Augustine Hewit

Augustine Francis Hewit (Fairfield, Connecticut, U.S.A., 27 November 1820 – New York, 3 July 1897) was an American Redemptorist priest, and second Superior General of the Paulist Fathers.

His father was Rev. Nathaniel Hewit, D.D., a prominent Congregationalist minister; and his mother, Rebecca Hillhouse Hewit, was a daughter of James Hillhouse, United States Senator from Connecticut. He was educated at the Fairfield public school, Phillips Andover Academy, and Amherst College, from which he was graduated in 1839.

Brought up a Protestant, he was a convinced Christian only after graduation. Shortly after his conversion he began the study of theology at the Congregationalist seminary at East Windsor, Connecticut. Scarcely had he finished its prescribed course and been licensed to preach, he entered the Episcopal Church. The Oxford Movement in that Church had already extended to America, and Hewit became one of its most ardent followers. He received the Anglican order of deacon in 1844, but with the expressed condition that he might interpret the Thirty-nine Articles in the sense of Tract 90. The conversion of John Henry Newman in 1845 gradually unsettled his belief in the validity of the claims of Anglicanism, and he joined the Catholic Church, 25 March, 1846. He then studied Catholic theology privately under the direction of Patrick N. Lynch, afterwards Bishop of Charleston, and James A. Corcoran, subsequently professor at Overbrook Seminary, Philadelphia. He was ordained priest on the first anniversary of his profession of the faith by Ignatius A. Reynolds, Bishop of Charleston. He then became a teacher in a collegiate institute founded by Bishop England at Charleston, and assisted Bishop Reynolds in the compilation of Bishop England's works for publication. This occupation called him to Baltimore and Philadelphia, where he resided with Bishop Francis Kenrick and became acquainted with John Nepomucen Neumann. Here he was attracted to the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, which he entered in 1849. He made his religious profession 28 November, 1850.

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