Born: 19 December 1826, Ringcurran, Kinsale, County Cork
Entered: 01 September 1860, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Died: 20 March 1865, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)

Born: 24 October 1912, Philadelphia PA, USA
Entered: 07 September 1931, St Andrew on Hudson NY, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboiracensis Province (MARNEB)
Ordained: 18 June 1944
Professed: 02 February 1949
Died: 16 September 1991, Baltimore MD, USA - Philippine Province (PHI)

by 1963 came to Wah Yan Hong Kong (HIB) working 1962-1967

◆ Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong 1926-2000, by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung PhD, Wonder Press Company 2013 ISBN 978 9881223814 :

Note from Herbert Dargan Entry
He freed Fr John Collins for fulltime social work, set up “Concilium” with Frs Ted Collins, John Foley and Walter Hogan. he also set up CMAC in 1963. He sent Fr John F Jones for special training in Marriage Life. He also sent Fr John Russell to Rome for training in Canon Law. he was involved with rehabilitation of discharged prisoners and he visited prisons.

Born 31 December 1835, Nenagh, Co Tipperary
Entered 28 March 1852, Montréal, Québec, Canada - Franciae Province (FRA)
Professed 02 February 1866
Died 28 November 1903, St Andrew on Hudson, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEV)

Born: 02 February 1816, Golden, County Tipperary
Entered: 18 August 1847, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Professed: 15 August 1858
Died: 01 July 1897, Holy Cross College, Worcester, MA, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 02 June 1924, Toureen, Ballysimon, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1943, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1957, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1961, Holy Spirit Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong
Died: 26 July 1996, Caritas Christi Hospice - Australiae Province (ASL)

Part of the Newman College, Parkville, Melbourne, Australia community at the time of death

Transcribed HIB to HK : 03 December 1966; HK to ASL : 1984

by 1952 at Hong Kong - Regency
by 1965 at Rome, Italy (ROM) assisting Procurator General
by 1966 at Regis College, Willowdale (CAN S) teaching
by 1967 at Heythrop, Oxford (ANG) teaching

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Arnie Hogan received his secondary education at the Sacred Heart College, Limerick, and entered the Society in Ireland, 7 September 1943. Following his noviciate he studied arts at the National University of Ireland. After philosophy at Tullabeg, 1948-51, regency in Hong Kong, 1951-54 and theology at Milltown Park, Dublin, 1954-58, he lectured on moral theology and canon the Regional Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong, 1959-60, followed by a year lecturing at Milltown Park, Dublin. While in Hong Kong he learnt Cantonese and also gave retreats.
Hogan completed graduate studies in theology (STD) at the Gregorian University, Rome. 1962-65. For the rest of his life he lectured in moral theology around the world: Regis College Willowdale, Canada, 1965-66; Heythrop College, London, 1966-68; Boston College, USA, 1968-69; Weston School of Theology (living at John Lafarge House), Cambridge, Mass, 1969-73; and St Joseph Centre. Charlestown Mass. 1973-75.
He came to Australia in 1975, was transferred to the Australian province in 1984, and lectured until his death at the Jesuit Theological College, Parkville and the Yarra Theological Union. He worked at the National Pastoral Institute in Melbourne and gave many talks to parish and school groups around the country. He warmly entered into the ecumenical environment at the United Faculty of Theology.
In community he was a breath of fresh air enthusiastic for hospitality and celebration. He was a traditional religious who loved to be generous. At the same time he was shy and insecure which led to some abrasive and complaining ways. He was easily hurt and would withdraw for a time
As a lecturer, Hogan showed warmth, humour, precision and provocation. He gave many lectures on moral questions to groups in parishes around Australia, and was much appreciated for his liberal understanding of current moral issues. He was a colourful man, full of charm and good company. He could show compassion to anyone in difficulties, and was most helpful in sharing his theological insights. He was the author of a book on moral theology and of a number of articles, which enshrined some of his wit and wisdom. His colleagues at the Melbourne College of Divinity said that they would miss “the twinkle in his eyes, his impish personality, his outstanding scholarship and Christian grace”.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Born diocese of Cashel
◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 92 : August 1996

Obituary
Fr Arnold Hogan (1924-1996) - Australian Province

1924: Born in Limerick
1943: Entered the Society Arts course at National University of Ireland
1945 - 1948: Philosophy at St. Stanislaus College, Tullabeg
1948 - 1951: Regency in Hong Kong (Language Studies and teaching) at Wah Yan College
1954 - 1958: Theology at Milltown Park
31st July 1957: Ordained a Priest
1958 - 1959: Tertianship at Rathfarnham Castle
1959 - 1960: Lectured on Moral Theology and Canon Law at Regional Seminary, Aberdeen, Hong Kong.
1961 - 1962: Lectured on Moral Theology at Milltown Park, Dublin
1962 - 1965: Post graduate studies at Gregorian University, Rome
1965 - 1966: Lectured at Regis College, Willowdale, Canada
1966 - 1968: Lectured at Heythrop College, England
1968 - 1969: Lectured on Moral Theology at Jesuit Theological College, Parkville and Yarra Theological Union
1984 : Transcribed into Australian Province
26th July 1996: Died at Caritas Christi, Australia,

Michael Paul Gallagher happened to be staying in the Jesuit Theological College, Melbourne, when Fr. Arnie Hogan was closer to death than anyone realized. Michael Paul sent us the following memoir:

“Arnie seemed particularly glad to see a Jesuit from home, and in his typically blunt way did not hide the fact that death was close. The doctor had told him not to take any courses for the coming semester. He had just finished grading various essays from the previous session. ‘72 is not a bad innings’, he told me more than once. He was delighted that his book on moral theology had just sold out its first printing.

A few days before I was due to leave I asked Arnie if he would like to come out with me for a meal in his favourite Italian restaurant. At first he said he would not be up to it; then one evening he suddenly decided that we would risk it and off we went (getting a scholastic to give us a lift). Arnie was obviously well known at Cafè Roma: the Sicilian cook and his Australian wife had a great welcome for him and prepared the food just as he wanted. I think he enjoyed himself immensely, and at the end of the evening the lady of the house insisted on driving us home. She knew she might never see him there again.

A day or two later Arnie was due to go into hospital and I accompanied him. It was a somewhat large and impersonal place, and I felt for him as he went through the cold admission procedures and was brought to his ward. He had a good view of the city from his bed, When it was time for me to go, Arnie said to me (knowing that I was to return to the Gregorian for the first semester): ‘every blessing on the Eternal City’. I replied ‘the same to you Arnie, in another sense’. It was a goodbye that I recall with gratitude, as I remember all those days with him, and his tough courage and faith.
May he rest in peace”.

Born: 30 October 1797, Garristown, County Dublin
Entered: 10 October 1831, St Louis MO, USA - Missourian Province (MIS)
Professed: 15 August 1844
Died: 13 December 1872, Florissant, MO, USA - Missourian Province (MIS)

Born: 01 January 1825, Taghmon, County Wexford
Entered: 26 October 1857, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Professed: 15 August 1868
Died: 15 September 1911, St Louis University, St Louis, MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Born: 15 January 1831, Bray, County Wicklow
Entered: 12 January 1859, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Professed: 02 February 1869
Died: 20 September 1914, Woodstock College, MD, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 21 June 1854, Clonmellon, County Meath
Entered: 04 November 1882, Forissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Ordained: 31 July 1892, St Francis Xavier Gardiner Street, Dublin
Professed: 02 February 1900
Died: 30 December 1914, St Charles College, Grand Côteau LA, USA - Neo-Aurelianensis Province (NOR)

Ent HIB 22 September 1873 at Milltown LEFT 1874 - but joined NOR in 1882

by 1890 came to Milltown (HIB) studying as (NOR) and is in 1890 NOR CAT as Michael A Higgins same DOB

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - LEFT Society from illness; RE ENTERED in New Orleans Province

Born: 23 December 1839, Carlow, County Carlow
Entered: 15 July 1854, St Stanislaus, Florissant MO, USA - Missourianae Province (MIS)
Ordained: 20 June 1869, Sulpitian Seminary, Baltimore MD, USA
Final Vows: 02 February 1873
Died: 04 December 1902, St Xavier College, Cincinnati OH, USA - - Missourianae Province (MIS)

Provincial of Missouri Province (MIS) from 01 January 1879 to 04 May 1882

◆ Woodstock Letters SJ : Vol 32, Number 1
Obituary

“Father Edward A Higgins SJ” p129
The Missouri Province lost one of its most distinguished members by the death of Father Edward A Higgins on Dec 4th 1902 at St Xavier College, Cincinnati. As an exact observer of religious discipline. as a superior entrusted with the most important offices, and as the wielder of a trenchant pen in controversy, Father Higgins' life work deserves more than a passing notice.

Edward A Higgins was born at Carlow, County Carlow, Ireland on Dec 23rd, 1839. When he was ten years of age his parents emigrated to the United States, reaching New Orleans in 1849. They had left Ireland owing to the great famine in that country, but encountered a greater peril in New Orleans as the yellow fever was then raging there. As a consequence they soon moved to Louisville, Ky. The Jesuits of Missouri had begun in 1849 the St Aloysius Free School at Louisvile, which in 1850 was styled St Aloysius College. This school was attended by young Edward, who soon attracted the notice of his teachers by his aptitude and diligence. As a result of the interest thus awakened in him, he was admitted as a boarder at St Joseph's College, Bardstown, Ky, in 1852. With the advice of our Fathers, Edward's parents removed to Bardstown in 1854, where they spent the remainder of their lives. They were exemplary Catholics, and no doubt their edifying conduct had a strong influence in turning the thoughts of their gifted son towards a religious career, At Bardstown College Edward Higgins was very successful in his classes. In 1853 the first premium for diligence was awarded to him, and a majority vote of his fellow students likewise conferred upon him the first distinction for good conduct. During his two years at college, the records show that Edward received twelve first premiums in various branches.

He was admitted as a novice at St Stanislaus Novitiate, Florissant, Mo, July 15th 1854, not having as yet completed the fifteenth year of his age. The then Master of Novices, Father Gleizal, noticed the acuteness and grasp of mind of the young novice, in the clear and concise way in which he summed up the community instructions of which he had taken notes. After two years of Novitiate, and one of Juniorate, Mr Higgins was sent to teach in Cincinnati in 1858. St Xavier College had notably declined after the closing of the boarding school, and it was owing to the efforts of the young prefect of discipline, Mr Higgins, that successful results were obtained in the path of reform. He began his philosophy in the autumn of 1859 under Fr F X Wippem at the old scholasticate (known also as the “College Farm”), but as this place was discontinued as a house of studies in 1860, Mr Higgins was sent East to complete his course, spending two years at Boston, Mass. Returning then to the Missouri Province, he was placed at Cincinnati during part of the trying period of the Civil War. He never gave the boys the slightest indication of sympathy with either North or South, though others were not so prudent in guarding their tongue. His strong character, kindness and especially remarkable self-control displayed on many trying occasions gained for him the respect and entire submission of the students. From Cincinnati he proceeded to St Louis University where be taught three years more. In 1867 he began his theology at Georgetown, DC, under Father, afterwards Cardinal, Mazzella and Father Maldonado. Having received the Holy Priesthood, on June 30th, 1869 from Archbishop Spalding, in the chapel of the Sulpitian Seminary at Baltimore, he spent his fourth year of theology at Woodstock, Md. After being professor of rhetoric in St Louis for one year, Father Higgins was sent to his tertianship at Frederick, Md. He made his solemn profession, Feb. 2nd, 1873. The following year he was pastor of the College Church in St Louis. His superiors had discerned in Father Higgins what was believed to be an extraordinary talent for governing, and hence on Oct 1st, 1874 be was proclaimed Rector of Cincinnati, an office which he held till January 1st 1879. On the latter date he was made Provincial of Missouri, though owing to the failing health of the Provincial, Fr Thomas O'Neil, he had it seems for some time before acted as Vice-Provincial. He remained Provincial till May 4th 1882. As a superior, all his brethren credited Father Higgins with being··impartially just, and if at times he seemed to some rather severe in word or manner, it was in enforcing what be conceived to be matter of important duty. Some inferred from his general demeanor that he was haughty, but his prompt and cheerful obedience in all cases, when himself a subordinate, manifested a humility inconsistent with a dominant pride. After leaving the Provincialship, he was destined again to thrice fill the office of governing a college - in Cincinnati, Chicago and St Mary's, Kansas. His ability was also brought into requisition at two Congregations of the Society; for he was sent as delegate from Missouri to the General Congregation that elected Father Martin in 1892, and likewise in 1886 as Procurator of Missouri to the Congregation of Procurators. The years not spent by Father Higgins as Superior, were devoted to the pastorate or to teaching. Neither of these duties, however, so occupied his attention as to prevent him from writing many a telling article for publication. Though not specially fitted by nature, perhaps, for that part of the pastoral office which consists in entering into the humble and intimate details of the parishioners' joys and sorrows, yet on the other hand, Father Higgins displayed great zeal for the beauty of the House of the Lord as several of our churches testify. He was zealous also in fostering church music of a high order. Possessed himself of no mean knowledge of music, he delighted to join in the chanting of the Holy Week offices, and in giving aid and countenance to the parochial choirs.. As a preacher, Father Higgins was more distinguished for his· matter than for his manner. His sermons and lectures showed strength and solidity, but he did not possess, in a high degree, the external graces of eloquence. His delivery was noticeably slow, dignified and cold, and hence he was not a very attractive speaker.

The development and illustrations of his public pronouncements were however always clear and striking, and often as elegant as they were forceful. In his writings for the press, which were generally controversial, forcible and convincing, he was often aggressive and was occasionally rather acrimonious in style. In the great battle for the freedom of private schools or against unwarranted State interference in Illinois and Wisconsin, Father Higgins' pen did yeoman's service. It was not, however, by teaching and writing alone that Father Higgins advanced the cause of education. He was a prominent and potent figure at the Federation of Catholic Colleges in Chicago and at all the educational gatherings of the Missouri Province. Anything and everything that concerned the welfare of the Catholic Church in general and of the Society in particular, were dear to his heart; and hence the virtue of loyalty to these two institutions summed up the merit of his useful life. He was eager to extend the work the Society was doing for the Church among all classes of people, but his own talents fitted him particularly for spreading the light among the more intellectual. Hence a considerable portion of his time was devoted to the preparation of post-graduate lectures in the colleges and Sunday evening lectures in the churches. He was also for some years moderator of St Mark's Academy in St Louis, an admirable institution for gentlemen of the educated class. Thus did Father Higgins lead a life of virtue and zeal till near the completion of the sixty-fourth year of his age. The end was approaching. In August, 1902 he was sent to Milwaukee to give a retreat, but falling sick he was sent to the hospital there. An operation disclosed a tumor in the intestines. After two months of great suffering in the hospital, his often expressed desire of returning to his brethren in Cincinnati was gratified, and he arrived in the latter city, Oct. 13th.

