The Archbishop Wore Combat Boots. Nancy A. Collins

and pious goals. Though geared toward assisting missions, the organization had other attractions as well: meetings and a yearly dance attended by representatives from all Catholic high schools, including the girl schools — a big draw for a guy like me who, enjoying girls, had the usual dates and prom nights, usually at the glamorous Shoreham Hotel.

      If anything, the birth of my vocation involved a long, if spasmodic, labor — a struggle more apparent to others than to me. In one instance, Brother Luke, my “homeroom” teacher at St. John’s High School, broached the subject after class. And his advice was chillingly candid: “You ought to think about the permanence of the commitment in becoming a priest. It’s forever. There isn’t any turning back.” On another occasion he put it a little differently. “Hannan, you get too many ideas. Skip every third one” (advice seconded, apparently, by many).

      During my senior year, a friend of the family, Admiral Washington Lee Capps, offered to let me take the examination for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Admiral Capps, head of the Board of Strategy for the Navy in World War I as well as supervising contractor at the Union Iron Works in San Francisco (overseeing the construction of the Battleship Oregon and Battleship Wisconsin), was a staunch, flinty patriot married to an elegant Catholic lady. Since the Capps lived in St. Matthew’s parish and had no children, they took great interest in the Hannan boys. Nevertheless, I turned down the Admiral’s invitation to “audition” for West Point.

      “Why didn’t you take the examination to West Point?” my mother asked.

      “I just didn’t feel like it,” I said evasively. At that time, the U.S. Army with a mere 50,000 troops, was practically an endangered species, offering no future. And though I’d thought about becoming a doctor, lawyer, even architect, I simply couldn’t shake the idea of a religious vocation. I knew I had to make up my mind by graduation since, in our family, there was zero tolerance for drifting through life or taking a year to “think about it.”

      Finally, I took action. If I didn’t settle the thought, really run it into the ground, I would never be content in any profession that I chose. Seeking out a friendly priest at St. Matthew’s rectory, Father Edward Roach, I confided that I was thinking about becoming a priest. No sooner had the words passed my lips, than he considered it a done deal. “We have doubts about some young fellows who say they want to be a priest,” Father Roach said, “but not you. However, the only way to find out whether or not you’ve actually got a vocation is to try it.” Toward that end, he offered to take me to St. Charles College in Catonsville, Maryland, a minor seminary near Baltimore, at the beginning of the next session in September 1931.

      Though stunned, my parents were obviously proud. While my father immediately told his brother Will how proud he was, my mother was far more cautious. “Of course we’re pleased, Philip,” she said, “but this is a very serious decision and you’re very young,” opening a door in case I changed my mind. I did not. Still, her remarks made it much easier to strike out to St. Charles College, located, ironically, on Maiden Choice Lane near Catonsville. Walking in the door, the only thing I knew about St. Charles was that I was entering a seminary.

CHAPTER 3

      My Seminary Days

      Having no idea of St. Charles’ regimen, I had no expectations and, thus, no disappointments. Indeed, I experienced only a keen sense of exultation that I was coming to grips with my choice in life, resolving that most difficult of possibilities: the priesthood. Furthermore, I was proving my independence from the family, my brothers all having attended either Georgetown or Catholic University. Justifiably, the Hannans felt that Washington had everything one needed in life — and I had stepped out of that circle. St. Charles College offered both a high school and two years of college. While the high school was called the “kids’ side,” the college was divided into the “Poets” and the “Rhets” (Rhetoric) emphasizing English, poetry, and writing. The real Mason-Dixon line, however, was your knowledge of Greek and Latin, still the language of the Church in the liturgy as well as philosophical and theological studies. Since my Latin courses at St. John’s hadn’t prepared me for such an onslaught of the language, it took a year of struggle to catch up with my classmates. (Not only were the academics demanding, the professors were tough, if helpful. Father “Tug” Dyer, for instance, in charge of seminary finances, taught bookkeeping by beganning each class reciting, mantra-like: “When you’re priests, your people will want to know what you’re doing with the money they give you. So learn how to give an accounting.”)

      The architecture at St. Charles, meanwhile, was impressive, especially the beautiful chapel, a large, separate building with magnificent mosaics and marble work. The first time I saw it, I couldn’t believe that the Jenkins family had given this gorgeous edifiice — a source of inspiration and meditation where we began each day in reflection before Mass — to such a minor seminary. The campus also had excellent athletic facilities — baseball diamonds, tennis courts, a swimming pool, and an indoor gym where I boxed, conscious that my large knuckles could protect me. Though there were lots of good athletes on campus, sheer athleticism was held in check by the study-conscious Sulpician Fathers who believed in testing character as a means of developing spiritual lives. Most surprising to me, however, was how readily the seminarians accepted the stiff regimen: religious reading during dinner; grand silence extending from night prayers to the end of Mass the following morning; and expulsion for smoking cigarettes. While Christmas vacation lasted a week, and summer three months, parents were only allowed to visit one Sunday afternoon a month, when my folks would regularly show up with cakes to share with my friends.

      Represented in the student population was every country in Europe as well as Latin America. As such we were all “equals” — basic training for my later Army life. My main job, however, was determining if I truly had a vocation. As the months wore on, though I grew increasingly comfortable with my decision, I saw no reason to “rush the cadence.” By the end of my second year, realizing I probably did have a religious vocation, I had to make a decision: continue in the seminary, and, if so, enter the Basselin curriculum at Catholic University; or take my courses at St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore. While the Basselin required three years of philosophy studies, ending with an MA in philosophy, the courses at St. Mary’s Seminary, requiring only two years, delivered an AB in philosophy. Not surprisingly, my sister Mary, a devotee of higher education, urged the Basselin, where I could take advantage of Catholic University’s superior library and wider academic choices. Her wisdom naturally won out. I chose the Basselin, named in honor of a Canadian lumberman who, on the advice of St. Augustine Bishop Michael J. Curley, established a foundation providing seminary courses to develop “better preaching” by priests.

      Happily, I was again back in Washington. Basselin students lived on the fifth floor — with no elevator — at the Theological College, called the Sulpician Seminary, at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Fourth Street. All total, I would be living in the Theological College for seven years — three for the Basselin courses, four for theology — a daunting prospect indeed. The difference between seminary life at St. Charles College and Catholic University was the difference between ROTC and military combat. The heart of the Sulpician seminary was Father “Jus” Vieban, a pious, saintly, unassuming, and learned priest trained in his native France who loved nothing more than mingling with his students. Following dinner, when the students walked around the “boardwalk” behind the seminary building, Jus invariably joined them — and their conversations. In more spiritual matters, Jus wisely exhorted us to persevere with caution. “Now don’t be too worried,” he admonished, “about whether you are worthy of becoming a priest.” We understood what that caution meant. Our prayers meanwhile were vintage French Sulpician. “Look down upon me, a less than nothing …” (to which my roommate invariably remarked: “God must really have good eyesight”).

      The faculty, mostly Sulpicians, alternated with Jus in delivering the spiritual talks. Almost all were inspired speakers, except for Father Hemelt, the treasurer, who gave only one speech a year before we left on summer vacation. “Don’t play mixed doubles in tennis,” as he cautioned us one summer, “with the opposite sex.” We got the point.

      I suppose students of every era like to play little tricks on their teachers, and Father Hemelt was