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I Am Baptized

by Ammon Hennacy

Ammon Hennacy was baptized into the Catholic Church on November 17, 1952 with Dorothy Day as his godmother. He later renounced the Catholic Church, although not the radical Christianity which led him to the Catholic Worker. He died in 1970. This essay is excerpted from The Book of Ammon (Fortkamp/Rose Hill, 1994) and is reproduced with permission from the publisher.


Dorothy had not planned to be in Chicago, but suddenly a meeting was arranged, and she wrote to me in Cleveland that she would be there November 7. I had planned to be there about that time also and was glad to meet her and tell her of the progress of my reading and thinking and praying. I had planned to be in Hutchinson, Minnesota, to see Father Casey around the middle of the month but was two days late getting there. Dorothy had not known just when she would speak there, but she arrived a few minutes after I came, not knowing I was there.

In conversation, I asked Father Casey what was the first thing to do when you joined the church. He said it was to be baptized. I asked him how much you had to know to be baptized. He replied that no Catholic really ever understood everything as he should and had to accept much on faith. There would always be some ideas for each of us that would remain a holy "mystery." He and Dorothy spoke of the Ethiopian who wanted to be baptized right away, while there was the opportunity. I read the Catechism and the Creed and said I believed it all, although there were some points that needed to be cleared up. Father Casey felt that I had a better understanding than many who were born Catholics or who were converts. In studying the Catechism I asked him about the question of obeying parents and from which it follows that we should obey civil laws. We agreed that if a Catholic in conscience felt that it was a sin to register for the draft, pay taxes for war, and otherwise go against the Sermon on the Mount, then that person was bound to disobey man and, as St. Peter did when arrested twice for breaking the law and speaking the name of Jesus on the street, answer, "We should obey God rather than man." It would not seem logical that, by saying "Render unto Caesar," which meant giving taxes to kill in war, to spread hatred and lies about the enemy, to return evil for evil, that Jesus would nullify all of his Sermon on the Mount.

When the Catechism came to the commandment "Thou shalt not kill," it was asked when it was permitted to kill. The answer was, "in a just war, in capital punishment, and in self-defense." While this might be the rule for those who follow the old eye-for-an-eye teaching of Moses, we felt that a Christian who was led by the Sermon on the Mount could do none of these things. Today there is no "just war," for civilians are being bombed, and even by the regular rules of a just war the idea of war is out. Many states and countries do not have capital punishment and murder is no more prevalent there. Despite the fact that I live in a state and a country where it is the law, I am not called upon to be an executioner or a prison guard. If I pay taxes to support such a government I am denying Christ and am a part of returning evil for evil instead of returning good for evil. And of course when it comes to defending oneself by violence, I have already defended myself in a better way when man locked me up with a knife -- and a person should not go backwards and take up the sword. So to one who tries to practice the Counsels of Perfection, to do less is to follow Christ that much less. Therefore to be a better Christian Anarchist and a better Catholic is perfectly logical and within the theological setup of the church.

Dorothy had said that she would be my godmother when I was baptized, and Bob Ludlow would be godfather by proxy since he was in New York. That evening Dorothy spoke in the church basement to Father Casey's people, and I was asked to say a few words. When a man asked me about "Render unto Caesar," Dorothy spoke up before I got my breath saying, "The less of Caesar's you have, the less you have to render." After the meeting was over, Dorothy, Father Casey, and I meditated and prayed for a time in the church, and then, after further explanation as to the meaning of baptism, I was baptized. It was all very sacred and solemn. I saw the water, salt, oil -- necessary parts of nature -- were linked with my entry into the church, and as Dorothy had told me once, sensing my objection to holy water, "All water is holy; it makes corn grown for the Hopi."

Later that night I made my first confession to Father Case. He encouraged me in my faith, adjured me to keep up my radicalism, and told me that he had baptized me "Ammon St. John the Baptist Hennacy." I did not know that a new name was given for the New Life in Christ. Later I asked him if that meant I was to have my head cut off like John the Baptist. He inferred such might take place and be performed by a cardinal, because such was the history of many true rebels.

In traveling around I had lost track of the day of the month. I found that I had been baptized on November 17, my mother's birthday and the Feast of St. Gregory the Wonderworker. Both Dorothy and Father Casey said I would have to do more than move mountains.