DE HUECK DOHERTY, CATHERINE

Pioneer among the Catholic laity in North America in implementing the social doctrine of the Church; b. Nijni-Novgorod (present Gorki), Russia, Aug. 15, 1896;d. Combermere, Ontario, Canada, Dec. 14, 1985. Foundress of Madonna House Apostolate, Combermere, and of friendship house in Canada and the United States in the 1930s and 1940s.

The family lived in Ekaterinoslav (Russia), Alexandria (Egypt), India, and Paris before finally settling down in St. Petersburg. Catherine's mother communicated to her an extraordinary faith in the presence of Christ in the poor. Though a communicant in the russian orthodox church, Catherine studied in the convent schools of the Sisters of Sion in both Alexandria and Paris. In 1912 Catherine married Boris de Hueck. World War I found them both with the 130th Division on the Western Front. As a nurse she was decorated on several occasions for bravery. Escaping to Finland after the Revolution, she and Boris ran into Bolshevik sympathizers who almost succeeded in starving them to death. Catherine made a promise to God that if she survived she would give Him her life.

The couple made their way to Scotland and then to England, where Catherine de Hueck was received into the Catholic Church. In 1921 they emigrated to Toronto, Canada, where a son, George, was born to them in July of that year.

De Hueck eventually joined the Chatauqua circuit as a lecturer on Russia and communism. Such activities brought her again into wealth. But the promise made in Finland would not leave her. She kept hearing the words of the Gospel: "Go, sell all you possess." Meanwhile her marriage to Boris had been under strain due to the revolution, differing personalities, and a growing divergence in goals. In the early 1930s they separated, eventually obtaining an ecclesiastical annulment.

Friendship House. The baroness believed living the gospel without compromise was the only answer to the social problems of the time and the appeal of communism. She opened Friendship House, a settlement house in the slum area of Toronto where she and a small band of followers served meals, handed out clothes, and conducted classes in the social teachings of the Church. Under the spiritual guidance of Father Paul of Graymoor they formed themselves into a dedicated band with promises and a simple rule of life.

Soon opposition developed: a rumor spread that de Hueck herself was a communist. Misunderstandings also developed on the parochial level. The archbishop of Toronto supported her, but unable to work in a climate of suspicion, she moved to the United States. At the suggestion of Father John lafarge, SJ, in 1938 she opened Friendship House in Harlem, N.Y. As in Toronto, others were attracted by her life, and a dedicated laity formed into a small movement around her. In 1943, Catherine married Eddie Doherty, a well known newspaperman of the time.

Madonna House. Eventually problems also arose in the Friendship House in Harlem. In addition to disagreements about practices and structures, a deeper rift opened when some members wanted to focus completely on interracial work. De Hueck Doherty always believed her vocation was broader, "to restore all things to Christ." At a painful convention in Chicago in 1946, she retained nominal status as foundress. But on May 17, 1847, she went with Eddie Doherty to Combermere in the rural areas of Ontario where she established Madonna House and where the culmination of her life's work was to begin.

Canonically Madonna House is a Public Association of the Faithful under the bishop of Pembroke, Ontario. In actuality, it is an evangelical community, inspired by Catherine's vision and imbued with her spirit. By the time of her death in 1985, the Madonna House community had about 150 Catholic laymen, laywomen, and priests. Small mission houses were opened, mostly in North America, but eventually in the West Indies, England, France, and Africa. By 1987 there were 22 missions. In addition there were about 70 associate priests, and several associate bishops and deacons.

As her own spiritual life matured, she was better able to communicate to the West the treasures of holy Russia. Her spiritual classic, Poustinia, is a call to prayer and the "desert" of the heart. Sobornost describes a unity in the Holy Spirit beyond any human effort or model. The People of the Towel and the Water reveals the gospel dimensions of the ordinary life.

During her lifetime de Hueck Doherty influenced millions of people and received many awards, among them the pontifical medal "Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice" and, in 1977, the Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian honor. Her deeper personal life with God, found in her diaries and private writings, is still to be made known. She had an extraordinary love for the Church as the radiant Bride of Christ. She insisted that all the baptized were called to love with God and to become icons of His presence in their everyday lives. Many consider her a truly prophetic voice, one of the authentic teachers of the gospel in the twentieth century.

Bibliography: c. de hueck doherty, Fragments of My Life (Notre Dame 1979); My Russian Yesterdays (Milwaukee 1951); Friendship House (New York 1946). e. doherty, Tumbleweed (Milwaukee 1948). r. wild, Journey to the Lonely Christ (New York 1987); "A Visit to Madonna House and Mrs. Doherty," Crux of Prayer (Albany, N.Y. 1976). o. tanghe, As I Have Loved You (Dublin 1987); "Catherine de Hueck Doherty: A Twentieth-Century Spirituality," The Canadian Catholic Review (Saskatoon Sept. 1987).

[r. wild]