Catholicism. Some of these false prophets claimed to be former priests who revealed the truth about the Catholic religion. Noll might respond with a question only a priest could answer to catch them in a lie. Others went door to door with tracts or mailed out publications filled with vitriol and divisive content, attacking Catholicism or advocating for oppressive and unjust political structures. Noll picked up his pen to rebut them point by point.
Publishing pioneer
The masterpiece of Noll’s apostolate was Our Sunday Visitor, which he founded in 1912. On its first issue Noll expressed its motto: “TO BE PRACTICAL and TO DO GOOD.” Since the apostolate’s founding, one is hard-pressed to find a moral issue of the age which has not been editorialized in its pages. As editor, Noll was intent on allowing the truth to shine through everything that kept souls from Christ, from anti-Catholicism to racism, or birth control to socialism.
Noll gained an international reputation for his pastoral ingenuity and zeal for souls. By the time he turned fifty, he had caught the attention of Rome and was named bishop of his home diocese by Pope Pius XI in 1925. But it seemed that, more than anything else, Noll would have been more content with busying himself with the work of Our Sunday Visitor for the rest of his life.
“A bishopric does not appeal to me,” Noll said in an interview following his appointment as bishop. “But there is one mitigating circumstance, and that is the bishopric to which I have been appointed is Fort Wayne. … And I feel that I can keep closer supervision on my work here in Huntington than I could if I had been appointed to some other diocese.”
Noll maintained an active role in Our Sunday Visitor’s ministry until his final days. Through his witty and personable style and his simple and straightforward writing, Noll became a household name for more than a million American Catholics.
In addition to the weekly newspaper, Noll’s publishing powerhouse also churned out what seemed like endless resources, including pamphlets and books. In 1924, Noll began what became known as The Priest magazine to instruct, assist, and renew parish priests in their mission. And there were Noll’s numerous and enduring catechetical works like the dialogue-style compilation of columns Father Smith Instructs Jackson, which sold millions of copies. Within a few years of his death, Our Sunday Visitor was the largest religious publisher contained under one roof in the world.
“To serve the Church”
Noll’s mission for the products and services of Our Sunday Visitor was simple: “to serve the Church.” When he began Our Sunday Visitor, he invested one dollar in a printing press and charged only one cent apiece for its newspaper. Because Noll knew his work was God’s, so, too, were the profits. And he put the earnings to God’s service. Managed directly by Noll, the profits of the nonprofit organization were used to finance a host of important Catholic endeavors both locally and nationally. This was a time for expansive growth of Catholic institutions throughout the country, and Our Sunday Visitor has left a major mark on its progress. Over the years, more than $75 million has been given away for ecclesial purposes.
Not long before he died, Noll wrote to the priests of his diocese in which he recounted the extensive financial assistance Our Sunday Visitor provided to the Fort Wayne diocese, where funds were applied toward expanding the local church’s educational and charitable efforts and paying off debts of parishes. Beyond that, Our Sunday Visitor financially supported many rural and poorer dioceses throughout the country, especially through Noll’s membership on the board of the Catholic Extension Society. Our Sunday Visitor offered its services to these dioceses to publish their own diocesan newspapers. And it was a major benefactor to the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Victory, who served as catechists in many American missionary dioceses, offering them land and financial assistance.
National leader
Organization and competence were chief among the talents that peers appreciated about Noll. Time and again, he was called on in positions of leadership at the national level. Noll was a key figure in organizing the National Catholic Welfare Conference — the precursor organization to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops — and for many years held the position of its secretary.
As the challenges faced by the Church changed according to the times, Noll’s brother bishops called upon his courage. He was instrumental in forming the national Legion of Decency in 1933, a watchdog and lobbying arm of the American bishops which had the objective of forcing Hollywood filmmakers to produce more wholesome and decent productions. Catholics would have faced pain of mortal sin if they viewed certain films which the Legion screened and found morally objectionable. The Legion offerred their own ratings system. The idea was that filmmakers would want to avoid alienating nearly 20 million potential Catholic viewers.
With the backing of Our Sunday Visitor, Noll was instrumental in the construction of two landmarks in Washington, D.C. The first was the statue of “Christ, Light of the World,” which was initially at the headquarters of the National Catholic Welfare Conference. The idea began with a letter Noll received from a Kansas woman who lamented Christ’s absence amid all the statues and monuments in the nation’s capital. Noll threw his support behind the idea and attracted assistance and funding from the readers of Our Sunday Visitor. The statue’s title is shared with one of the hallmark documents of the Second Vatican Council. Although he died six years before it began, Noll embodied in advance so much of the Council’s work throughout his ministry, particularly in the areas of building up the laity and ecumenism.
Also, although he did not live to see its completion, Noll was a tireless advocate for completion of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, now a minor basilica. Started in 1920, the shrine’s construction came to a halt during the Depression and World War II. It stands today as the largest Catholic church in North America, in no small part thanks to Noll’s interest, support, and vision. Noll is remembered as the “apostle of the National Shrine,” and a bust memorializes him in the shrine’s crypt level.
On behalf of a grateful Church, Pope Pius XII honored Noll in 1953 by granting him the personal title of “archbishop.” Three years later, about one-third of America’s bishops attended his funeral, including two cardinals and then-Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, a Catholic media pioneer who used radio and television as much as Noll used the written word. Bishop Michael Ready, then chairman of the press department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, summed up Noll’s mission “to serve the Church” aptly when he wrote in memoriam: “The whole Church in the United States is greatly indebted to him. The fruits of his great works and zeal greatly enriched our country.”
Introduction
By Scott P. Richert
A few hundred feet from our house, and on the opposite side of North Jefferson Street, stands Saint Mary Catholic Church of Huntington, Indiana. An imposing red brick and stone structure whose congregation has been declining for years, Saint Mary’s might, in any other city and diocese, have been closed some time ago. The second Catholic church in a town of 17,000 souls, Saint Mary’s is only a block away from the first, Saints Peter and Paul, which marked its 175th anniversary in 2018.
Despite its struggles, Saint Mary’s remains open, and the Catholic community of Huntington — including those who belong to Saints Peter and Paul — will never let it close. For Saint Mary’s was the church where, on May 5, 1912, Father John Francis Noll first published the weekly newspaper Our Sunday Visitor, and founded the company of the same name.
Father Noll — later bishop of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, and later still an honorary archbishop in acknowledgment of his contributions to the Catholic Church in the United States and beyond — was, when he first
