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...
