. In this, he had the sympathy of four fellow Redemptorists, who like himself were of American birth and converts from [[Protestantism]].<ref name="BONI"/>

Acting as their agent, and with his local superiors' consent, Hecker went to [[Rome]] to beg of the Rector Major of his Order that a Redemptorist novitiate might be opened in the United States, in order thus to attract American youths to the missionary life. In furtherance of this request, he took with him the strong approval of some American hierarchy members. The Rector Major, instead of listening to Hecker, expelled him from the Order for having made the journey to Rome without sufficient authorization.<ref name="BONI"/>

Hecker, determined to fight the expulsion, remained in Rome. He approached Cardinal [[Alessandro Barnabò]], prefect of the Propaganda, the [[Congregation (Roman Curia)|Congregation]] of the [[Roman Curia]] with supervisory responsibility for the church in the United States. Cardinal Barnabo, made aware by American bishops of Hecker's outstanding missionary work and personal holiness, arranged an interview with [[Pope Pius IX]]. The pontiff dispensed Hecker and his four companions from their vows as Redemptorists.<ref name=smith/>