- ST.
NORBERT ABBEY
- DE
PERE, WISCONSIN, U.S.A.
- Rev.
Dominic H. Hockers, O. Praem.
- b. Monday, Feb. 27,
1905 – d. Saturday, Feb. 12, 1983
Our
brother Dominic "Dom" Hockers
was born in DePere in 1905. After graduating from
St.
Norbert High and a year at the college, he joined the Order in 1924.
In
1926, Dom was sent as a frat to begin studies at the Gregorianum in
Rome
. He was solemnly professed by Abbot
Heylen at Tongerlo Abbey in 1929 and received his S.T.D. from the Gregorianum in
1930, after which he joined the college faculty.
From
1931 through 1935 he functioned as master of novices and in 1936 was transferred
to Southeast Catholic to teach theology to the frats who were teaching there.
Returning to the abbey in 1938, he began a long career of teaching dogma,
moral, scripture and canon law to the frats, as well as classes at the college
and at
Alverno
College
. He was especially remembered for
his visual aids in distinguishing the natural from the supernatural realms, his
test questions from the footnotes to make sure that everyone was reading the
Latin textbooks, and his skipping over pages of canons, which he deemed
unimportant. No questions from
outside the texts of Tanquerey and Noldin were permitted. “You aren’t
supposed to think,” he’d say, “just write what’s in the text!” Tough
as he was, beneath it all was a gentle, spiritual man who cared about others.
In
1959 Dom became pastor of
St. Louis
in Dykesville and established a grade school there.
In 1971 he took over the pastorship of St. Peter’s in
Lincoln
. After
his retirement to the abbey in 1975, he died on
Saturday, February 12, 1983 at the age of 77.