For a few days he seemed to improve but the improvement was only apparent. He gradually grew worse, for the tumor was of cancerous growth, and on Nov 13th it was deemed
expedient to administer Extreme Unction, He received this sacrament with great piety, and with tears flowing down his cheeks he besought his brethren to obtain for him by their
prayers, an hourly increase of patience and resignation.

Father Higgins' deep religious character came to the surface during his last sickness. He edified all by his humility and resignation to the will of God. He never uttered a complaint,
and expressions of gratitude to God for the great favor of dying in the Society were not infrequently upon his lips. Yet amidst all his keen sufferings his innate dignity of manner never for a moment left him. This was characteristic of the man.

The sufferer lingered on till Dec. 4th, 1902, when at 6.25 pm his soul sought the presence of its Maker. He was more or less conscious during the last day of his life. The simple Low Mass said over his remains in St Xavier's Church was graced by the attendance of Archbishop Elder of Cincinnati, of Bishop Maes of Covington, Ky, and of some forty secular priests. His remains were conveyed to the Novitiate of St Stanislaus at Florissant, Mo where all that was mortal of Father Higgins was laid to rest with his predecessors in ruling the Province, and with the early founders of the Missouri Mission, whose work he so well understood and continued. RIP

Born: 14 August 1854, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 12 November 1874, Milltown Park
Ordained: 1888
Final Vows: 02 February 1894
Died: 06 January 1927, Los Angeles, CA, USA - Californiae Province (CAL)

Transcribed HIB to TAUR : 1876; TAUR to CAL : 1909

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Joined Turin Province (for American Mission)

Born: 07 September 1931, Arlington VA, USA
Entered: 01 February 1951, Neo-Eboracensis Province (NEB)
Ordained: 27 August 1963
Final vows: 15 August 1973
Died: 21 April 2016, Weston MA, USA - United States East Province (UNE)

by 1980 came to Milltown (HIB) working

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/talking-to-terrorists/

Talking to ‘terrorists’
Ray Helmick SJ from Boston gave the welcoming address at the Spirituality and Trauma international conference in the Europa Hotel, Belfast, 9-14 March. Elias Osmondo SJ from Kenya, Michael Bingham SJ, Alan McGuickian SJ, Terry Howard SJ, and Frank Brady SJ, along with Padraig Swan, Director of Magis Ireland, also took part in the event which drew over two hundred people from here and abroad. Ray Helmick, spoke about his ecumenical work in Belfast in the seventies. He explained how the insights of St Ignatius about not only understanding those who differ from us but actually helping them to ‘save’ what they hold dear – their ‘proposition’ – led him “to take seriously, to converse with, to strive to save the proposition of those identified as ‘terrorist’.” Read his speech below.
Spirituality and Trauma Conference
Parliament Buildings, Stormont
March 9, 2011
Readiness to Hear One Another
Raymond G. Helmick, S.J.
Boston College
When I first came to Northern Ireland, early in June of 1972, this building had just been closed down and its Parliament suspended. On the Sunday when, with my colleagues, a group of Protestant and Catholic theology students from the United States planning to do work projects here for the summer, I arrived at the often-bombed railway station next door to the Europe Hotel, heading for our quarters in housing belonging to Queens University on Upper Crescent, all the streets we passed were guarded by armed masked men and the city felt full of menace. I was to work, with three others of our group, on the rebuilding of whole streets of houses burnt out the previous summer in North Belfast. My closest partner, a young Presbyterian from Pittsburg, had the skill to be laying brick, while I functioned as hod carrier. But it gave me opportunity to meet people of both traditions in Northern Ireland, including those armed men who had been guarding the streets. How to meet them? They wore the designation “men of violence” in the public eye. I made the assumption that they were not some sort of psychopaths, but instead people who had put their own lives at risk for purposes that made sense to them, as protectors of their own community. If I was ever to understand what was going on here, they were among those I must hear. I must not impose my own understanding on Northern Ireland’s situation but instead hear how its people, of all persuasions, understood it themselves, and if I were not talking to the people seen as most troubling, I would not be talking to the right people.
As of now, I think we can all be happy to see this conference opening in a building where a devolved Assembly meets and deals with the needs of this society, by invitation of the Office of a First Minister and Deputy First Minister from different sides of the community. A long and often painful journey has brought us here and we all have the task of caring for those who were bruised in the course of it.
I was sharply aware that, for Protestant Northern Ireland, the name “Jesuit” was one of the most frightening words in the English language. I remain always grateful for the generous way people from both sides of the community have received me. But as I find myself invited now to address the opening of this conference, I think I should bring something Jesuit to it. This is a page of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius Loyola, an introductory page called the “Praesupponendum,” the “Presupposition” for the exercises. When I identify myself as a Jesuit I have always hoped this might be the most Jesuit thing about me, the spirit in which I have tried to meet all the different expectations people in many different conflict situations would have of me. Ignatius, 16th century soldier that he was, determined to live a life of faith after seeing the hollowness of the life he had led to that point, went through a lengthy period of reflection as a hermit in a cave at Manresa in Spain. When he emerged he structured his experience into this manual, the Spiritual Exercises, and began, even as a student in the universities of Salamanca and Paris, to guide others through these exercises, so that they could make their own decisions about their lives. Because he was not a trained theologian at this stage, his work attracted the dangerous and suspicious attention of the Inquisition.
The essential question in all this is: Whom shall I exclude from my moral community? At the very beginning of Ignatius’ book, he has this remarkable page, the Presupposition to the Exercises. It reads: To assure better cooperation between the one who is giving the Exercises and the one who receives them, and more beneficial results to both, it is necessary to suppose that every good Christian is more ready to save the proposition of another than to condemn it as false. If he is unable to save the proposition, the one who made it should be asked how he understands it, and if he understands it badly, it should be discussed with him with love. If this does not suffice, all appropriate means should be used so that, understanding his proposition rightly, he may save it. This short paragraph has been put through many processes of translation. The original was in Ignatius’ rough local vernacular Spanish. It was rendered into Latin and into a more literary Spanish and eventually into numerous other languages, those more often translated from the Latin or from the more elegant Spanish than from the original. The paragraph scandalised many editors of the Spiritual Exercises to such an extent that it was left out of several editions, and when it was retained the final sentence was often translated to mean that the one giving the Exercises should argue the case with the exercitant so as to win the argument and make him abandon his proposition. Not so the original, in which Ignatius is still, even at that stage, arguing that he should be helped to save his proposition, not to abandon it.
You see the radicalism of this procedure. At one time I used to carry it about, copied out by hand in the original rough Spanish, as Ignatius wrote it, in a diary/date-book which I carried about in my pocket, until I ripped out the page to give it to a close associate of the great Lebanese Shi’ite Imam Musa al-Sadr, the Ghandi-like figure who had founded a Movement for the Dispossessed of all creeds in Lebanon and was most universal in his dialogue with all creeds, Christian and Muslim, an ever radical voice of peace. Musa, by the time I met his associates, holy man that he was, had already been “disappeared” in Colonel Gadaffi’s Libya, surely killed, but his Shi’ite followers in Lebanon, used to the idea of vanishing Imams who would return, sought in every way to plead with Libya for his release. I found that his spirit closely matched what I had learned from the Ignatian Praesupponendum.
You note that this is not simply a proposal of Christian charity in our discourse. It is a theory of knowledge, applicable to all, Christian or not; specific to the Christian only insofar as it is a practical living-out, in its openness to the other, of Christian faith. If I am to win all the arguments, know it all beforehand, my mind has already shut down. The proposition of the other, of course, refers to what is truly important in the other’s perception, experience, conviction. It is not as if there were no truth criterion. If I am to learn, I must approach the other’s proposition with openness. Winning an argument will get me nowhere and I will lose the light that the other’s perception could give me. But the other will learn also, coming to an understanding of his own proposition that will enrich it and lead deeper into truth. I said that I find, in this Presupposition to the Ignatian Exercises, the most Jesuit thing by which I would like to define myself. We Jesuits are often seen as people who win arguments, who have an answer to everything, whose objective is to turn people away from their own “propositions” to ours. But that is the very opposite to what Ignatius proposes here. There is a bit of the “Don’t, please, turn me over to the Inquisition, at least until you’ve thought about this some more.” But at its root there is a way of life. Now we may meet persons or groups whose proposition truly repels us. Here the “terrorist” may be our primary example. But it is this determination to save the other’s proposition that has led me to take seriously, to converse with, to strive to save the proposition of those identified as “terrorist.” That has certainly included all the militant groups here in Northern Ireland. I never agreed with their belief that violence was the necessary or an acceptable answer to their problems, but found I had to respect their dignity as persons and, normally, the integrity of their commitment.
The same determination brought me to seek out Yasser Arafat when he was most despised as “terrorist,” Yitzhak Shamir when he seemed the least likely of Israel prime ministers to work for peace, Ariel Sharon as well as to likelier men like Yitzhak Rabin or Ehud Barak, the Druze leader Walid Joumblatt and all the other leaders of warring factions, without exception, in Lebanon, the Hezbollah leadership included, all to be respected so as to find what truth lay hidden behind their often violent impulses. It meant treating respectfully and listening with sympathy to Serbs, Croats and the suffering Muslims of Bosnia. And in the more recent situation of the Middle East, it means open conversation both with the current Israeli government and with Hamas. This must, of course, be going somewhere. What I seek, in my conversation with such people, is to interpret, to understand what is going on. It will seldom much resemble what I am reading in the paper. I may not presume to offer the interpretation myself, but can only construct it in respectful conversation with all the players. People in mortal conflict tend to live in their bubbles, unable to confer with anyone outside the choir. They are filled with negative stereotypes of their opponents, but still curious about what makes them tick. To take part in a conversation that involves those opposite numbers, even at third hand, is usually welcome to them, and may well lead to direct communication between them. But the interpretation that results, endorsed by all sides, will normally open up options that were not otherwise seen. It may be difficult to make alternative options genuinely convincing, but if they are, violence as an option can no longer be seen as legitimate.
My first intuition with the militants of Northern Ireland eventually proved itself, as these movements and organisations, the very ones most involved in the conflict, were themselves the ones that took the major initiatives toward the peace. I had had the experience for some six weeks during the hunger strike in the prison in 1981, of mediating between the IRA’s Army Council and Britain’s Northern Ireland Office. Part of my recommendation at that time had been that it be made possible for the prisoners to use the prison as a place to plan the peace. In later years, until the Maze Prison, Long Kesh, was emptied and torn down, I spent much time in its H-Blocks, conversing with prisoners from both sides in sessions that we dignified with the name of “seminars,” about a future of peace.
Decisions had to be made, of course, by the leadership of each organisation outside the prison, but the thinking was done there in the cell-blocks. People on either side came to the recognition that neither would ever have a satisfactory life in Ireland unless they learned to accommodate the other side.
Accommodation sounds a very meagre form of reconciliation, but it had vital importance. The mantra of my own conversations in the prison was that both sides needed to become the guarantors of one another’s difference. It is from such thoughts as these that there came the cease-fires of 1994 and the process of negotiation that has led to the actual establishment of a functioning power-sharing government in Northern Ireland. The long delay, to a great extent, resulted from the fact that those who regarded themselves as the most righteous, who had never taken to the gun, were so slow to learn that the name of the game was now accommodation, but instead continued looking for victory over the other side. One expects church to have been a factor in all this. In Ireland, the various churches were rather disappointing, and the protagonists, those who were engaged in creating the peace in their organisations and in the prison, had in many cases become thoroughly disillusioned with church. But it was their ingrained disposition of readiness to respect the dignity of the other, a most profound residue of their faith, that ultimately guided them past their apprehensions and enmity to that goal of accommodation.
If churches and their leadership had often seemed to have little more to say about the conflict than “Don’t blame us,” there were outstanding clerical figures, unfailingly critical but always respectful, who offered genuinely helpful advice and guidance to the militant groups. None was more important than Father Alex Reid of the Clonard Monastery off Belfast’s Falls Road, who gained the respect of the IRA and its leadership and became critically important to its planning of the peace. It is fascinating to learn that, through the mediation of his Redemptorist superiors in Rome and of then Archbishop Justin Rigali, Pope John Paul II kept constantly abreast of Alex Reid’s work.
On the Protestant side, Presbyterian Minister Roy Magee was of equal importance in his influence with the Loyalist paramilitaries, helping them to create openings for peace. It was he who discovered and encouraged the extraordinary work of prisoner Gusty Spence, convicted of multiple murders, who devoted himself to educating his fellows in the prison in their history, in the character of their own community, and in the opportunities to transform their society into one of peace. Gusty became an important catalyst both for Protestant and for Catholic prisoners.
This fascinating history of the prison in Northern Ireland has its counterpart in what happened on South Africa’s Robben Island, the prison located far out in the harbour of Capetown where Nelson Mandela worked with his fellow prisoners at developing the transformative ways of peace, of forgiveness and reconciliation for his country. We may very well be seeing, if we care to look, comparable things happen in the Israeli prisons where political Palestinians – one thinks of Marwan Barghouti – are building consensus now on how to achieve a just peace. If I may return to my Ignatian “Presupposition,” it is such as these who, “understanding [their] proposition rightly,” can become the initiators of the serious work for peace. In what can I or anyone else root ourselves, then, in such work? The most basic recognition for me was that, in order to be friend of one side in a conflict, one need not become enemy to the other, but can be the partisan of the peace, a peace that will not cover over the wrongs either side has suffered. For the outsider to become the partisan of either side in such a conflict is to become excess baggage. There are plenty of partisans there already, and it is not the outsider’s conflict. The task is working for reconciliation. Once the third-party outsider has taken one side against the other his usefulness as mediator is gone. That for the outsider. Where is the task for persons experiencing the conflict themselves with all its pain and trauma. Most useful is to sense in the other, especially in those from whom we have suffered most offence, the dignity of the human person. I can put that in religious language for those able to respond in terms of faith. Recognizing in the other the image of God acknowledges the common heritage of the three Abrahamic religions which unite in basing the dignity of all human persons on their creation in the image of God. It has always impressed me that the most prominent human rights organisation in Israel takes the name B’Tselem, “in the image,” from the biblical phrase b’tselem elohim, “in the image of God.” This yields a basis for human rights broader than the purely individualist one that we have inherited from the 18th century Enlightenment. In the heat of conflict people will commonly see the other in terms other than those of common humanity and dignity. It is then that we need most to concentrate not on the trauma, what has happened to ourselves, but on what has happened to the other, what experience of theirs has led them to act as they have toward us, seeing them in the rawness and hurt of their humanity, which is like our own. In seeing them so, we are able to break down the stereotypes, the negative images of the other that we have understood practically as loyalty tests for ourselves, revise the received version of history that sees the other only in terms of enmity and events only in terms of offence. We are then solidly on the road to reconciliation, to the restoration of our relations by which we can live in appreciation of one another, even in those differences that enrich our society.

