With All Gentleness: A Life of Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, CSsR by Carl W. Hoegerl, C.Ss.R (review)

As a young man, Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos (1819–1867) discerned his vocation to become a Redemptorist missionary for German immigrants in North America. In 1843, he left his home in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps and began his journey to America, where he was soon received into the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer in Baltimore. After his ordination in December 1844, he was sent to St. Philomena, the German immigrant parish in Pittsburgh where, in addition to parish duties, he was also the director of novices. Later he was sent to parishes in Baltimore, Annapolis, and Cumberland, Maryland. Most of the time he was also novice director or the prefect and teacher of Redemptorist students preparing for the priesthood. For three years, Seelos was the head of the Parish Mission Band. Finally, he was called to New Orleans where he predicted that he would stay “‘For a year and then I will die of yellow fever,’ which is exactly what happened” (p. 443). Seelos died on October 4, 1867, and was beatified at St. Peter’s in Rome on April 9, 2000.

Carol W. Hoegerl’s biography of Seelos is a very readable compilation of his extensive work on the documentation required for beatification, which includes both testimonies from people who knew the subject in person and historical evidence of a life of holiness. Hoegerl allows Seelos to speak directly to the reader through numerous quotations from his 201 extant letters.

Seelos’s ministry was marked with kindness and gentleness to all. “Whites and blacks, German and English, members of the community and outsiders, religious and lay people, ladies of quality or poor nuns, sick and poor” (p. 322)—no one was turned away. Through this extraordinary attentiveness to others—without exception—Seelos achieved holiness in the ordinary circumstances of life. His shortcomings and occasional lack of good judgment are not glossed over in this biography, which makes Seelos even more approachable for the twenty-first-century reader.

Seelos did not like America and would have never chosen to go there on his own. Nevertheless, he wrote, “With all my imagination and enthusiasm, I have embraced this dullness and ordinariness of America. The poverty and neglect of the greatest portion of the Germans, instruction of their children, and with time, even more, that of the blacks, since they are here, provide superabundant material to lay claim to all the activity of a priest who wants to dedicate himself fully to the well-being of his neighbor” (p. 147).

Although Seelos became an American citizen in 1852, he never mastered the English language. When he preached in his broken English, however, he made a deep impression on his listeners because he spoke to their hearts with simple words that explained for them the Word of God.

For a world struggling to welcome, understand, and accept peoples of every land, culture, language, or belief, this biography of Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos fills a distinct need by showing us how this could be done, not only in the nineteenth century, but also in the twenty-first.

The book is arranged chronologically with numerous illustrations and pertinent subheads in each chapter. The description of the beatification process given in Appendix B provides essential information for this work and its sources and, while the book lacks an index, the lists of people, places, and institutes in the life of Seelos are very helpful.