Franciscan Spirituality Center
920 Market Street
La Crosse, WI 54601

Steve Spilde: My name is Steve Spilde. Today I’m here with Vince Hatt, the longtime director of the Franciscan Spirituality Center. Tell me about your work at the Spirituality Center, and maybe specifically your understanding of what the Spirituality Center is all about.

Vince Hatt: I started out as basically the Spiritual Director. From there I eventually became Director of the Spiritual Director and Preparation Program, and I eventually became Director. My purpose, I think – one of the main ones, anyway – was to provide a safe place for people to explore the big questions of life. It gave me the most joy when I saw people ask themselves the hard questions and go deeper.

Steve: Tell me how you came to the Franciscan Spirituality Center.

Vince: I was a priest in Iowa for 27 years. I resigned in 1993. I called Mary Katherine to basically cancel during a retreat because I was no longer going to be a priest, and she said, ‘Would you like to work here?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ She said, ‘Well, that’s good.’ Then I said, ‘How do I apply?’ She said, ‘You’re the only applicant.’ So I resigned on August 15th, 1993 and started here September 7th, 1993. I worked here until I retired.

Steve: We’re going to circle back to that, how you ended up here and how you resigned from the priesthood. But I want to find out how you entered the priesthood in the first place. Let’s kind of rewind the tape to the beginning of your life. Tell me who Vince was as a young boy, and how you ended up becoming a priest.

Vince: As a young boy, my purpose was to be successful. I not only wanted to be a good student, I wanted to be valedictorian of the class.

Steve: Did you succeed?

Vince: Yes, of course. When I put my energy into something, it was focused. Then I not only wanted to be the best long-distance runner my school, I wanted to be the best in the conference. My focus was always on succeeding. Another question that arose pretty early is, what is my purpose? I’m a goal-setter, so what’s my purpose? On October 4th, 1957, I was on my way to a cross country meet in Ames, Iowa, and [there] was breaking news. They didn’t use that term as frequently as they do now, but the breaking news was that the Russians had sent up the first space satellite, Sputnik, and then right away I knew my purpose was to catch up with the Russians in space. Because of my record, I was offered a full-ride scholarship to Notre Dame in physics and math. I thought that was my purpose. I didn’t particularly enjoy it, but you know, what am I supposed to do? Well, that was the environment, so I did that until the third year. I was taking a course called “Quantum Mechanics,” and about halfway through the course I thought, ‘You know, maybe someone else can help the United States catch up with the Russians in space.’ I pulled out of that, and then the last year at Notre Dame I was thinking about, what was my purpose? I decided the church needs priests [and] somebody’s got to do it. I was always kind of the guy [who said], ‘Somebody’s got to do it. I would.’ That had good results in some areas, like when I was in high school [and] I got elected to any position, usually I didn’t volunteer. They would come to me and I would say, ‘Somebody’s got to do it.’ That was kind of the person I was, and that’s how I ended up a priest.

Steve: What was your experience in the church when you were young?

Vince: When I was young, I grew up in an Italian family and the church was very important. I would go to church all the time with my grandparents and my parents. I think my first purpose in the church was to get to heaven. That was my spirituality. That worked pretty well until I hit adolescence. Then I thought, ‘This is not so easy.’ Pretty much the whole thing was getting to heaven.

Steve: What was your understanding of how you would get to heaven from that age?

Vince: Keep all the rules – excel in them, of course. I was going to be the best rule keeper. I’ve always had an intense desire to succeed. That was my drivenness.

Steve: What was your image of God at, say, 15 years?

Vince: God sets the rules. If I keep them, I get eternal bliss. That was the deal. I was very practical. It might be a struggle, but life only lasts so many years and heaven is forever.

Steve: As a young man becoming a priest, at that point had your view of God changed?

Vince: Not a whole lot. I think I was evolving into it’s more a matter of loving than keeping the rules. In fact, the basic rule was loving God above all, and your neighbor as yourself. It kind of took the emphasis off of keeping the rules to being a loving person.

Steve: How was it for you as a priest.