◆ The Jesuits of Canada and the US https://jesuits.org/profile-detail/Raymond-Helmick

Helmick, Raymond G
Jesuit Father Raymond G. Helmick died on April 21, 2016. He was born on Sept. 7, 1931, in Arlington, Massachusetts, a western suburb of Boston, and grew up there. Fr. Helmick was the second of three children. His sister Marie was the oldest; his brother Bill, six years younger, became a diocesan priest. Fr. Helmick attended St. Agnes Parish schools through the ninth grade and then transferred to Boston College High School. He graduated in 1949 and entered the Shadowbrook novitiate on his 18th birthday.
It turned out he would enter the Society twice. The first time he developed a stomach ulcer during his primi year and, because there had been a spate of ulcer diagnoses in the novitiate, superiors decided that first-year novices so afflicted would be sent home. Fr. Helmick was determined to re-apply, however, and he entered Shadowbrook again in February 1951. After philosophy studies at Weston (1954-1957), he spent regency teaching history and religion at St. George’s College in Kingston, Jamaica (1957-1960).
He did theology studies at Sankt Georgen, in Frankfurt, Germany, and was ordained a priest in the Frankfurt cathedral in August 1963. He returned to the
U.S. the following year for tertianship at Pomfret, Conn. As was the custom with men assigned to the missions, he returned to Jamaica and St. George’s.
Expecting to teach at the Kingston seminary, Fr. Helmick left Jamaica in 1967 to pursue graduate studies in ecumenical theology at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University. In the summer of 1972, he led a group of theology students to Belfast, a city notable then for its sectarian conflicts.
When he left Union in 1973, he moved to London, where he set up an ecumenical center focused on conflict resolution. From 1982 to 1985, he was based at NGOs in Washington. Then he moved to Boston College, where for the next 17 years he continued his conflict-resolution work while teaching related courses in the theology department and at St. John’s Seminary. From 2002-2004, he served as senior associate at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington.
Fr. Helmick had a lifelong interest in music, architecture, and other art forms. In his years of graduate study at Union he relaxed by building a harpsichord.
Illness brought him to Campion Center in 2012. He continued as many of his activities as health allowed (even teaching on a part-time basis at B.C. until 2015. He died peacefully in the early morning of April 21, 2016.

Born: 17 March 1926, Dun Laoghaire, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1942, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1958, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1961, Fordham University, The Bronx, New York, USA
Died: 01 February 2015, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the Milltown Park community, Dublin at the time of death.

by 1950 at St Louis University MO, USA (MIS) studying geophysics
by 1960 at Münster, Germany (GER I) making Tertianship
by 1962 at Franklin Park NJ, USA (MAR) studying at Princeton
by 1963 at Leuven, Belgium (BEL S) studying
by 1966 at Fordham NY, USA (MAR) teaching

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/rip-fr-patrick-heelan-sj/

RIP: Fr Patrick Heelan SJ
Fr Patrick Heelan died in Cherryfield Lodge on 1 February. In one of the many entries online, he gives a succinct account of his life and work: I am a Jesuit priest, a theoretical physicist and a philosopher of science. I was born in Dublin in 1926, and studied theoretical physics, philosophy and theology in Ireland, Germany and the USA. I moved permanently to the USA in 1965. In my studies in theoretical physics I was fortunate in having been supervised by three Nobel Prize winners: Schroedinger in Dublin during the war, Wigener in Princeton and Heisenberg in Munich, all of whom were among the founders of quantum physics. I am grateful for having had such a wonderful life as a priest and a theoretical physicist.
Patrick learned his love of mathematics in Belvedere, and looked forward to becoming a Jesuit scientist. During his first spell in USA he won a doctorate in geophysics by devising mathematical formulae to enable seismographs to distinguish between natural earthquakes and seismic activity from nuclear explosions. What he called his first conversion was the experience of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, which remained a crucial resource for him through his life. In the course of a stellar academic career he worked in seven universities, as professor, researcher and administrator – he was Vice President in Stony Brook State University and then Provost in Georgetown University, before retiring, in an increasingly frail body, to Cherryfield in 2014. So this gentle priest of extraordinary intellectual gifts saw out his days close to his much loved family of in-laws, nieces and nephews.
In 2005 Patrick wrote a memoir which fills in the factual features of his life, structured round five conversion points. It is meaty but not easy reading, concerned as it is with quantum theory and the perception of space. Here are the five conversion points, each followed by its date and location:
The role of Ignatian discernment: 1951: Wisconsin Lonergan: transcendental method: 1957: Tullabeg Consciousness’ role in quantum physics: 1962: Princeton Van Gogh’s pictorial geometry: 1966 Fordham
Space perception and the philosophy of science: 1982: Stony Brook
These five stepping stones still omit much of Patrick’s range of interests. His seminal work on Van Gogh’s paintings reflected a broad and sharp-eyed knowledge of European art. He explored “Music as a basic metaphor and deep structure in Plato” in a paper that showed familiarity with studies of music’s origins and structures. At the end of his life he was deep into a serious study of Islam. A friend compared Patrick to a high Renaissance Florentine prince, a polymath at home in the full range of arts and sciences, illuminating wherever he cast his attention.
In the course of a stellar academic career he worked in seven universities, as professor, researcher and administrator – he was Vice President in Stony Brook State University and then Provost in Georgetown University, before retiring, in an increasingly frail body, to Cherryfield in 2014. So this gentle priest of extraordinary intellectual gifts saw out his days close to his much loved family of in-laws, nieces and nephews and his friends.

https://www.jesuit.ie/blog/pat-coyle/georgetown-salutes-fr-heelan/

Georgetown salutes Fr Heelan
in Pat Coyle

Fr Patrick Heelan SJ’s death has been well noted by Georgetown University, Washington, where he spent so many years and did so much good work as academic and as administrator. The current President, Dr. John J. DeGioia, has written to the university community as follows:
February 11, 2015
Dear Members of the Georgetown University Community:
It is with great sadness that I share with you that Rev. Patrick A. Heelan, S.J., a beloved Georgetown administrator, professor and member of our Jesuit community, passed away earlier this month.
Fr. Heelan came to our Georgetown community in 1992 as Executive Vice President for the Main Campus before becoming the William A. Gaston Professor of Philosophy in 1995. As an administrator, Fr. Heelan helped to guide our community through a difficult financial period with an unwavering dedication to our distinct values and a vision of long-term excellence. In his role, he oversaw changes to the structure of the administration and strategic investments in our community to better advance our mission and meet the needs of our growing student population. He was also deeply dedicated to our policies of need-blind admissions and our commitment to meeting full need in financial aid, seeing them as cornerstones of our University’s future success. Fr. Heelan’s leadership strengthened our community in so many ways and was integral to bringing us to where we are now.
In addition to his contributions as a leader, Fr. Heelan was a renowned physicist and a philosopher, whose extensive scholarship sat at a unique intersection of what he called “the hermeneutic philosophy of science”—or the study of how we make meaning from scientific observation. His scholarly research spanned disciplines, including theology, philosophy, psychology and physics. His many scholarly contributions included publications on spatial perception, quantum mechanics and human consciousness and drew upon the intellectual tradition of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Bernard Lonergan.
After retiring from Georgetown in 2013, Fr. Heelan returned to his native Ireland for the duration of his life, where he passed away surrounded by loved ones earlier this month.
I was deeply saddened to learn of his passing, and I wish to offer my heartfelt condolences to the many faculty, staff, students, alumni and members of our Jesuit community who had the chance to work with him.
Should you wish to express your condolences, please direct notes to: Irish Jesuit Provincialate, Milltown Park, Sandford Road, Dublin 6, Ireland.
Please join me in expressing our deepest sympathy to the friends, family and many lives that were touched by Fr. Heelan’s kindness, leadership and good will.
Sincerely,
John J. DeGioia

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 159 : Spring 2015

Obituary

Fr Patrick (Paddy) Heelan (1926-2015)

17 March 1926: Born Dublin
Early education at Belvedere College SJ
7th September 1942: Entered Society at St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
8th September 1944: First Vows at St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
1944 - 1948: Rathfarnham - Studying Maths & Maths/Physics at UCD
1948 - 1949: Tullabeg - Studying Philosophy
1949 - 1952: St Louis, MO, USA - Studying for PhD in Geophysics at St Louis University
1952 - 1954: Tullabeg - Studying Philosophy; Research Associate at Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
1954 - 1955: Clongowes - Regency: Teacher; Studying CWC Cert in Education
1955 - 1959: Milltown Park - Studying Theology
31st July 1958: Ordained at Gonzaga Chapel, Milltown Park, Dublin
1959 - 1960: Westphalia, Germany - Tertianship at Münster in Westphalia
1960 - 1961: Bronx, NY, USA - Fullbright Fellowship post Doctorate Studies in Physics at Fordham University
2nd February 1961 Final Vows at Fordham University, Bronx, NY, USA
1961 - 1962: St Augustine's Parish, Franklin Park, NJ, USA - Fullbright Fellowship post Doctorate Studies in Physics at Palmer Laboratory, Princeton University
1962 - 1964: Louvain, Belgium - Studying for PhD in Philosophy of Science at Catholic University of Louvain
1964 - 1965: Leeson St - Lecturer in Maths & Maths/Physics at UCD; Assistant Prefect University Hall; Research Associate at Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies
1965 - 1970: Bronx, NY, USA - Assistant Professor (later Associate Professor) of Philosophy at Fordham University
1968: Visiting Professor of Physics at Boston University
1970 - 1992: Stony Brook, NY, USA - Professor of Philosophy, Chair of Department of Philosophy, Dean of Arts and Sciences at State University of New York
1972: Acting Vice-President, Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences Dean of Arts & Sciences; Professor of Philosophy
1975: Vice President for Liberal Studies
1990: Dean of Humanites & Fine Arts
1992: Present Emeritus Professor
1992 - 2013: Washington, DC, USA - Executive Vice-President for Main Campus; Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University
1995: William A Gaston Professor of Philosophy
2013 - 2015: Milltown Park - Prays for the Church and the Society at Cherryfield Lodge

Fr Patrick Heelan was admitted to Cherryfield Lodge in June 2013. He settled in well and was very content as a member of the Community. In recent months his condition deteriorated, and he died peacefully at Cherryfield Lodge on Sunday 1st February 2015. May he rest in the Peace of Christ

In 1958 Archbishop McQuaid laid hands on Patrick as he knelt in the Milltown Park chapel to receive the sacrament of ordination. It would be fair to say that we, his peers, revered Patrick (the long form will be used here, though he was Paddy to his peers; in USA, where he settled in 1965, he was unhappy with the overtones of Paddy). By the time of his ordination he was already a seasoned scholar, with a Master's in maths from UCD, a rigorous apprenticeship with Schroedinger in the Dublin Institute of Higher Studies, and a doctorate in geophysics from St Louis. Even at that stage he had already worked in two of the seven universities he was to join (UCD, St Louis, Louvain, Fordham, Princeton, Stony Brook, Georgetown).

What mattered more to him was what he called his first conversion, when he gained an insight into the role of discernment in Ignatian prayer. This was the practice of assessing, during a time of peace and recollection, the spiritual authenticity of one's thoughts, feelings and desires; a new level of self-awareness and interiority. It remained with Patrick as a resource through the ups and downs of his life.

You might think it was mostly ups. He routinely got first honours in exams (with one explosive exception when J.R. McMahon, then Rector and Professor of Canon Law in Milltown, awarded Patrick a Fail mark in Canon Law, with the aim, it was said, of giving him a useful experience of failure). God, on the other hand, was generous to young Patrick. He was born into a stable home in Dalkey, with an aloof father and a remarkable warm and gifted mother to whom he was always close. He had an older brother, a successful lawyer and financier, and Esther, who he said was all you could look for in a young sister.

Patrick himself was generously endowed, with a brilliant mind, and a healthy body. He was not athletic, but was never sick, never in hospital till old age. He was hugely responsive to beauty, whether in mathematics (”I liked maths because it was clear, logical, beautiful and unassailable”), in music, especially Bach and Mozart, in flowers and in visual art. He loved his friends, though in his early years he described himself as a selfish introvert. On top of that he had excellent schooling, first in Belvedere, and then with formidable third-level mentors. He sought God in the created world; his search focussed particularly on how we perceive that world, and give it meaning,

Patrick was quickly in demand for third-level posts, but as a Jesuit under obedience he experienced the limits to his freedom. He was at first dismayed when he was commissioned to spend his travelling studentship in geophysics rather than his beloved maths. He was being used; superiors fingered him for the management of the worldwide network of Jesuit seismographs. The US army used and surreptitiously funded him to find a way of distinguishing natural earthquakes from nuclear explosions. The Russians translated his doctoral thesis for the same reason, and claimed the pirated version as a triumph for the Leningrad Acoustical Institution. The Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, sought his services to teach neo-scholastic philosophy to seminarians.

So Patrick was used by the Jesuits, the Pentagon, Russian scientists, the Archbishop of Dublin, and no doubt several others. In face of this he became not angry but wise. Without losing his joie de vivre he recognised and welcomed the down-sizing of his ego. A written comment from his later years suggests his use of discernment in his development: "I came to experience my life in the Jesuit order, not as a career to be established, but as a story always under editorial revision and reconstruction, continuously discontinuous, yet with persistent Catholic and catholic threads and an interiority that tended to be affirmative and to bring, as was promised in the gospels, rest to my soul.”

In three issues of Interfuse in 2005-6, Patrick wrote Le petit philosophe, a 3-part memoir which fills in the factual features of his life, structured round five conversion points. It is meaty but not easy reading, concerned as it is with quantum theory and the perception of space. Here are his five conversion points, each followed by its date and location:

1. The role of Ignatian discernment: 1951: Wisconsin
2. Lonergan: transcendental method: 1957: Tullabeg
3. Consciousness' role in quantum physics: 1962: Princeton
4. Van Gogh's pictorial geometry: 1966: Fordham
5. Space perception and the philosophy of science: 1982: Stony Brook

These five stepping stones still omit much of Patrick's range of interests. His seminal work on Van Gogh's paintings reflected a wide and sharp-eyed knowledge of European art. He explored “Music as a basic metaphor and deep structure in Plato” in a paper that showed familiarity with studies of music's origins and structures. At the end of his life he was deep into a serious study of Islam. A friend compared Patrick to a high Renaissance Florentine prince, a polymath at home in the full range of arts and sciences, illuminating whatever he gave attention to.

In the course of a stellar academic career he worked in seven universities, as professor, researcher and administrator – he was Vice President in Stony Brook State University and then Provost in Georgetown University. He lived through the inevitable power struggles of academic life, especially in Georgetown, where he worked hard at the reform of structures.

