The 'One-man Revolution:' Ammon Hennacy

Intermountain Catholic

+ Enlarge

Ammon Hennacy

When Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin started the Catholic Worker movement in New York City in 1933 at the depth of the Great Depression, they did so in the belief that Christianity offered a more profound – and much more radical – diagnosis of the human condition than did the Leftist ideologies of Communism, anarchism and labor radicalism that were prevalent at the time. What was needed, they argued, was not reform or even replacement of corrupt institutions, but rather the redemption of corrupt persons: not an improved social, economic or political order, but a new man. Accordingly, while they began ameliorative measures like soup kitchens and homeless shelters and often went to jail for participating in strikes and anti-war demonstrations, they also practiced an intense Catholicism. Often with the zeal of new converts, they attended daily Mass, said the rosary and breviary daily, and went to confession weekly.

As we anticipate the May 1 memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker, let us look at the career of one of the most zealous and colorful characters attracted to the movement, Ammon Hennacy, who brought the Catholic Worker to Utah, much to the consternation of Utah clergy, and spent the last nine years of his life here (1961-70).

Hennacy alienated Bishop Joseph L. Federal by failing to recognize he had to be the bishop of all Utah Catholics, not just the ones on the Left; and Msgr. William H. McDougall, who he failed to realize was unable by simple fiat to annul Hennacy’s highly irregular marriage. Those two misunderstandings, fueled by Hennacy’s deep anticlericalism, drove him out of the Church.

Utah was a good target for Hennacy because of its well-known hostility to labor unions, as manifested in the 1915 execution of songwriter and union activist Joe Hill, as well as its population of migrant workers and the homeless. Hennacy and his companion, the artist Mary Lathrop, rented a storefront property in Salt Lake City and opened a homeless shelter called the Joe Hill House of Hospitality. Refusing to pay taxes in protest of the Vietnam War, they supported themselves by harvesting fruit, where payroll taxes would not be withheld.

Hennacy informed Bishop Federal what he was doing, but after consulting Hennacy’s former archbishop in New York, Federal icily informed him that he did not have the support of the diocese. That provoked an ongoing conflict, and Hennacy repeatedly posted notes on the bishop’s door challenging him to come out against the war.

Things came to a head when Hennacy applied to Msgr. McDougall for an annulment of his "revolutionary marriage" to his first wife, who long before had tired of his migratory life and left him, taking their two daughters. While McDougall launched a complicated investigation to determine if the marriage had even been a legal union, Hennacy, impatient to wed Mary Lathrop, announced he was leaving the Church. (In a strange twist, Lathrop broke their brief engagement, and Hennacy wound up marrying yet another woman, Joan Thomas, in a civil ceremony).

For all the trouble he gave the institutional Church, Ammon Hennacy was one of those necessary prophetic figures like John the Baptist who challenge us to repentance and a more committed faith. Hennacy was completely careless of his own wellbeing, eagerly serving jail sentences and enduring other privations in order to live the Gospel as he saw it. Those who heard him speak were transfixed by his absolute sincerity and earnestness.

"With all his absolutism and certitude," Dorothy Day said of him, "he is friendly and lovable, truly looking on all as his brothers, overcoming opposition by understanding and affection."

Hennacy said he would rather die on a picket line than in bed, and he almost got his wish. After marching in a demonstration against capital punishment, his heart collapsed and he died at Holy Cross Hospital on Jan. 14, 1970. Before he died, he received the last rites of the Church from Father (later Monsignor) Michael Winterer. The troubled soul of Ammon Hennacy had come home at last.