“Since a society with this object in view, known as The Catholic Publication Society, has been founded in New York, and has been so far conducted with commendable diligence and with notable success, we therefore consider it to be entirely worthy of the favor and assistance of prelates and priests, as well as of the Catholic people in general.  That the whole country may the better and more certainly share in its advantages, we advise and exhort the bishops to establish branches of this Society in their dioceses, by means of whose officers the publications of the Society may be distributed.  But as without great expenditure of money these societies cannot be kept up and must fail of success, the bishops shall therefore appoint a yearly collection for their support, to be taken up in all the principal churches, or shall make other provision for the same purpose according to their best judgment” (Con.  Plen.  Balt., Sec. 500).

From the Pastoral Letter of the same Council we extract the following: 

“In connection with this matter [the Catholic Press] we earnestly recommend to the faithful of our charge The Catholic Publication Society, lately established in the city of New York by a zealous and devoted clergyman.  Besides the issuing of short tracts with which this Society has begun, and which may be usefully employed to arrest the attention of many whom neither inclination nor leisure will allow to read larger works, this Society contemplates the publication of Catholic books, according as circumstances may permit and the interests of religion appear to require.  From the judgment and good taste evinced in the composition and selection of such tracts and books as have already been issued by this Society, we are encouraged to hope that it will be eminently effective in making known the truths of our holy religion, and dispelling the prejudices which are mainly owing to want of information on the part of so many of our fellow-citizens.  For this it is necessary that a generous co-operation be given both by clergy and laity to the undertaking, which is second to none in importance among the subsidiary aids which the inventions of modern times supply to our ministry for the diffusion of Catholic truth.”

How elated Father Hecker was by this action of the Council, and how over-sanguine, as the event proved, of the future of the Society, is shown by the following extracts from letters to a friend: 

“My efforts in the recent Council were completely successful, owing to the many prayers offered to God—­yours not the least.  Could you have seen the letters from different quarters, from good pious nuns, and persons loving and serving and fearing God in the world, written to me, and their writers all praying and doing works of mercy and mortification for the purposes I had in view, you could not wonder at my success.  God did it.  What is more, I was fully conscious of the fact, and it is this that made my great joy.