In 2014 he retired, in an increasingly frail body, to Cherryfield. So this gentle priest of extraordinary intellectual gifts saw out his days close to his much-loved family of in-laws, nieces and nephews. He was 88 years of age, and in his 73rd year as a Jesuit. He wrote of himself: “In my studies in theoretical physics I was fortunate in having been supervised by three Nobel Prize winners: Schroedinger in Dublin during the war, Wigener in Princeton and Heisenberg in Munich, all of whom were among the founders of quantum physics. I am grateful for having had such a wonderful life as a priest and a theoretical physicist”.

Paul Andrews

Interfuse No 114 : Summer 2002

60 YEARS IN THE SOCIETY OF JESUS

Patrick Heelan

A homily delivered by Patrick Heelan, on September 7, 2002, in St. Ignatius Chapel of Holy Trinity Church, Georgetown.

At the age of 11, I was enrolled as a student in Belvedere College in Dublin, Ireland. It was my first encounter with the Jesuits. Not many years before, another fellow Dubliner, James Joyce, had a similar encounter with the Jesuits at roughly the same age at Clongowes Wood College, the Jesuit boarding school. He later moved to Belvedere College, my school. Even at that early age Joyce was a sophisticated observer of the Jesuits. In his Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, Joyce tells of his early encounter. Under the name of Stephen Daedelus, he recounts his reverie during a Latin class taught by Fr. Arnall, SJ. Fr. Arnall had been angry, “in a wax”, as he says, because the whole class had missed the declension of the word “mare”, the Latin word for “sea”. I will quote this piece because the narrator could easily have been me when I first encountered the Jesuits; it began with a reflection on Fr. Arnall's being “in a wax”.

“Was that a sin for Fr. Arnall to be in a wax? Or was he allowed to get into a wax when the boys were idle because that made them study better? Or was he only letting on to be in a wax? It was because he was allowed, because a priest would know what a sin was and would not do it ... hmm! BUT if he did it one time by mistake, what would he do to go to confession? Perhaps, he would go to confession to the Fr. Minister of the Jesuit community. And if the minister did it, he would go to the rector: the rector to the provincial: and the provincial to the general of the Jesuits. That was called the order ... hmm! He had heard his father say that they were all clever men. They could all become high up people in the world if they had not become Jesuits. And he wondered what Fr. Arnall and Paddy Barrett would have become, and what Mr. McGlade and Mr. Gleeson would have become, if they had not become Jesuits (Mr. McGlade and Mr. Gleeson were scholastics at the time; I knew Fr. McGlade as a priest and a great teacher.) It was hard to think WHAT, because you would have to think of them in a different way with different coloured coats and trousers and with beards and moustaches and different kinds of hats”. (p. 48)

There was already a sophisticated awareness, even in the eleven-year old, of the reality of sin and confession, and of what the Oxford English Dictionary calls “jesuitry'; also he knows of the high regard people had for the worldly abilities of Jesuits - but notes that the clerical uniform was an obstacle to the imagination. If only they dressed “in different coloured coats and trousers, wearing beards and moustaches”. There was a certain prophetic character to this last phrase - Jesuits today often dress “in coloured coats and trousers and wearing beards and moustaches”, but no one these days wears hats, not even priests!

At the end of his schooling in Belvedere, Joyce was invited to join the Jesuits, but he turned it down because he felt, mistakenly, I think, that the Jesuits frowned on the Eros of beauty -- but Stephen admitted that in his case the Eros of beauty had led him astray from the path of – well! - let us say good Jesuit behaviour. However, as for me, I did not have these challenges or reservations, but knowing something of the history of Jesuit accomplishments in natural science, I accepted the invitation, for I wanted to be a Jesuit scientist. Sixty years ago to a day, on September 7, 1942, I entered the Jesuit Novitiate at a Paladian Villa once owned by the Earls of Portarlington, then called St. Mary's, Emo, Co. Leix, to become, as I then thought and hoped, a Jesuit scientist.

Let me now draw down the spiritual lesson from the gospel reading (In. ch. 9). In the gospel story the blind man was changed by bathing in the waters of Siloam, but at first this only gave worldly sight to his eyes; he came to see only the world around, a splendid sight to see as he saw it for the first time in his life, a world of different people in their various coloured costumes. What did he think of Jesus, his benefactor? The great scholar Raymond Brown says he probably thought of him as just an ordinary miracle worker - not that being an ordinary miracle worker was a small thing. But it took events – like challenges from the Pharisees, parents, and bystanders – to make him see the spiritual realities underlying the opening of his eyes. Only when his spiritual eyes were opened did he come to recognize Jesus as God's presence in the world as a fully human person.

The theme of my homily then is that I am the blind man; I was washed in the waters of baptism; at first, like the blind man, I too only saw the business aspects of the world. Like the blind man, I came to see the spiritual context of human life and labour only by being challenged by events in the world and by its institutions. Reflecting on the other anniversary that we memorialize at this time, I recall that this is one of the frightening lessons of 9-11!

Returning, however, to my own story: the Jesuit part of my training was not easy; it consisted in adopting a certain kind of askesis, or spiritual practice, founded upon the Exercises of the founder, St. Ignatius. This was fundamental to the Jesuit life. I'll come back to this later. And then came science.

My scientific career began well at University College, Dublin, and at the School of Theoretical Physics of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. During World War II, this latter was a haven for refugee European scientists from Germany and Central Europe. I studied there under Erwin Schrödinger, one of the founders of the quantum theory, and John Synge, a famous cosmologist. Later I was to study quantum field theory and elementary particles under Eugene Wigner at Princeton, and came to know and correspond with Werner Heisenberg of the Uncertainty Principle fame. In 1964 I wrote a book about Heisenberg, which was accepted as a doctoral dissertation in philosophy at the University of Leuven.

But my first Jesuit assignment in 1949 was to study earth science, particularly seismology. As it turned out, my pursuit of a scientific career was terminated when I was told to move from earth science and physics to philosophy. You must understand that the context of decision making within every Jesuit life includes both worldly and religious dimensions. The story of a Jesuit's life is always a dialogue with the world around, a kind of spiritual “reading' of the worldly environment, called the “spirit of discernment,' within the context of that practiced way of life characteristic of the founder, St. Ignatius. Like the great spiritual practices of old such as Stoicism and Epicureanism, Christian spiritual practices, like the Jesuit practices, were the practices of a certain philosophical way of life - the human side – that linked up with the primacy of Christian faith -- the religious side.

The Jesuits are an institution that from the time of its founder, took on the world, teaching both worldly and sacred knowledge or more accurately, they adopted ways of living that are both in the world, worldly, while being spiritually attuned according to the practices of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. Some may find this paradoxical. Monks live in closed monasteries and behind high garden walls all the time; they have little or no contact with the world. Religious orders older than the Jesuits, such as the Dominicans and the Franciscans, live in tight supervised communities and sally forth only to meet the world for pre-planned sessions of preaching, prayer, or charitable work The Jesuits' special mission, however, has been to promote worldly and spiritual life together, not separately. That is a complex, difficult, and paradoxical project. Like all spiritual projects, however, this is a deeply human social project but also marked by personal and social decision making requiring a special spiritual training, or askesis. This is the charism of the Jesuit way of life, of living in the Company, or Society, of Jesus.

To return to my own story: I was assigned to become a Jesuit scientist, like so many other Jesuit scientists of the past. But it did not work out the way it was originally conceived. My first assignment was to work with the great Jesuit seismologist, Fr. Macelwane at St. Louis University, with the intention possibly of taking charge of the great worldwide Jesuit network of earth science observatories established at Jesuit schools everywhere and linked globally. This was a unique network of its kind and had been in existence for over a hundred years. But in 1954, two years after my doctorate in geophysics, the U.S. Government put billions of dollars into the International Geophysical Year. This moved the earth sciences far beyond where they were. It was done mostly for military purposes to monitor underground nuclear test activity and to track underwater nuclear powered naval craft in the great oceans of the world, and much of the new research was top secret. In a short time, the Jesuit global seismological network became redundant and as a consequence there was no longer any need within the Jesuit Order for experts in this field. I then entered the field of high energy physics at Princeton University under the mentorship of Eugene Wigner, one of the original founders of the quantum theory. But this, too, was soon interrupted, when the Faculty of Philosophy at University College, Dublin, requested that I be assigned to teach the philosophy of science. This required further training, which took me to the University of Leuven, Belgium, where I finished a book on Werner Heisenberg's physical philosophy.

And so, at the age of 38, I began my first serious teaching job. This was in the physics department at University College, Dublin, as professor of relativistic cosmology, waiting for an appointment to philosophy. There followed my one and only - and most satisfying - job teaching science! But in the middle of my first year, I received an invitation from Fordham University in New York, to go there to teach my new specialty, the philosophy of science. I then began in 1965 a new career in the philosophy of science.

But further challenges were to follow. Five years later, the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook, was given the mission to become a great research university, to become, as it was then said, an 'instant Berkeley. Out of the blue, it invited me to become chair of the philosophy department, and to begin a doctoral degree program in philosophy. In a few years, Stony Brook became the leader in continental philosophy in the US with vast public funding and with the full backing of the administration. A few years after the successful establishment of that program, I was invited to become Vice President and Dean of Arts and Sciences at Stony Brook. After the establishment of the Staller Fine Arts Centre, I was recalled to administration as Dean of Humanities and Fine Arts. I spent 22 years in all at Stony Brook. Then in 1992, on the invitation of Fr Leo O'Donovan, then President of Georgetown University, I left secular public higher education and re-entered the domain of private Catholic and Jesuit higher education, as the person responsible for the Main Campus of Georgetown University.

You might want to know how I experienced secular higher education in a top research public university. In retrospect, I have to say that I found extraordinary respect for one who was, oddly, both a priest and a Jesuit. Of course, being also a card carrying scientist did help a lot. Catholic friends in higher education have since said to me: 'You must have horror stories to tell about the secular values of public education. Not really! Academic life in both the public universities and the Catholic universities is much the same - commitments to social justice, public responsibility, and “What's new!” are not much different in the practical order. The big difference is in the limitations of public discourse and the public practices of life. Religious language and ritual are absent; motivations are expressed in terms of human rights, professional ethics, and other secular humanistic doctrines - or without further definition, the pursuit of excellence! My frustration was mitigated by the discovery that many of the values we know as Christian values have by now migrated beyond the Church, they are no longer challenged but taken for granted as due to humanity and human society. I asked: How did this come about? I think the reason is that universities grew up under the Christian umbrella before they came to shelter themselves under the shadow of the state, and they carried much of the Christian tradition with them.

I often found beneath the surface a hidden quasi-religious commitment clothed in secular and human rhetoric. I came to feel sure that Jesus would not condemn these people. Many, both Jewish and agnostic, were like Nicodemus, or like the blind man emerging from the pool of Siloam, they shared the vision of Jesus, but they had not been challenged in such a way as to recognize the divine presence that he represents in the world.

My years at Georgetown University have also been a challenge and a gift. I am so happy that we celebrate religious rituals, and that religious motivations and spirituality can be spoken of, and are needed and heeded by many students and faculty without interfering with the usual and expected academic standards of the disciplines. It is so comforting to be in a community where the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius are known and used to promote a way of life that gives spiritual sight to the business of the world. Since the time of Stephen Daedelus and of my youth, changes have taken place: Jesuit priests now go round in different coloured coats and trousers, [even some with beards and moustaches.' And in doing so they are affirming a world vibrant - Yes! - with divine life....

Interfuse No 125 : Autumn 2005

PATRICK HEELAN : “LE PETIT PHILOSOPHE” (1)

Patrick A Heelan

‘Le petit philosophe’
My family tells me – usually with good humored teasing -- that, when I was baptized, my godfather, a lawyer and a philosopher of sorts, looked at me in the cradle bemused, and said, “Le petit philosophe!” Recalling who the “philosophes” were, it could have been an ironic comment on the promises just made on my behalf but, if it was intended as a prophetic statement, this is where my “evangelium” should begin!

When I was young, I lived with my family in a pretty seaside town, Dalkey, on the South side of Dublin – once the home of George Bernard Shaw and today of U2's Bono. It was then about one and a half hours commute by bus or train to and from my Jesuit high school, Belvedere College, on the North side of the River Liffey. Consequently, neither before nor after school did I have the companionship of other Belvederians, nor indeed much other young companionship. As the second son, I was eclipsed by my brother, Louis, who seemed to have a large circle of friends and colleagues, boys and girls, which I did not have. I enjoyed reading, mathematics, music, home carpentry, and the company of my mother. She had come from Antwerp, Belgium as a young girl during the first World War, to study English and accountancy, and she stayed in Dublin after the war, met my father in Dalkey and married him. I had a younger sister – still living - and an older brother - now gone. My sister was a good junior partner. She tried hard to keep up with her brothers but sadly she was derided for being a girl! She was the first among us, however, to become a doctor, a real M.D. She married a dentist, and devoted her life to raising a large family and serving on Catholic medical boards. My brother became a cautious lawyer; also raised a large family; worked in venture capital investment, including the film industry; and was a lifelong active member of the St. Vincent de Paul Society for helping the indigent. My father was a senior civil servant, an economist, fluent in French and German, aloof, given to three hobbies - rose gardening, musical composition and, after retiring, the translation of theological works from the German - even some from Karl Rahner, S.J. I was an introverted and selfish kid.

At Belvedere, I had good math teachers. I liked math because it was clear, logical, beautiful, and unassailable, and, as I thought, did not require company. Mathematical physics seemed to me to be the true model of all authentic knowledge of the world. My attitude towards the world was abstract and aloofly contemplative. This attitude was only to be confirmed by my scientific, philosophical, and theological education in the Jesuit Order - until wisdom made its entrance.

Reflection:
What follows is the story of several conversions, each connected with unplanned zigs or zags, contingent events from which, by divine grace - for how else explain it? -- an intelligible narrative emerged that was accompanied by - or eventually brought - wonder and joy, as well as “rest to my soul.' The frustrations along the way were met with unexpected gifts of help, from people, some living and some now dead, too numerous to name. Some will be mentioned in the following narrative. Among them is St. Ignatius Loyola whose Spiritual Exercises were indispensable; Bernard Lonergan, S.J., whom I had the privilege of knowing personally though only in a small way, whose books, Insight and Method in Theology found their way to me at crucial moments of transition. With the help of them and many others on the way, I came to experience my life in the Jesuit order, not as a career to be established, but as a story always under editorial revision and reconstruction, continuously discontinuous, yet with persistent Catholic and catholic threads and an interiority that tended to be affirmative and to bring, as was promised in the gospels, rest to my soul.

