stating that he couldn’t break God’s commandment against gambling. But, having regained the floor, he quickly concluded the evening with an invitation to his next talk, two days later. At that time, he said, he would prove his allegations by appearing with an ex-priest ready to detail the horrors of the “Church of Rome.”
Fr. Noll, of course, was one of the first to arrive at the next lecture. With disgust, he heard more of the same misrepresentation, with the “ex-priest Delaney” painting a lurid picture of the wickedness of his fellow priests which resulted in his leaving the priesthood. He spoke at length of a priest named Chiniquy and his supposed depredations. These bigoted, hateful, and untrue remarks whipped the audience into a frenzy to the point that young John Noll was afraid some would grab up baseball bats or other weapons and go to seek out the closest “nest of Romans,” as some people called Catholics.
But Fr. Noll had done his homework. He had with him notes on DeLong’s unsavory reputation, including a letter from the preacher’s wife saying that DeLong had attempted to kill her by forcing her to drink carbolic acid. From comments the man made during his speech, Fr. Noll also knew that Delaney had never been a priest. But he had no intention of attempting to inform the henchmen of their errors; it was the audience that needed to be convinced. Delaney had to be discredited. So, politely, Fr. Noll waited until the end of the lecture and then arose to take the floor.
“What diocese are you from, sir?” he called out to the self-styled former priest.
The man responded, “Chicago.”
Nodding, Fr. Noll turned and addressed the audience directly. “My dear people, I am a priest myself, the pastor at Kendallville, and I happen to know that your speaker has never been a priest. It is true that the Fr. Chiniquy1 was a priest, but he was booted out of the ministry for misconduct. But Mr. Delaney has never been a priest. Let me ask him a single question, and you can judge for yourself. Mr. Delaney, what is an Ordo?”
There was a dead silence in the auditorium as all eyes turned to hear Delaney’s answer. After thirty long seconds, Noll repeated his question, “What is an Ordo?” Still, the supposed former priest did not answer, so Mr. DeLong leapt into the fray.
“That’s not fair,” he cried. “Mr. Delaney has been out of the Catholic ministry for many years. You can’t expect him to remember these technical terms when he never uses them!”
“Very well. Let me remind you what an Ordo is,” boomed out the young priest. “It’s the annotated calendar found on the desk of every priest. A priest consults it every day. Remember?”
Again turning to the audience, Fr. Noll continued, “Now, tomorrow night, it’s my turn to talk. You have spent the entire night hearing a liar, pretending to be a priest, telling you a lot of nonsense about the Catholic Church. I’m giving you a chance to hear a real priest tell you the truth. I’ll be on that very stage tomorrow night. If you are fair-minded, you’ll come. No admission charge or collection will be needed. That’s for men like DeLong and Delaney. And you will all be free to ask as many questions as you like.”
True to his word, the following night Fr. Noll spoke and answered questions to a full house. Unknowingly, the priest was embarking on a lifetime mission of education, one in which he would defend his faith in the face of the anti-Catholic bigotry and slander of his day and use the power of his pen to educate his own people who were often equally ill informed about the tenets of their own religion.
Chapter Two
Early Days
John Noll had his roots firmly planted deep in the rich Indiana soil. The Noll family had settled in the then sleepy little farming community of Fort Wayne in 1834, when his grandfather, George Johannes Noll, a tailor, emigrated from Germany. The family rode in a wagon from Detroit, Michigan, over an almost impassible road, as there was no railroad or waterway to get to Fort Wayne.
His father, John George Noll, one of three brothers, was born in Fort Wayne in 1841. John’s mother, Anna Ford, was born in 1843 in London, England, of Irish parents. She came to America as a young girl and married John George about 1864. The young couple immediately began to raise a family. John George held a number of occupations: he ran a haberdashery, worked as a grocer, and at one time was a bookkeeper on the staff of the comptroller for the city of Fort Wayne. He also served as a city councilman. Anna had her hands full with the care of the babies who arrived almost annually: Mary Elizabeth, Catherine, George, William, little Eugene (who died as a baby), John, and Loretto.
John was born January 25, 1875, in a house on East Lewis Street, next to the house where his father had been born. A week later, baby John, the sixth child of the lively Noll brood, was baptized at the Cathedral church in Fort Wayne, where his own father had been baptized thirty-four years previously.
When little Johnny was a baby, the Noll clan dominated East Lewis Street. Since his grandfather arrived two decades before, the family had grown to the point that, by the 1860s, the Noll name took up nearly half a page of the city directory. John’s grandfather lived in the corner house; and on the other side his two uncles, Martin and Frank, lived with their families. A solidly Catholic family, John’s first cousin Raymond (Frank’s son) also entered the priesthood and became the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. John’s stepsister Evelyn became a Sister of Providence.
Baby John, 1875
When Johnny was only three and a half years old, his mother died of consumption (tuberculosis) at the early age of 32. The youngest of the six surviving Noll children, Loretto, was only five months old at the time. John George knew that his children needed a mother’s care and married his housekeeper within a year, in 1880. His second wife was young Mary Josephine McCleary of Bluffton. Seventeen years younger than her husband, and only seven years older than her oldest stepchild, she was to have a large influence on little Johnny.
Mary had been educated by the Sisters of the Holy Cross at Sacred Heart Academy near Fort Wayne. Earlier a Protestant, she converted to the Catholic Church and became known for her mature faith. It is probable that her Protestant background influenced young John’s later lively interest in explaining the faith to non-Catholics. He had a lifelong interest in conversions and was always happy to bring a new soul into the Church. Mary and John George had eleven other children: Joseph, Effie, Walter, Thomas, Melissa, Gertrude, Muriel, Georgia, Marcelline, Evelyn, and Velma.
Johnny started school at age five, at the Cathedral Elementary School taught by the Brothers of the Holy Cross. At the end of his eighth grade year, when he was thirteen years old, he made his First Communion and was confirmed, May 20, 1888. (First Communions were celebrated later in that era.)
That June, he took a job at the M. Frank Dry Goods store, working from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M., Monday through Saturday, for a salary of two dollars per week.
For some time, young John had been thinking of a vocation to the priesthood. Although several of the others boys in his class had talked abut this lofty ideal, it was an intensely personal subject to John, who kept his thoughts to himself, thinking it was possibly only a youthful dream. For several years he had been a faithful altar server, and as he joined in the center of the Catholic liturgy, he thought more and more about his own vocation. Although he didn’t speak of becoming a priest, others noticed his attitude.
During the summer after his graduation, John often served Mass for Fr. Thomas O’Leary, the assistant at the Cathedral who
