Martyr of the Holy Eucharist
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Servant Of God Father Leo Heinrichs The clear gaze of a modern St. Francis “The eyes are the mirror of the soul.” (Denver Public Library, Western History Department ) MARTYR OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST By Rev. William Jenkins Fr. Leo Heinrichs and Saint Therese's Communion Rail Fr. Leo Heinrichs knelt down before the Blessed bells. The swarthy drifter, recently arrived in Denver, Sacrament in his parish church to prepare for Sunday arose from his boarding house bed. He dressed quickly Mass. At 5:30 a.m. on February 23rd, the new pastor and quietly. His final preparations before leaving the found Saint Elizabeth's Church in Denver, Colorado, room were to throw over himself his bulky winter coat still shrouded in the chill darkness of a winter's night, and to tuck into the band of his trousers the loaded illuminated by the flickering of the parishioners' votive pistol with which he had been practicing for months. candles. Slowly the faithful began to file into the Thus attired and armed, he stepped out into the crisp tranquil solemnity of Saint Elizabeth's from the still pre-dawn darkness and followed the peals of the bells to sleeping street and take their places in the pews. The Saint Elizabeth's Church. There he signed himself with church bells rang to announce the Mass that would the holy water and made his way to the third pew from soon begin with the Franciscan priest's sign of the the front on the Gospel side - near the pulpit where he cross. thought Fr. Leo would soon be preaching. Several blocks away, Giuseppe Alio suddenly None of the three hundred or so Catho- awoke to the sound of tolling church Reprinted from the Roman Catholic September 1989 Vol. XI No. 8 Stpiusvchapel.org 1 lics at the Mass seemed to pay much attention to was conscious. When Father Wulstan said: the swart little stranger in the third pew. He stood "Brother, I am giving you the last sacraments," and sat and knelt with everyone else. He even went Father Leo did not answer him. He was smiling, up with the others to receive Holy Communion. At and after the doctor arrived I left, for I heard him the rail, Alio knelt as Fr. Leo approached with the say the father was dead. servers holding candles on either side of the "I then ran to my home at 1112 Eleventh Street, Blessed Sacrament. What happened next is best for I could not bear to see him lying on the altar told by young Joseph Hines, one of the lads who dead." was serving Mass that morning, as reported by The FR. WULSTAN ANOINTS HIS DYING Denver Post on February 24, 1908: SUPERIOR "I was standing on one side of Fr. Leo and Joe Father Wulstan Workman was one of the Miller was on the other. I was closer to him and Franciscan priests assigned to serve Saint had my eyes on the people to whom he was giving Elizabeth's under Father Leo. It was Father Communion. I saw this man come from his seat, Wulstan who was originally scheduled to offer the about the third row from the pulpit, and kneel 6:00 a.m. Mass that Sunday. As it happened, Fr. down at the rail. He had his arms crossed when I Wulstan was there not to offer Mass but to anoint first saw him kneel. He took the sacred Host from the dying celebrant of that Mass, his friend and Father, I think, but whether he finished or not I superior. He describes the scene: could not say positively. I turned away for a "I was to say that Mass, but last night Brother minute, and when I looked at him again I saw a Leo came to me and said he would say the 6 gun in his hand. o'clock Mass, and I could say a later one. He told "Quickly I stepped up to Father Leo and me this just before we retired Saturday night. I did grabbing his robe I said: 'Look out, Father!' He not see him again until I found him on the floor turned his head in my direction, but did not say a dying. word. I tried to pull him away, for I almost knew "I was upstairs in the church when I heard a he was going to be shot. I was too late, though, for deadened report. I started down. I met young just as his head was turned that man rose to his Joseph and he told me what had happened. I rushed feet. He pointed the gun at the father's breast and to the brother's side and, kneeling over him, I said: pulled the trigger. Father Leo fell back to the floor, 'Brother, I am giving you the last sacraments.' He directly in front of the statue of Virgin Mary. A said nothing, but I think he was conscious. I could man by the name of Frederick Fisher caught him see his lips, which seemed to bear a smile, murmur and sort of broke his fall. something. I could not hear what he was saying, "I placed the candle on the altar and leaned but I think it was his dying prayer. over the father, saying: 'Aren't you shot, Father?' "Before I had finished giving him the last "He raised himself up a little and picked up two sacrament the police surgeon had reached his side. of the sacred Hosts, placing them in the chalice, He said the brother was dead. then lay down again. His lips moved for a few "After I had become more composed I thought minutes, I suppose in a dying prayer, and then all of what Brother Leo had told me the night before. I was silent. knew then that had he not changed his mind I "I ran upstairs and got Father Wulstan, who would have been killed and he would be alive now. came down and, bending over the dying father, There is but one way to solve the affair that I can administered the last sacrament. Father did not say see, and that is that God chose the better man." a word, but still I think he Stpiusvchapel.org 2 (from The Denver Post, Feb. 24,1908) While the scene described by Father Wulstan was unfolding in the sanctuary, the gunman was making his way down the center aisle of the church, waving his revolver and gesticulating wildly. He finally gained the door of the church when he was seized by an off-duty policeman, Daniel Cronin, who had been assisting at Mass. After a struggle in which the assassin fell down the church steps, he was hustled into a nearby carriage and quickly sped away from the gathering crowd toward the police station. Over the next several days while in police custody, Alio gave a series of stories. At first he insisted that the shooting was an accident. He told police he had shot at the silver ciborium in self defense because the Host had burned his mouth! He then asserted he was a lone assassin who had sought to kill a priest in carrying out a personal vendetta. But in his final story he claimed he was the agent of a secret society of anarchists who had sent him on a mission to murder several Catholic priests. ANARCHIST IN EXILE: A DEATH PACT Giuseppe Alio had been born in Avolo, Sicily, in 1857. He lived a simple life as a cobbler with his wife and three children, apparently content with his Catholic religion until he was thirty-eight years old. One Easter Sunday in his home town, his life changed drastically. News reports differ as to what actually happened. Some say that Alio followed the Easter procession to his parish church, where he heard a priest condemn the socialist agitation and the riots that had recently broken out there, threatening the anarchists with hellfire. Others report that Alio had joined a protestant group and was denounced by the parish priest, so that his wife left him. Still others have it that Alio himself led an assault on the Easter procession and was marked in the territory as an anarchist, so that he had to leave Father Lso Hemvici/is as a yawig religious his homeland for exile (Denver Public Library, Western History Department) Stpiusvchapel.org 3 abroad. In any case, Alio did in fact leave Italy and to get a look at the priests. He worshiped with the sought refuge in Buenos Aires. various congregations, knelt with those who knelt The true story seems to be that Alio had fallen and stole furtive glances at the priests. He saw no in with a sect of anarchists and socialists in Sicily. priest who remotely resembled the man he had He and his friends became so infamous as been sent to kill, and no priest with a big white scar troublemakers and agitators that they feared arrest on the side of his head." and all fled the area, regrouping in Buenos Aires. A Finally, one Sunday in late January, he heard young priest had courageously and successfully the sound of Saint Elizabeth's church bells, and the opposed their socialist propaganda in Italy, and in thought struck him that perhaps there he might find their South American exile they determined to his prey. After visiting the church on the following assassinate him and a number of other priests who several Sundays he became convinced that the had withstood them.