UCD and the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (1944-48)
Now for some particulars! In 1942, at the age of 16, I joined the Jesuits, directly from high school. I knew that I was joining a society that respected science and mathematics, and looked forward to a possible Jesuit career in the sciences. Spiritually, I was no more than a cultural Irish Catholic who felt comfortable with the way of life of the Jesuits he knew. An eventual career in the sciences seemed to be confirmed by my early university studies as a Jesuit in mathematics and mathematical physics (BA, 1947; MA, 1948, all with first-class honors) at University College, Dublin (UCD). In 1948 I was awarded a fellowship in Mathematical Physics to study for a doctorate wherever in the world I could find a perch.

The years of my mathematical studies in Ireland coincided with the chaotic post-war years in Europe during which the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies offered hospitality to many émigré European scientists. I was privileged then to be able to attend seminars given by very eminent theoretical physicists at its School of Theoretical Physics in Dublin. Among those resident there at the time were Erwin Schrödinger and John Synge, both mathematicians famous for their work in General Relativity and Cosmology. Relativistic Cosmology explained gravitation as due to curvatures of four-dimensional space-time related to the presence of physical masses in space time; these warp the geometry in ways not compatible with Euclidean geometry. But as a classical theory, it is clear, logical, elegant, deductive, and mathematically unassailable. These descriptors also fitted Schrödinger's own teaching, the elegance of his style, and what he expected of others. It set the tone for his students among whom I was happy to be counted.

The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies with its School of Theoretical Physics was founded by Eamon de Valera, the Prime Minister of Ireland during those years, who was a mathematician. I remember being told, when I was small, that only seven people in the world understood Einstein's Theory of Relativity and that de Valera was one of them. Wanting to belong to this small group, I took courses with Schrödinger and Synge. From Schrödinger I came to understand that the General Theory of Relativity did not support the 'relativism' of truth; to the contrary, it was founded on constancy, invariance, and symmetry, as befitted the rational design of Him whom Einstein called the “Old One”. Einstein's motto was, “Der Herrgott würfelt nicht' - God does not throw dice!” It was carved above the fireplace of his office in the old Palmer Laboratory of Princeton. It was Einstein's challenge to Heisenberg and to quantum mechanics. At this time, I felt I was with Einstein.
One class episode with Schrödinger opened my mind to a new way of thinking about human consciousness. He spoke about the foundations of mathematics and cosmology in the intuition of non-Euclidean geometrical spaces. Since the dominant scientific and philosophical view before Einstein was that real Space as intuited by our imagination was necessarily Euclidean, a fundamental principle of both mind and body had been breached and needed to be re-studied at all levels of relevance.

Reflection:
The notion that cosmology forced us to imagine curved three- and four-dimensional spaces that can be both finite in size and yet have no boundaries grabbed me in a profound way and gave me a new concern, with consciousness and its role in psychology, physics, philosophy, and spirituality.

In 1948, my final year at UCD, I won a prestigious Fellowship (called a Travelling Studentship) that paid for doctoral studies abroad anywhere in the world. I was sent to pursue doctoral studies at St. Louis University as a junior Jesuit scholastic. My provincial wanted me to study geophysics and seismology. Why seismology? And why at St. Louis? In the late 1940's, the Vatican Observatory managed several scientific research programs besides astronomy. Among them was an international network of seismological stations not just at Rathfarnham Castle, Dublin, but at Jesuit colleges around the world. The Director of the Vatican Observatory in 1948 was Father Daniel O'Connell, SJ an Irish Jeşuit. He spoke to my Provincial and, much to my chagrin, requested that I be sent to study geophysical seismology at St. Louis University, a Jesuit university that had a special Institute of Geophysics.

The Director at that time of the Institute of Geophysics at St Louis University was Father James Macelwane, SJ, a scientist of considerable fame. He worked closely with the oil exploration industry and the Pentagon. Under his direction, my assigned research project: was to find a means of telling from seismic records whether a seismic disturbance was of artificial or natural origin. This involved finding a correlation between the seismological signatures of underground disturbances and their source. Being, like Schrödinger, a mathematical physicist, and not at all an experimental physicist, I transformed the practical problem into a mathematical one. I studied no records, but instead, using simplified assumptions, I looked for solutions of the elastic wave equations that seemed to define the problem. My research was supported by the US military though I did not know this until much later, for its real purpose was to find the seismic key to monitoring underground nuclear tests (for a retrospect, see, Broad, W. New York Times, 2005). In response to the great success of Soviet science with the launching of Sputnik, the first artificial earth satellite, in 1957, Russian scientific papers began to be translated into English. To my great surprise a copy of my doctoral papers appeared in 1961 – as translated from the Russian complete with the identical mathematical typos that appeared in my papers - seemingly attributed to the Leningrad Acoustical Institute. Following the major U.S. Federal government investment in geophysics during the International Geophysical Year (1957-58), the Jesuit Seismological Network folded, and there was no longer a potential job in seismology for me with the Jesuits.

Conversion #1: Insight into “discernment” in Ignatian prayer
My first breach with the orientation towards mathematics as the preferred instrument of reason occurred while making the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises with other scholastics, I think in the sutnmner of 1951, in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. The retreat master was Father Charles Hertzog, SJ. For the first time, I had insight into the role of 'discernment in Ignatian prayer. I had made many retreats before this, but the meaning of discernment had escaped me. This is the practice of assessing, during a time of peace and recollection, the spiritual authenticity of one's interior thoughts, feelings, and desires, as they emerged into consciousness against the background of faith in and love for the crucified and risen Jesus. I don't any longer recall how spiritual discernment was presented by Fr. Hertzog, but the impact on me at that time was certainly due to his expositions and my deep need for something of that kind. It breached a barrier in my consciousness that brought about a 'conversion' event. After that time, I began to notice and take seriously how people and events came to me. They came differently from before now they seemed to carry messages for concem, invitations to new tasks, either as providers of peace and consolation, or as warnings against involvement, and so on. This brought about a new level of self-awareness and interiority that challenged the anonymous, often self-serving habits, practices, and conventions of the unconscious self. I was not yet curious about the cultural origins of that unconscious self, but a route was opened that had not been there before.

I returned to Ireland in 1952. My science studies had to be put aside for eight years. I spent two years in philosophy, one in regency teaching, four in theology- my ordination was at the end of my third year in 1958 - then after theology there was Tertianship, a final spiritual and pastoral year (1959-60) that I spent in Münster, Germany. My studies in philosophy were done at the Jesuit School of Philosophy, in the farming community of Tullamore, Ireland. My theological studies were done at the Jesuit School of Theology, Milltown Park, in a suburb of Dublin. Jesuit seminary philosophy made little mark on me; it did not have the clarity, elegance, and explanatory function - nor even the empirical outlook – that I was used to in science, and it seemed to me also at the time that its insights were anonymous and lacked the joyful and sublime moments that might have saved it from irrelevance. There was one notable exception, the course on sacred scripture at Milltown Park, which introduced us to the historical, archaeological, and literary studies of biblical texts.

In the middle of my theological studies, I was summoned to the Provincial's office nearby, and was told that the Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, wanted me to be assigned to teach philosophy at UCD. The Faculty of Philosophy at that time served almost exclusively the seminarians of the Archdiocese. But there was agitation from a group of lay students to open the philosophy curriculum to modern topics such as the philosophy of science. The Dean and Professors of the Faculty, all priests of the Dublin Archdiocese, persuaded the Archbishop of the need to make this possible. I, however, had no knowledge of this situation and was at a loss to know how I came to be chosen for this job. I was shocked at the Archbishop's proposal and my consideration of it gave me no joy. Aware that the Archbishop was not a patient listener to contrary advice, I, nevertheless, dared, like Job in the Old Testament, to argue with the Almighty! I represented that I was not competent to teach the philosophy of science because I found little joy in the subject and because my scientific training was badly in need of an upgrade for such a task after so many years away from science. The Archbishop's reply came to me from my Provincial: “Tell Patrick Heelan to read a good book!” He made no suggestion, however, as to what book I should read.

Conversion #2: Lonergan's transcendental method of Insight
As it happened, Bernard Lonergan's Insight, was published in the summer of 1957. It hooked my interest from the start, perhaps because it began with mathematical examples. I found it exciting, and it gave me great joy. I found it intensely illuminating with respect to philosophical method. It seemed to me to describe correctly the role of intuition in mathematics as well as the role of experience in concept and theory formation. It gave me notions, such as transcendental method, intentionality, assessment, interiority, empirical residue, that expanded my mind with pleasurable excitement. After finishing the book, I lent my copy to Fr Eamonn Egan, a brilliant young Jesuit who professed philosophy. He read it through, from cover to cover - and, it is said, that he neither ate nor slept during that time and was found lying on the floor of his room exhausted, three days later. Others at Milltown Park also read Insight and their excitement led to the formation of a Lonergan caucus or “fan club” at Milltown Park that has continued to the present day, The Archbishop was right, I needed a good book ... and the good book had found me!

Course notes on De Methodo Theologiae (in Latin) were also being passed around from courses Lonergan gave at the Gregorian University in Rome. They were early versions of what later became his Method in Theology, which appeared in 1972. I also noted the coherence between Ignatian discernment and Lonergan's notions of interiority and authenticity. That summer I had my second “conversion” - to a better understanding of the kind of human cooperation that divine grace needed when working for the Kingdom of God in today's scientific culture.

Lonergan's approach to philosophy was his discovery in Aquinas of an account of human knowing that was based on the recognition of (what is called today) transcendental method. A transcendental process is one that affects all human processes, 'transcendental' being the Kantian term for “a priori, universal, and necessary”. Lonergan's transcendental method went beyond Kant and described a sequence of four functions (processes) that operate sequentially and recursively in the process of all human inquiry. They are: 1. experiencing, 2. understanding, 3, judging, and 4. decision-making. The four functions operate on experiencing and from this draw their objective content. Their actions are recursively used again and again to review, revise, update, confirm or drop. This recursive use is called hermeneutical since each use shapes some aspect of meaning: the first produces perceptual meanings (related to descriptive concepts); the second produces theoretical meanings (related to networks of mutually related phenomena); the third, produces judgments of truth/falsity (after evidence is assessed), and the fourth and final phase produces practical action (related to human values and sensibility). A cycle of the four functions is called a transcendental hermeneutical circle (or spiral).

This new way of thinking changed the emphasis of my thinking from the mathematical to the practical, from the world as object to the interiority of the inquiring subject's engagement with the world, and from formal language to descriptive language. I began to see these recursive interior processes as the source of all human and cultural development in historical time and the natural sciences as the domain in which the embodied character of transcendental hermeneutical method is most clearly to be seen.

This new start in philosophy convinced me all the more that I needed to update my physics and learn more philosophy. So I applied for a Fulbright Fellowship to Princeton University to do post-doc work in quantum field theory. My application was accepted. Much to the chagrin of the Archbishop, however, I requested that my two years in the United States be followed by two years at the University of Leuven (Louvain), Belgium, to study the philosophy of science. I believed I could with luck finish a doctorate there in two years.

Conversion #3: Role of Consciousness in Quantum Physics
After a few months of preparatory work at Fordham University, I went on to Princeton arriving there around Christmas, 1960. My experience at Princeton was, indeed, mind blowing. The Princeton physics department at that time was probably the best physics department in the world! I worked with Professor Eugene Wigner, a Nobel Laureate and one of the founders of the quantum theory, and Fr Matsuo Yanase, SJ, a Japanese Jesuit physicist who was soon to become the President of Sophia University, Tokyo. Wigner was Hungarian, Jewish by birth and Lutheran by faith. He had been trained in chemical engineering at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin. He had a very keen sense of both the empirical and the technological side of science. Ironically, Wigner occupied Einstein's old office in the Palmer Lab with the famous inscription I already mentioned. I soon switched my allegiance from Einstein to Heisenberg, and from General Relativity to Quantum Theory.

Einstein loved the objective order of geometry where everything had its determinate time and place. This is characteristic of classical physics - roughly all physics with the exception of quantum physics - where it is assumed that theoretical terms in physics exist and have determinate properties independently of any engagement with human culture, with observers or their instruments. Classical objects are thought to be, using Lonergan's phrase, 'already out there now real,' that is, present beyond human culture and history and in principle independent of human filters. Such a view tends to see the world entirely in material terms. Wigner's view was that the only evidence we can rely on is given in experience. Experience, however, involves contingency and risk, for what is observed is observed through many human bodily, instrumental, and linguistic filters. None of these filters can sift incoming signals with infinite precision and, as the quantum theory predicted, some of these filters are mutually incompatible. The question that most quantum physicists and philosophers of science found troubling is the epistemological one: What CAN a physicist know absolutely about the real world? - which is probably unanswerable. Wigner, however, changed the basic question to an ontological one (Wigner 1967, 171-184): What IS knowing in quantum physics? This was the same move that Kant, Lonergan, Husserl, and Heidegger had made. Wigner in an interview towards the end of his life said: “My chief scientific interest in the last 20 years has been to somehow extend theoretical physics into the realm of consciousness consciousness is beautifully complex. It has never been properly described, certainly not by physics or mathematics”. (Szanton 1992, p. 309).

At the end of my Fulbright Fellowship in the Fall of 1962, I went directly to Leuven, to begin my doctoral work in the philosophy of science. It was natural then for me to focus my research on the problem of objectivity in Heisenberg's quantum mechanics and the role of consciousness in measurement.

Leuven (1962-4) and Quantum Mechanics and Objectivity (65)
I arrived at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) in September, 1962, to begin work towards a PhD in the philosophy of science. There was no philosophical program there in the field of the natural sciences, but only in logic and the social psychological sciences. The Institut Supérieur de Philosophie was, however, the home of the Edmund Husserl Archives, brought there by Fr HL Van Breda, OFM, a Franciscan priest, who in 1939 with great personal risk had saved Husserl's papers from confiscation and destruction by the Nazi regime in Germany. My mentor was Professor Jean Ladrière, a brilliant and most beloved logician and mathematician, whose interests included Husserl and the social sciences. During this time, I studied the principal published writings of Husserl. Husserl was a trained mathematician. From 1901 to 1916, he taught philosophy at the University of Göttingen in what was then called the Faculty of Philosophy, which included Natural Philosophy. Among its faculty were also the mathematicians and physicists who were responsible for the early 20th century revolution that committed mathematics to the service of physics. Aquinas, Kant, Lonergan, Husserl, and Martin Heidegger, provided the resources I used to study the philosophical questions I brought from Wigner's Princeton. I read all of Heisenberg's published papers up to the time of my writing, visited with him several times at the Max-Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics in Munich, and discussed with him what I found unclear in his presentations. I found him most cordial and open, and our relationship continued after I left Leuven until his death in 1976. I defended my dissertation in 1964 and received the grade of félications du jury, 'which is the highest honors. I was told by my good friend and Heidegger counsellor, Fr. Bill Richardson, S.J., of Boston College, that it was an invitation to prepare for a faculty appointment at Leuven.