Vince: It had its plusses and minuses. The plusses included the opportunity to be part of people’s lives at critical junctures in their lives, and they were forever grateful. If you were there when a parent died, the kids would never forget it. They would bring it up years later. The hard part was it was very isolating. I would be in a parish for six years, and then I would rip it all up and end those relationships and go start over in another place. It was exciting at first – a new challenge – but then after 20 years it was like, ‘Man, this is lonely.’ That’s when I started to say, ‘Maybe I have some other options.’ I didn’t like being the one who had, in middle management, had to deliver the message to the folks about stuff I really wasn’t that enthused about. It took me a lot longer to leave than to enter. I decided to be a priest in a couple of years. The process of leaving took about 10 years from the first rumblings to finally saying I am leaving.

Steve: Was your understanding of God shifting during that time of rumbling?

Vince: Yeah. I came to the conclusion that my lifetime commitment was to God as I understood God [and] not to the church. So I could leave the priesthood and still be faithful to God. That was the big struggle originally. I was in the era when priests were leaving. The ones who remained had more to do. I had certain friendships that were originating through my priesthood. It was renegotiating important relationships as a lay person. It was hard, but finally, after three years of depression, I thought I had to do it. I would not be at peace until I did.

Steve: What was your understanding of spirituality at that time if someone had asked you, what is spirituality? What would have been your answer?

Vince: Spirituality was tied up with your relationship with God at that time. Now I would say spirituality is the lived experience of your values. So in that format, everyone has a spirituality. If the lived experience of your values is to make a lot of money, that’s your spirituality. Everybody has a spirituality. Now, the people I saw here and other places, that view of spirituality was bankrupt. There are bigger things, bigger questions, like, who am I? What is my purpose? How am I to live? Those are the big questions. When I was younger, the emphasis was on, what is my purpose? Now, as it evolved, the question more was, who am I – really? That became a lot more important because if I knew who I was, I presumed the purpose would become clearer at how I was to live became clearer.

Steve: If you had to rewind the tape of your life, what decisions might you have done differently or perhaps done sooner?

Vince: I believe as Richard Rohr entitled the book: Everything Belongs. It’s all part of the story. Just as Jacob wrestled with God all night and ended up with a damaged hip, in the struggle I’ve learned a lot about me. So any of the struggles belong, and they took as long as they took. Jacob wrestled with God because he sought a blessing. He wanted to be blessed. I think my wrestling with God meaning purpose needed to happen for me to be open to a blessing. It all belongs. I rewind my life, and I don’t say, ‘I wish I’d made another decision.’ I rewind my life and say, ‘Isn’t this interesting? This is really fascinating. What a story. I couldn’t have written a plot if I tried.’ And actually, I tried. I tried to write the plot. I was doing an RCA retreat. These are people interested in becoming a Catholic. I had 16 people there. Most of them were UW-L students. I said, ‘When I went off to Notre Dame to catch up with the Russians in space at your age, if you would have told me at the age of 80 you’ll be leading a retreat for college people who are considering becoming Christian or Catholic, I’d have said, what are you smoking?’ That’s what I would have said. I didn’t plan it, but Saturday I felt like, I’m just where I belong. This is where I belong, and there’s no better feeling than that because at different times in life I would sit in my chair and say, ‘I don’t know where I belong, but it’s not here.’

Steve: At this point in your life, how would you describe God?

Vince: God is a sacred presence that’s always there. I cannot say specifically a description of God because that would be to know the essence of God, which is way above my pay grade. But God, at the deepest part of myself, is there. And that would be my best guess right now. When people ask me questions, my usual statement or assumption is, what is my best guess right now?

Steve: A couple of things I want to ask you. One, you have a great story about sorting through the voices in your head, particularly the voice of anxiety, which is a voice you’re well familiar with.

Vince: I believe holiness is wholeness. You need to love every part of yourself, or else you cut it off and you’re not whole. You’re fragmented and less than you are. I named that part of me, that drive for success, ‘Successful Sam.’ I’m the chairman of a board of several people. There is ‘Needless Ned.’ There’s ‘Special Whatever.’ When I come to a decision now that’s kind of confusing, I have to say to ‘Success