Leo Heinrichs, OFM (August 15, 1867 – February 23, 1908) was a religious priest of the Franciscan Order. While assigned to St. Elisabeth of Hungary Church in Denver, Colorado, Heinrichs was fatally shot while distributing communion. The shooter, a Sicilian anarchist, later described his motivations as propaganda of the deed and hatred of Catholicism. Heinrichs was later declared a Servant of God, the first step on the path to sainthood.
Biography
Joseph Heinrichs was born on August 15, 1867, in Oestrich, near Erkelenz, Rhineland, Germany.
Under persecution from Otto von Bismarck's Kulturkampf, the Franciscan province of St. Elizabeth of Hungary fled their monastery in Fulda and settled at St. Bonaventure Friary in Paterson, New Jersey. Although still studying in minor seminary, Joseph Heinrichs emigrated to America with them. On December 4, 1886, Heinrichs entered the Franciscan novitiate at St. Bonaventure and received the monastic name Brother Leo. He took his final vows on December 8, 1890, and was ordained to the priesthood on July 26, 1891.
Between 1891 and 1907, Heinrichs served in various positions in the New York and New Jersey area, including the pastor at Holy Angels parish in Singac (Little Falls), New Jersey. In April 1902, a fire devastated much of Croghan, New York. Heinrichs was sent to rebuild the church. The new St. Stephen's church was dedicated on Thanksgiving Day 1903. To pay down the debt, Heinrich solicited donations in lumber camps. In a letter to a friend dated January 27, 1904, he describes his travels:I was away to the woods in order to collect among the lumbermen. I was away four days each time, and two nights I had to sleep with the men in the camps. The poor fellows have to work so hard early and late and have so little comfort. We drove 100 miles the first trip with the thermometer at zero. The second trip 20 miles one day at 40 degrees below. But covered from head to foot in fur, you don’t seem to mind the cold. You have no idea how nice it is to travel through the woods on a clear day when the wind does not disturb the snow. The winter here is the severest that people remember. We had, more or less since the beginning of December, zero to 40 below, and the snowstorms nearly every other day make the roads almost impassable.
Heinrich was then appointed pastor of the parish of St. Bonaventure in Paterson, New Jersey. While at St. Bonaventure, there was an outbreak of smallpox in Patterson, during which Heinrichs spent many hours tending the sick and dying.
Heinrichs was assigned to St. Elizabeth parish in Denver, Colorado, where he arrived on September 23, 1907. As a pastor, Heinrichs would distribute food to the poor every morning at the friary gate. He had received permission to return to Germany to visit his family after an absence of over twenty-one years; but postponed his journey until after June 7, 1908, when he planned to give First Communion to a class of seventy children. A week before his death, he preached at the Young Ladies' Sodality meeting, remarking, “How sweet it is to die at the feet of Mary.”
Death
Heinrichs normally celebrated the 8 AM Sunday Mass, but on Sunday, February 23, 1908, as he had a meeting scheduled that day, he switched with the priest Wulstan Workman to take the 6 AM "Workingmen's Mass. Among attending Mass was fifty-year-old Giuseppe Alia (aka Giuseppe Guaraccio and Angelo Gabriele), an unemployed shoemaker who had recently emigrated from Avola, Sicily. Alia took Communion at altar rail then flung the Host at the priest and drew a revolver. Seeing the gun, the altar boy tried to warn the priest, but Alia opened fire and shot Fr. Heinrichs in the chest. Fr. Heinrichs first attempted to retrieve the fallen Host and collapsed mortally wounded on the step of the Altar of Our Lady, and died minutes later.
Aftermath
While attempting to flee, Alia was tripped by parishioner E.J. Quigley, a conductor for the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. Off-duty Denver police officer Daniel Crefin (or Cronin) arrested Alia after a brief struggle on the church steps.
At the police station, Alia, who did not speak English, reportedly said through an interpreter, "I went over there because I have a grudge against all priests in general. They are all against the workingman. I went to the communion rail because I could get a better shot. I did not care whether he was a German priest or any other kind of priest... I left Italy three months ago and went first to Central America, and then came to Denver. I am an Anarchist, and I am proud of it. I shot him, and my only regret is that I could not shoot the whole bunch of priests in the church."