My dissertation was published under the title: Quantum Mechanics and Objectivity: A Study of the Physical Philosophy of Werner Heisenberg (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1965). I will refer to it below as QMO. Of QMO, Heisenberg wrote in the personal letter to me (dated November 10, 1970): “I very much enjoyed reading your book. Precisely the connection between a description of the historical development and a very careful philosophical analysis seems to me to be a felicitous foundation for the reader being able to really penetrate into quantum theory and its philosophy”.

QMO has been widely read and, until recently, was part of the history of science curriculum at Oxford. Some years ago, I was happy to learn that parts of it were being read at the elite Dalton School in New York City in a seminar for the best and brightest among New York high school seniors.

The thesis of the book sustains Wigner's point that there is in quantum physics the emergence of a distinctively new and explicit role for subjectivity at the moment when a datum observation is made. By 'new', I mean 'absent from classical physics. By 'explicit,' I refer to a conscious discrimination between two types of discourse, 1) theoretical (model) discourse and 2) empirical (fact) discourse. Facts occur only in appropriate practical horizonal situations. By horizon/horizona! I mean the practical situatedness of an event - here, a measurement event in a laboratory environment. The principal (but not exclusive) function of a horizon is to specify the space/time and momentum/energy variables. In classical physics, all such horizons are assumed to be mutually compatible. This compatibility breaks down in quantum physics, where cross-correlations exist between data taken in different complementary horizons, for example, the space/time horizon and the momentum/energy horizon are 'complementary. The choice of horizon is controlled by a free decision of the measuring subject. Wigner took this dependence of 'what is factual' on 'what humans have chosen to measure to be evidence of the presence of a human interpretative (and cognitive) role inside the new physics that is absent from classical physics. He saw this as evidence for the existence of an immaterial factor within human consciousness that plays a role in the practice of the new physics.

Reflection:
Much of my later work was inspired by Wigner's problem and the desire to understand it better. In doing so, I read deeply about the biological, historical, and cultural origins of the four functions that in Lonergan's account, constitute the transcendental core of human conscious living. I asked: How did they come to be structured the way we find them today? and How do they operate within the contexts of history, culture, and religion? In the light of Wigner's view that quantum physics implies a role for human consciousness, I began to think that it might be possible to describe the individual embodied human being as a Quantum MacroSystem (CMS).

Return to the USA (1965)
I returned to Ireland from Leuven in the mid-summer of 1964, ready to teach the philosophy of science at UCD in the Fall of that year. Earlier that year I had received some telephone calls from Ireland telling me that there was a crisis brewing about what I would teach in the Fall, but the cause of the crisis was not mentioned. Arriving back in Dublin, I found that I was not listed among the Faculty of Philosophy, but among the faculty of the Department of Mathematical Physics, assigned to teach the graduate course in General Relativistic Cosmology. It was some time before I learned what had been going on in the last few feverish months while I was completing and defending my philosophy dissertation. I was told that the Jesuit professors at UCD had voted – no doubt with others - to give the Chair of Medieval History to someone other than the Archbishop's candidate for that position. The Archbishop then pressured the university to appoint the Archbishop's candidate to a Chair of Medieval Philosophy in the Faculty of Philosophy, and to assign to him the budget line that up to that time was being kept for me. As part of the deal, I was given a position in the Department of Mathematical Physics. I was encouraged, nevertheless, to offer a course in the philosophy of science but only for science students, but I was told that the course would not be listed among courses in philosophy. When I asked why, the reason given me was to ensure that my name would not be put forward as a candidate for Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy when the present Dean retired. The Archbishop had his own candidate for that position. My Provincial had no option but to acquiesce in this matter. The students thought otherwise, however, and showed their disapproval by briefly occupying the office of the Dean of Philosophy.

And so le petit philosophe plus the 'good book that was sent his way “to clear his path” returned for the time being at least to be un petit scientifique hastily boning up on material learned sixteen years earlier at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. But destiny was to win out!

References:
Broad, W, 2005. “Listening for Atom Blasts, but Hearing Earthquakes”. New York Times, January 18, 2005.
Heelan, P. 1965. Quantum Mechanics and Objectivity: A Study of the Physical Philosophy of Werner Heisenberg. The Hague: Nijhoff.
Szanton, A. 1992. Recollections of Eugene P Wigner as told to Andrew Szanton. Plenum Press.
Wigner, E. 1967. Symmetries and Reflections. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Born: 21 August 1909, Kanturk, County Cork
Entered: 01 September 1927, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 03 June 1939
Professed: 02 February 1945
Died: 21 February 1988, Los Angeles, CA, USA - Californiae Province (CAL)

Transcribed HIB to CAL : 02 September 1929

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Joined CAL Province for health reasons

Born: 01 March 1825, Ireland
Entered: 02 December 1847, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Professed:
Died: 15 June 1852, St Xavier College, Cincinnati, OH, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Born: 25 April 1827, Cork City, County Cork
Entered: 26 July 1849, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Ordained: 1858
Final Vows: 02 February 1866
Died: 26 April 1910, St Ignatius College Prep, Chicago, IL, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Born: 09 September 1813, Omagh, County Tyrone
Entered: 03 May 1843, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Professed: 02 February 1854
Died: 23 March 1892, St Ignatius College, Chicago, IL, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Born 02 November 1840, Newcastle West, Co Limerick
Entered 23 August 1858, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Ordained 20 June 1874, Woodstock College Washington DC, USA
Professed 12 December 1880
Died 06 January 1902, Georgetown University Hospital, Washington DC, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Part of the Georgetown College, Washington DC, USA community at the time of death

Born: 30 August 1811, County Fermanagh
Entered: 12 January 1837, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Died; 19 September 1840, Georgetown College, Washington DC, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)

Born: 20 March 1873, Westbury, Tasmania, Australia
Entered: 17 January 1892, Loyola Greenwich, Australia (HIB)
Ordained: 29 July 1906, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows 15 August 1909, St Ignatius College, Riverview, Sydney, Australia
Died: 25 June 1948, St Francis Xavier, Lavender Bay, North Sydney, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed HIB to ASL : 05 April 1931

Younger brother of Michael - RIP 1899

by 1901 in Vals France (LUGD) studying
by 1902 at Kasteel Gemert, Netherlands (TOLO) studying
by 1908 at Drongen Belgium (BELG) making Tertianship
by 1910 in Australia

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
Cornelius Hartnett was a native of Tasmania, and was educated at St Ignatius' College, Riverview. He entered the Society, 18 March 1891, at Loyola College, Greenwich. This was followed by two years studying rhetoric at Greenwich, after which, from 1894-1900, he taught and was successively first and second prefect, and hall prefect at Xavier College, Kew.
In June 1900 Hartnett left Australia for philosophy at Vals, France, but when religious congregations were expelled from France, he went to Holland. Theology was at Milltown Park,
Dublin, 1903-07, and tertianship at Tronchiennes, Belgium, 1907-08. He returned to Australia in 1908 and taught at Riverview, 1908-13, and at St Patrick's College, 1913-15, before working in the parishes of Richmond, Norwood, Hawthorn, Lavender Bay, and North Sydney. From 1930-40 he was spiritual father at St Aloysius' College and worked in the church of Star of the Sea. Hartnett was a good cricketer when young, and intellectually gifted, but too nervy to make the most of his talents. He was very gentle and unassuming, warm hearted, genial and greatly liked at Milsons Point and Lavender Bay He held strong views against bodyline bowling, but on other subjects was mild and tolerant.

Born: 1652, Antwerp, Belgium
Entered: 07 September 1673, Watten, Belgium - Angliae Province (ANG)
Ordained: 1682
Final Vows: 02 February 1691
Died: 01 January 1701, Maryland, USA or at Sea - Angliae Province (ANG)

◆ Fr Edmund Hogan SJ “Catalogica Chronologica” :
1684 In MAR CAT mentions him with Thomas Hervey, in the New York Mission.
1690 MAR CAT records him as in Ireland
1695 Left Rome for Loreto to take the place of Philip Wright there as English Penitentiary 28 April 1695
1697 Reappears in MAR CAT, but seems to have been sent again on some commission, as CAT 1700 says that “he was on his way, but nothing had then been heard of him”.
1701 MAR CAT records his death, without mentioning day or place.

◆ CATSJ A-H has Has been a missioner in Watten, America, England and Ireland

◆ In Chronological Catalogue Sheet

◆ https://jesuitonlinelibrary.bc.edu/?a=d&d=wlet19530501-01.2.4&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------

◆ The English Jesuits 1650-1829 Geoffrey Holt SJ : Catholic Record Society 1984
RIP c 1701, place not recorded - perhaps lost at sea before that date.

◆ George Oliver Towards Illustrating the Biography of the Scotch, English and Irish Members SJ
HARRISON, HENRY. All that I can collect of him is, that he died in 1701, set 49. Soc. 28.

https://jesuitonlinelibrary.bc.edu/?a=d&d=wlet19530501-01.2.4&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------

Born: 06 January 1943, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 10 October 1961, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 23 June 1972, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1982, Loyola, Eglinton Road, Dublin
Died: 20 December 1996, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the Loyola community, Eglinton Road, Dublin at the time of death.

Father Provincial of the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus: 31 July 1986-30 July 1992
1st President of the European Conference of Provincials 1992-1996

Cousin of Donal Doyle SJ (JPN)

by 1966 at Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain (TOLE) studying
by 1973 at Washington DC, USA (MAR) studying
PROVINCIAL 01 September 1986
by 1994 at Brussels Belgium (BEL S) President European Conference
by 1995 at Strasbourg France (GAL) President European Conference

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online :
Harnett, Philip
by Peter McVerry
Harnett, Philip (1943–96), Jesuit priest, was born 6 January 1943 in Dublin, the third child of Patrick Harnett and Ursula Treacy. He had two brothers, John and Patrick, and three sisters, Anne, Catherine, and Mary. Following an education at Pembroke School, Ballsbridge, and Belvedere College, he joined the Jesuits on 10 October 1961 and studied arts at UCD, philosophy in the Jesuit College, Madrid, and theology in Milltown Park, Dublin. He was ordained a priest on 23 June 1972.

Harnett studied as a drugs counsellor in Washington, DC, in 1972 and worked for the Dublin diocese as a drugs advisor until 1974. He was then appointed parish priest in the inner-city Jesuit parish of Gardiner Street where, for six years, he coordinated a major community development programme. From 1980 to 1983 he worked in the central administration of the Irish Jesuits before being appointed to the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice. During this time he lived in the socially deprived neighbourhood of Ballymun and sought to raise awareness of the structural injustices in Irish society; he also lectured and gave many workshops on this theme. He worked closely with residents in Ballymun to support their struggle to improve the quality of life in their neighbourhood.

In 1986 Harnett was appointed provincial of the Irish Jesuits. In this post he led the Jesuits through a period of rapid change in Irish society and the Irish church, and his leadership skills became very evident. Although he had to make difficult, and sometimes unpopular, decisions to respond to the changing circumstances, he retained the respect of those whom he led. He encouraged and supported the Irish Jesuits in their commitment to social justice, which he saw as a central thrust of their mission. In 1993 he was appointed to the newly created post of president of the Conference of European Jesuit Provincials, which reflected the high esteem in which he was held, and moved to Strasbourg. Three years later he was diagnosed with cancer, and despite a course of immuno-therapy in Strasbourg he became progressively weaker. He returned to Dublin, where he died 20 December 1996.

Irish Province Jesuit Archives; personal knowledge

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 92 : August 1996
Obituary

Fr Philip Harnett (1943-1996)

6th Jan. 1943: Born in Dublin
Early education: Pembroke School, Ballsbridge and Belvedere College
10th Oct. 1961: Entered the Society at Emo
11th Oct. 1963: First Vows at Emo
1963 - 1965: Rathfarnham, Arts at UCD
1965 - 1967: Madrid, studying Philosophy
1967 - 1969: Crescent College Comprehensive, Teaching
1969 - 1972: Milltown Park, studying Theology
23rd June 1972: Ordained Priest at Milltown Park
1972 - 1973: Washington, Diploma in Drugs Abuse Training
1973 - 1974: Gardiner St - work for Archbishop on Drugs SFX
1974 - 77: Gardiner Street, Parish Priest
1977 - 1978: Tullabeg, Tertianship
1978 - 1980: SFX Gardiner St - Parish Priest
1980 - 1983: Loyola House - Special Secretariat
1983 - 1986: Arrupe, Ballymun Superior - work at CFJ
1986 - 1992: Loyola House, Provincial
1992 - 1993: Sabbatical
1993 - 1996 Brussels/Strasbourg: President of Conference of European Provincials

Philip was feeling a lack of energy after Christmas 1995. His doctors diagnosed cancer and this necessitated the removal of a kidney. Under medical supervision, he initially returned to work in Strasbourg but his doctors eventually prescribed a course in immuno-therapy that lasted several months during which time Philip was unable to work. On completion of the therapy he returned to Dublin to stay with his sister Anne for some weeks. After a fall, he was admitted to St. Vincent's Hospital and then to Cherryfield Lodge. He made very determined efforts to regain his health and members of the province prayed for him through the intercession of Fr. John Sullivan. Gradually, however, he became weaker and was more and more confined to bed. He died at 3am on Friday 20th December 1996.

Homily for Philip Harnett's funeral Mass, December 23rd, 1996
Can't you imagine Philip Harnett as Jesus asks him does he love him more than these others, and then asks him for a second and third time does he really love him? What I imagine is that Philip would be wondering what kind of manipulation and emotional blackmail all this was! I think he'd probably call for some kind of small group session in Ignatius' court of heaven, perhaps with himself, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, to facilitate the Lord's apparent insecurity!

In this, the end of John's gospel, we have played out before us the last act of the drama, which began with the invitation to the disciples in the first chapter of John to "come and see". This last act for Philip wasn't as he had either anticipated or wanted: somebody else was putting a belt around him and taking him where he would rather not go. This last journey and meeting with Jesus began last January with news of his serious illness, and intensified in September when he returned to Ireland and it became clear that his illness according to conventional medicine was terminal. It was mostly a journey through his memory, his mind and his heart. Philip the mountain climber, the hill walker, the marathon runner, that vibrant and handsome physical presence, went on this most important of all his journeys with disintegrating body, struggling for breath, but with spirit undiminished and even expanding, as he yearned for life and yearned to understand better the meaning of his and our lives.

What did he find out? Well: that, as always, he was held by the hand of Jesus. That was core and central: beneath all his banter and mockery, it was always clear that for Philip his relationship with Jesus Christ was the bedrock of his life, I heard him once as Provincial articulate this in an impassioned and unguarded way, confirming what I had always suspected was true. This came out so strongly in these last few months: if Jesus was leading him, even where he would himself not want to go, then it was alright. He might argue, protest, even rant and rave, but in the end, warts and all, it was alright. And this is what happened: Philip was able to say “I'm happy”, even as he continued to desire life and felt it ebbing out of him: all will be well, all manner of things will be well, because Jesus Christ, his life-time companion, was with him.

What he found out also was that as he got closer to Jesus and the next life, he got closer to his family, his friends, to his life. He pondered long the influence of his deceased mother and father, his relationship with his brothers and sisters, John, Anne, Catherine, Patrick and Mary, his extended family of in-laws, nephews, nieces and aunts. It was such a great joy to him to be able, after a characteristically honest, searching, and healing look-back, to embrace this network of relationships with heightened appreciation. I know, because he told me and others more than once, how deeply touched he was in particular by the palpable love he felt from his immediate family: he relished the directness of their affection, he was so pleased that it could be expressed so openly, and he wanted so much for them to understand how much they meant to him. Of course he was still capable of saying "God bless" if there was even a hint of mawkishness or false sentimentality in any of this: but he did, more than ever before, want to own and relax into the love he felt for an received from others. And he did so that last journey was simplifying and purifying in a way that surprised and made him very happy - through his prayer, his pondering and sifting, his talking it over with others in a characteristically open way, he found that in coming closer to Jesus Christ he became closer to the rest of us. As his body contracted, his heart expanded.

This applied also of course to his relationship with his friends - with Bernadette in Australia (whose brother Joseph is, I'm glad to say, with us this morning), Catherine in France, with his many friends, Jesuit and lay, from Ireland and different parts of the world, many of whom are here today. He was inclined in fact to dwell less on his achievements, and more on the people who had enriched his life: this was a bit different for a Jesuit, as he well realised! He appreciated so much the care he received in Strasbourg, in Elm Park, above al in Cherryfield. This included those who so generously offered him the help of various alternative medicines, as with typical whole heartedness he embraced every way to continue with life which he had such a huge desire for. And he was so pleased too that the Jesuit Province was praying through John Sullivan's intercession for a miracle cure: I think there may have to be another small group meeting in heaven, involving Philip. John Sullivan and a facilitator to sort out what exactly John Sullivan thought he was at, before the two of them can be the good pals Paul Cullen was talking about last Saturday!

But this was something that Philip also found out: that God, the Father, was not aloof, distant, judgmental, and to be feared. Rather, he marvelled to discover the infinite, inexhaustible patience of God, so open to taking all the anger, the fear, the rage that someone in Philip's terrible predicament felt, and yet there for Philip, as Jesus was. That again was wonderful: this after all is the God of life, and Philip again was reassured that against all the odds God, who is Father and Mother, was there for him, no matter what.

I have spoken of Philip through what I know of his own eyes. The reading from the Romans, with talk of the groaning of creation, gives us an opportunity to assess Philip through our own eyes, because this is also part of the truth of who it is. Creation groans because God's kingdom is being established against great opposition, and Philip had dedicated his life to this Kingdom. What are the kind of qualities which made his contribution so important, particularly in his life as priest in Gardiner Street, Special Secretariat in Loyola, work in Ballymun and the Centre for Faith and Justice, as Provincial and then as President of the Conference of European Provincials?

Well: I think his leadership qualities were remarkable. I remember joking with him that as a leader of the pack on our rugby team he was remarkable for the fact that he could roar at the rest of us to get up first to the break-down point, while arriving himself half a yard behind everyone else to the next line-out! There was something here that was truly great: the ability to motivate others, to inspire, to empower, to make others believe in themselves, not to feel that he could or had to do everything himself. Some of this of course came from his great sense of vision: in many ways for us Irish Jesuits he personified what it was to be a Jesuit after our 32nd General Congregation in the 1970's, with our mission defined in terms of faith and justice, Some of it too came from his skill in management and group work - think of all those meetings, and he was still conducting them from his sick-bed! There was too his creativity: he displayed this perhaps to greatest effect in the last job he had in Europe, where he really was trying to get something very embryonic going in difficult circumstances and in a way which won the respect of all. He had a sharp mind, a shrewd intelligence, an original and critical reading of the world and the signs of the times. Allied to all this was his ability to challenge, in a way which brought the best out of others. As you heard at the start of the Mass, Fr. General himself obviously appreciated this quality in Philip, which leads me to believe that in their relationship of great mutual respect and not a little affection, there may also have been that Harnett push for the magis, the 110%, felt by Fr. General! And of course there was his terrific humanity, his openness in dialogue, his ability to respect the institution but never let this suppress the Spirit-led unorthodoxies in himself or others, his utterly irreverent wit. Very interesting, he would say, when bored stiff; the pious put-down, God bless; the hilarious, Inspector Clousseau grappling with French vowels, particularly of the eu variety, with corresponding facial grimaces.

The stories are legion, and most of them unrepeatable. An edited, maybe apochryphal one will have to act as catalyst for your own favourites: it tells of Philip, as Provincial, being driven in the back of a car up the Milltown drive to preside at an important Province meeting. On the way he passes a group of the younger men, and in self-mocking style waves to them airily, in truly regal and almost pontifical style. Then, as the car passes, they see the same Philip gesticulating at them wildly like a school-boy from the back window of the car. He could not be pompous: sacred cows were there to be slaughtered, the unsayable was suddenly sayable, and none of it was cruel because it was rooted in the ability to be contrite and laugh at himself ( I feel so guilty!) and to be deeply serious when it mattered. He made doing what was good seem adventurous, attractive - and just plain fun! Through all of this he achieved so much, and we may rightly assess this as of more significance than he himself was inclined to do in his illness. You will all have your own list of these achievements: I mention the Signs of the Times Seminar, the development of the Milltown Institute and the Irish School of Ecumenics, as examples of how to my certain first-hand knowledge his leadership has touched the lives of so many.

He was, then, a giant of a man and will be sorely missed. He meant so much to so many. We who are left behind, his family, his friends and colleagues, his brother Jesuits, have a right to ask why? Why now? A right to grieve, to be sorry, to be angry. In doing so we will be helped by the Spirit referred to in the reading from Romans, who helps us in our weakness. We will be helped too by the spirit of Philip, who trusted in God and Jesus, who would understand that we needed to grieve and be angry, but who might say to us in the future, when we might be tempted to use our grief in a maudlin way to block our own lives - well, he might say a gentle, God bless, and help us realise that his God is the God of life, and it is even deeper life that he now enjoys.

This is what the reading from Isaiah suggests I think - more mountains, food and drink, the heavenly banquet - all in continuity with this life. This is another of Philip's great gifts to us: dying, with all its terrible rupture and loss, is for the person of faith a passing to new life. Philip lived this rupture and this hope in an extraordinarily holistic way. He told me early on that he did not want to die well", in the sense of whatever conventional expectations might be there: he laughed often, even through those last few months, and when he got angry, he would say, in aside, Kubla-Ross/stages of dying! He wondered too what would happen if there was a miracle: would he become a bit of an exhibit, like Lazarus, and would he be asked to go to Rome as part of the evidence for the cause of John Sullivan?! This apparent gallows humour was in fact more of what I have already alluded to: he loved life, he loved Jesus who was utterly incarnate, of flesh, for Philip: and if he trusted Jesus and God to bring him through death to new life, then this new life was in continuity with all the fun, the love, the mountains, the food and drink of this life. This was not a denial of death: rather it was a hymn to life, the ultimate compliment to and praise of the God of life. A 10th Century Celtic poem captures some of this sentiment:

The heavenly banquet
I would like to have the men of Heaven
In my own house:
With vats of good cheer
Laid out for them.

I would like to have the three Marys,
Their fame is so great.
I would like people
From every corner of Heaven
.
I would like them to be cheerful
In their drinking,
I would like to have Jesus too
Here amongst them.

I would like a great lake of beer
For the King of Kings,
I would like to be watching Heaven's family
Drinking it through all eternity,

This symbolic picture of the heavenly banquet, so true for example to the great satisfaction experienced by Philip in his two trips to pubs for a drink with his brother John in the weeks before he died, is part of Philip's gift to us as he parts. It tells us to treasure life to the full; to seek its meaning in responsible love and in Jesus Christ; to hope with great realism and joy for a reunion of all creation at God's heavenly banquet. In his last few days when Philip, master of meetings, wanted a bit of time on his own he used to say, courteously, humorously: the meeting is over, you may go now! The meeting is indeed over now, Philip: and although it breaks our hearts, you may go: and we thank you and God for all you have meant to us, and for the hope that we may continue to make this world a better place and may enjoy life to the full with you in the future.

Peter Sexton, SJ

-oOo-

When Philip Harnett became Provincial of the Society of Jesus in Ireland, he automatically assumed a number of responsibilities relating to the Irish School of Ecumenics. Firstly he became the Roman Catholic Patron, secondly he became Trustee, and lastly he assumed the Presidency of the Academic Council. In this last role he quickly became aware much more fully of the work of ISE - its degree/diploma programmes in Dublin, its adult education courses on reconciliation in Northern Ireland and the research and outreach efforts of the academic staff. Already in ISE there was a growing realisation that the Irish Churches should take a more positive interest in ISE and Philip saw and endorsed this aim. He also learned of the precarious financial position of ISE and he realised the need for change and development in the school's administration. As time passed the Provincial felt a growing need to take a more constructively active role to help ISE - discerning that those who were running ISE - Executive Board and Director - were too close to the action and too fully involved to stand back and be objective. With the agreement therefore of those in ISE, of the other Patrons and the Trustees, Philip invited (to use a politically correct term which probably understates the nature of the 'invitation') two business men whom he could rely on to act as consultants to the Patrons and to draw up a report on ISE.

That report, when in due time it was presented to the Patrons, was comprehensive and in some areas radical. Its recommendations were accepted by the Patrons who left it to Philip to set up a 'task force' to work with ISE in implementing the recommendations.

This process has resulted in long term advantages and reforms, the outworking of some of these is still in progress. It developed a new relationship for ISE with the Irish churches. The Archbishop of Dublin (Roman Catholic) together with a nominee for the Episcopal Conference have become Patrons (in the place of the Jesuit provincial who remains President of the Academic Council and one of the Trustees together with the Patrons from the other larger churches in Ireland, Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian. Equally significantly the churches committed themselves to a programme of financial grants to ISE. This opened up the way for ISE to establish an Endowment Fund and to approach the corporate business sector for significant donations,

The Executive Board of ISE was given much greater responsibility and authority, making it possible for the Academic Council to concentrate on broad policy and the maintenance of Academic standards and research. These changes have been fundamental to the most recent development - albeit one not foreseen in the Consultants' report - that of grant-aid for ISE from the Minister for Education.

Throughout this whole process Philip Harnett retained his interest in and enthusiasm for ISE and for the aims and principles of the school, He gave constant personal support to those of us involved within ISE, and his quiet encouragement and guidance were always available and freely given. His commitment to ecumencial co-operation was a practical and constructive involvement and his actions stemmed from genuine concern and spiritual motivation. He saw ecumenical action and co-operation as a natural part of his Christian life and witness, and he put this vision to good effect in relation to ISE.

Over the time span of history many people have contributed to the formation of ISE's structures, visions and programmes. The recent development of the School is no exception and while successive provincials and directors have made their contributions, it fell to Philip to be the School's Jesuit patron at a critical phase. Philip Harnett had the vision - a vision that combined ideas and imagination with gentleness and compassion, allied to an administrative experience and skill. These attributes enabled Philip to help the school, grown too large for its original “family structure, to develop into a well administered institution. His was a contribution that came at the right time and was made in the right way.

David Poole

David Poole who is a member of the religious Society of Friends, was Chair of ISE's Executive Board from 1987 to 1996.

◆ The Clongownian, 1997

Obituary

Father Philip Harnett SJ

Fr Philip Harnett SJ, whose older brother John was at Clongowes (1954-57) but who himself attended Belvedere, served as a member of the Board of Governors on two separate occasions. The first time was for a year in 1979-80, when he was Parish Priest of Gardiner St. Later, he was ex officio President of the Board during his creative and memorable six-year term as Jesuit Provincial, 1986-92. He was appointed President of the Conference of European Provincials in 1993, with his base in Strasbourg, a task with which he grappled with characteristic energy and commitment. He fell ill at Christmas 1995. Despite a heroic battle to overcome his illness, to the very great grief of his family and his fellow-Jesuits, Philip died on 20 December 1996, aged 53.

Born: 21 October 1831, Templeshanbo, County Wexford
Entered: 12 September 1853, Amiens, France - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1861
Professed: 15 August 1873
Died: 09 April 1891, Fordham College, NY, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 21 August 1934, The Ward, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1957, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 28 July 1967, Milltown Park Chapel, Dublin
Final vows: 15 August 1974, Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambia
Died: 07 December 2023, Blackrock Clinic, Dublin

Part of the Manresa Community at the time of death

Transcribed HIB to ZAM 1974; ZAM to HIB 1982

    Born :  21st August 1934        Dublin
    Raised :    The Ward, Co Dublin
        Early Education at St Mary’s College, Dundalk, UCD & Clonliffe College

7th September 1957 Entered Society at St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois
8th September 1959 First Vows at St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois
1959-1961 Tullabeg - Studying Philosophy
1961-1962 Monze, Zambia - Regency : Studying language at Chivuna Station
1962-1964 Chisekesi, Zambia - Regency : Teacher at Canisius College, Chikuni
1964-1968 Milltown Park - Studying Theology
28th July 1967 Ordained at Milltown Park Chapel, Dublin
1968-1969 Manchester, UK - Studying Pedagogy of language at St Bede’s College
1969-1972 Chisekesi, Zambia - Teacher; Spiritual Father at Canisius College, Chikuni
1972-1973 Clarkston, MI, USA - Tertianship at Colombiere College
1973-1976 Chisekesi, Zambia - Teacher at Canisius College, Chikuni
15th August 1974 Final Vows at Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambia
1974 Transcribed to Zambian Province [ZAM] (15/08/1974)
1978-1985 Tullabeg - Assistant Director of Spiritual Exercises
1979 Director “Religion in Ireland Project”
1982 Transcribed to Irish Province [HIB] (26/03/1982)
1985-2023 Manresa House - Assistant Director of Spiritual Exercises; Ecclesiastical Assistant for CLC
1989 Librarian; Spiritual Exercises Team; Writer
2018 Writer; Directs Spiritual Exercises

https://jesuit.ie/news/helping-people-find-god/

Fr. Peter Hannan SJ died peacefully on 7 December 2023 at the Blackrock Clinic in the company of family members and Fr Willie Reynolds, superior of Manresa. His funeral mass took place at St Francis Xavier’s, Gardiner Street on Monday 11 December at 11.00 am.

Peter was born on 21 August 1934 in Dublin. On 7 September 1957, he entered the Society of Jesus at St Mary’s, Emo, County Laois, and took his first vows on 8 September 1959.
From 1961 to 1964 he spent time in Zambia studying and working in the area of education ministry and Catechesis .

On 28 July 1967 Peter was ordained at Milltown Park chapel, Dublin, and on 15 August 1974 he took his final Vows at Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambia. In 1978 he returned to Ireland, and was Assistant Director of Spiritual Exercises and the Director of “Religion in Ireland Project” in Tullabeg. In 1985 he was made Assistant Director of Spiritual Exercises and Ecclesiastical Assistant for CLC in Manresa House, Clontarf, Dublin where he remained until 2023.

Always gentle, courteous, gracious

Willie Reynolds SJ was the chief celebrant at the funeral Mass. Peter’s cousin Father John Hannan SM gave the homily. Father John said his cousin was “always gentle, courteous, gracious, and deeply interested in one’s ‘story.”

He noted that when Peter came back to Ireland in 1977 he began his life’s major work in the study of the nature and purpose of the spiritual life. Father John said that this was “all facilitated by his beloved Jesuit Order, one of whose admirable characteristics is to allow its members to develop their potential in the pursuit of excellence.”

Peter published nine books between 1993 and 2007. One of his best known was Follow Your Dream : Restoring Lost Intimacy and The Search for Something More : A Journey to Human Fulfilment.

According to John, Peter loved being a ‘companion’ in a person’s search for a more profound relationship with God. “He relished the search for the divine, seeking to understand his own and others’ life stories through prayer, the use of the Scriptures, and Ignatian know-how. Being a spiritual guide was very important to him. Peter was there to encourage the other and enable them to open new pathways that might set them alight in their own search of a deeper relationship with God.”

In concluding his homily Fr John asked that people never forget “Peter’s example of fervor, fidelity to his Jesuit vocation, and the spiritual heritage which he leaves behind. These are the the virtues that I understand Peter to have most exemplified”

After the Mass, Peter was laid to rest in the Jesuit plot in Glasnevin Cemetery.

https://jesuit.ie/blog/gardening-with-peter/

Tears flowed freely when I heard the news that my 89-year-old friend Peter Hannan SJ was taken to intensive care, and I felt deeply sad when one of his friends told me he had died. I was lucky to have known this wonderful gardener and spiritual teacher during the later stage of his life. I became friends with him after responding to an invitation to help out in the grounds of Manresa Jesuit Centre of Spirituality. As we gardened, we easily slipped into deep conversation and I appreciated Peter’s gentle smile, contemplative wisdom and robust strength. Here I suggest three ways in which Peter showed me how to love:

Listen to inner knowledge: Peter had an academic background especially during the first half of his life, but he later realised that it was inner or experiential knowledge that truly satisfied the soul. He invited me to grow in this personal wisdom through paying attention to the glimpses of love in my day, intuitively naming what they say to me, savouring their truth and goodness, and learning to believe and own this love for myself.

Share unfinished works: As a writer, Peter generously shared his notes with me which included growth in personal wisdom, insights into faith and spirituality, and bringing scripture to life through imagination and feelings. I felt moved to share some of my own writings with him such as an unpublished poem that expressed my vulnerabilities. He received it with great sensitivity, as if holding something sacred, and tentatively shared his thoughts with me.

Create beauty everywhere: Peter believed in a garden full of colourful flowers and leaves. He showed me how to take care of the little things, e.g., nurturing potted plants in their early days as well as the bigger things, e.g., moving compost and digging up the roots of unwanted shrubs. He taught me the value of time when it was enough to leave an unfinished task for another day. He joyfully laboured in his garden every day, and like his writing, was a beautiful sight indeed.

Help us to be happy like you
(Peter Hannan SJ, 1934-2023)

Your sensitive smile, a sign of your master,
Your physical strength, a reminder of a great oak,
Your listening ear, nourishing like a river.

Rest sweetly, brother, rest sweetly, friend,
Keep us forever in your heavenly heart.

Warm us with your wholesome stories,
Guide us with your gardening hand.

We smile for you, for you are smiling at us,
Help us to be happy like you.

Amen

Born: 28 June 1883, High Street, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1901, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 28 June 1917
Final Vows: 02 February 1921
Died: 21 March 1973, Seattle, WA, USA - Oregonensis Province (ORE)

Transcribed HIB to TAUR : 1903; TAUR to CAL : 1909; CAL to ORE

Born: 25 August 1910, Brooklyn, NY, USA
Entered: 01 February 1930, St Andrew on Hudson NY, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)
Ordained: 21 June 1942
Final Vows: 21 November 1977
Died: 23 September 1986, Thomastown, County Kilkenny - Neo-Eboracensis Province (NEB)

This man died in Ireland from NYK Province

Born: 27 September 1931, Dublin, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1949, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1963, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: Canisius College, Chikuni, Zambia
Died: 14 March 2018, Nazareth House, Manning Ave, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Left Society of Jesus: 1980

Transcribed: HIB to ZAM - 03 December 1966

Son of Stephen Guerrini and Ellen McInerney. Studied at UCD

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1958 at Chivuna, Monze, N Rhodesia - studying language Regency
by 1967 at Holy Name Manchester (ANG) working
by 1975 in Oxnard CA, USA (CAL) working

Born: 05 April 1829, Tyrrellspass, County Westmeath
Entered: 01 January 1853, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Final Vows: 02 February 1864
Died: 10 December 1915, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Born: 24 September 1942, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 04 October 1964, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 21 June 1974, Gonzaga College SJ, Dublin
Final Vows: 17 January 1984, Coláiste Iognáid, Galway
Died: 15 February 2008, St James's Hospital, James Street, Dublin

Part of the Campion, Hatch Street, Dublin Community at the time of death

by 1973 at Brussels Belgium (BEL M) studying
by 1974 at Cambridge MA, USA (NEB) studying - Harvard
by 1991 at Oakland CA, USA (CAL) Sabbatical

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/liam-greene-rip/

Liam Greene RIP

Please pray for the soul of Fr Liam Greene SJ, who died unexpectedly Friday morning, 15 February 2008 after taking ill suddenly. He was 65 years old and was working with the
JUST programme in Ballymun. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

Rev. Liam Greene, S.J.
who died at St. James Hospital, Dublin on 15 February 2008, aged 65 years.
24 September 1942 Born in Dublin
Early education at CBS, James’ Street. Studied English in UCD.
4 October 1964 Entered the Society at Emo
5 October 1966 First Vows at Emo
1966-1968 Milltown Park – Studied Philosophy
1968-1970 St. Ignatius, Galway – Teacher 1970-1973 Milltown Park – Studied Theology
1973-1974 Harvard (USA) – Studied Philosophy and Theology
21 June 1974 Ordained at Milltown Park, Dublin
1974-1984 St. Ignatius, Galway – Teacher; Director of “Irish Studies”; Retreats; Regency 1978-1979 Tertianship at Tullabeg
17 January 1984 Final Vows
1984-1987 Tabor House – Retreats to young people; Chaplain to DIT, Rathmines; part-time lecturer in Communications
1987-1989 Attached to Tabor but resident at 73 Croftwood Park, Ballyfermot 1987-1990 Chaplain and part-time teaching at DIT, Rathmines
1990-1991 Oakland, California – Sabbatical; MA in Spirituality
1991-2008 Campion House –
1991-1993 Development Creation Spirituality Project; Assistant in Tabor; retreats for young people
1993-1996 Communications Centre; Librarian
1996-2000 Also Lecturer in Communications, Ethics and Psychology at DIT
2000-2001 Lecturer at DIT / RTE
2001-2004 Writer; Media analysis (RTE / DIT); Spiritual Director (SJ)
2004-2006 Writer; Media analysis (RTE / DIT); Chaplain: Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital; Spiritual Director (SJ)
2006-2008 JUST Project, Ballymun.
15 February 2008 Died in St. James’ Hospital, Dublin.
Liam collapsed at home in Campion House and efforts to revive him failed. Further attempt to revive him at St. James’ also failed and he was pronounced dead at around noon on Friday 15 2008.
May he rest in the Peace of Christ
Liam was a graduate of UCD, where he majored in English, before he joining the Jesuits. In addition to the above, he also graduated from Louvain University. Harvard University accepted Liam as its only European student the year that he went there. From then, and from his time in Berkeley in 1990, he had many American Jesuit friends.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 136 : Summer 2008

Obituary

Fr Liam Greene (1942-2008)

Paddy Greene writes:
Liam Greene died unexpectedly on 15 February, 2008, in his community home, Campion House, Hatch St. He had not shown any signs of being unwell in the previous days, and, in fact, had worked with his students in the JUST Project in Ballymun earlier that week. His favourite text was: "I have come that they may have life, life to the full"(In.1 0, 10), and it can be said that his life here ended with him living it to the full.

Liam was born in Dublin on 24 September, 1942. His mother, Jane Landers, was a nurse from Cork, and his father, Michael Greene, from Tullow in Co. Carlow, worked in the administrative staff in UCD. Three significant events happened during Liam's teenage years that had a profound bearing on the rest of his life.

First, it was identified that Liam had epilepsy. Learning to live with an unpredictable illness which necessitated a variable dosage of tablets introduced a degree of uncertainty to his moods and energy. Indeed, the many attacks of a greater or lesser extent that he endured throughout his life made him all too aware how consciousness can be snuffed out so quickly. On the positive side, he became passionate in his determination to make as much use of the present moment as possible, in fact, to live life to the full. Situations, therefore, that stopped him doing so provoked in him a harsh response, something that was not always understood by others.

Secondly, his mother, in an attempt to offset the setback of the epilepsy, sent him to evening classes in the National College of Art. So, for five years, as the youngest student there during all his time, he studied all aspects of art from life drawing to painting to art history. From it he got a lifelong fascination with creatitivity, particularly how it manifested itself throughout the centuries in the fine arts, but also in outstanding individuals. Napoleon was his teenage hero.

Thirdly, the death of his brother, Gerard, in an accident left him numbed for a long time - why had he been left and not his brother? It also raised for him questions of meaning, ultimate meaning. It led him to seek to enter the Jesuits after his Leaving Certificate, but the Provincial, Fr. Tommy Byrne, felt it would be too hard on his mother to lose another son so quickly, and so he persuaded him to go to University and consider his vocation after his degree. This he agreed to do.

Liam studied Pure English in UCD with Old Irish as a minor subject. There in 1961, 1 had the good fortune to meet Liam - I had just come from Emo after Vows - and we remained friends ever since. Dermot O'Connor was with Liam in Pure English, and perhaps it was through our friendship with Liam a path to the Society was more fully opened. Anyway, at the end of his degree, in 1964, he joined the Society.

After Vows, Liam went to Milltown Park for Philosophy. They were the heydays of Phil McShane, Conn O'Donovan and Eamon Egan. Liam revelled in all the intense work on Lonergan from McShane and O'Donovan while he also loved the gentle, yet precise, probing and alternatives offered by Egan.

Full of energy and enthusiasm, Liam joined me in Galway for Colleges. First, he had a month's immersion in Connemara to brush up on his Irish. The family he stayed with - Peig, Colie and Bairbre - took him to their hearts and they remained his Connemara family from then on. In the school Liam revelled in teaching, where his expansive style and flair got a great reception from the boys. In the community, Sean Mallin, in his late incarnation as a radical theologian, became great friends with Liam. In 1970, Seán O'Connor, as Headmaster, began his innovative approach to education and Liam became a staunch supporter. Although he was in theology when the experiment ended in grief, Liam always believed that Seán had been on the right track.

Back in Milltown for Theology, Liam was part of the BRA (Basement Residents Association), one of the small communities into which the scholastics were divided as an experiment in more personal living. Situated in the basement of the Retreat House, it included among others Michael Hurley and Brian Lennon, and the rumbustious debates among them all were legendary. Liam spent a semester in Brussels; it was dark and wet and dreary, but it was enlivened by the presence of an Irish-American Jesuit from Newry.

The issue of Liam's epilepsy became a problem with Rome in his third year. Cecil McGarry, as Provincial, took his part, but the negotiation with Rome took time so Liam in his fourth year went to Harvard University in Boston. There he did an MA in Religion and Culture. He was in his element again with the ferment of ideas and people making a heady cocktail. It was there that the story goes that Liam being asked to do a module on statistics (he hated maths) declined, offering the excuse that Ireland was so small that it did not need statistics, as everyone knew everyone else. He got away with it!

His diaconate took place in Boston, where he was supported by Jack and Mary Ryan, parents of Jack Ryan of the New York Province whom Liam and I met on our first visit to the US in 1971. Then home for ordination - a time of sublime celebration for Liam, his parents and family.

After being appointed to the College in Galway, Liam became a teacher of Religion, English, Art and History. These subjects gave him ample scope to express his gifts and training in these areas. He was an inspirational teacher who could convey a love and passion for his subject in a way that has stayed with many of his students to the present day. Like many an artist, he was not the most organized of people in starting out, but, once launched, there was a sureness and flow to his discourse that was compelling. His love of learning is best exemplified in History, which he began to teach with the encouragement of Pádraig O Cúaláin, the senior history teacher. His early enthusiasm for Napoleon was now broadened to encompass the colours and shades of the European canvas and he delighted in telling the stories of the individuals, great and small, that peopled that crowded space.

Special Sunday night Masses for sixth years and their female friends became a feature of the religion programme. Liam, with his powerful homilies and the time and interest he gave to individuals, was a major contributor at that time. Also, he was an essential part of the team that organized and ran the Roundstone retreats where 6th years and a group of teachers spent an intensive few days in an encounter-group retreat. These had a profound effect on the 6th years, and, consequently, the atmosphere in the whole school benefited from them. Liam's love of conversations was an essential part of his ministry and enabled him reach a range of personalities often missed by the rest of us.

Learning through experience was central to Liam's approach to education, and so, school tours to the Continent where religious, artistic, literary and historical events had occurred were undertaken by him. Memorable trips to Spain and Italy, where John Humphreys and myself were the bus drivers, were followed by an annual journey to Paris starting on St. Stephen's Day. This week was filled with the Louvre, the Jeu de Paume, the Tuileries, Versailles and Chartres. To listen to Liam speak of the great works of art, or the wars of history, was to be taken into areas of life that were before only glimpsed from a distance. It was education at its best.

Musicals had been a tradition in Galway under Eamon Andrews and Kieran Ward. During the early 70's Bob McGoran and Murt Curry revived the tradition and Liam joined in with great gusto. He helped with the production, the lighting, the painting and stage design, the costumes. It was a great experience of what makes a Jesuit school such a demanding and rewarding place, and where a lasting influence is had on the students.

After ten hectic years in Galway, Liam was moved to Chaplaincy in the DIT in Rathmines in 1984. The change came as a shock to him and it took him a good while to get used to it. Living in Tabor House was a help to him as it brought him in contact with young adults. The work of a chaplain is so less organized than a teacher, and meeting students is very much a hit and miss business. Liam's ability to drink endless cups of coffee and hold long chats stood him in good stead. However, he was primarily a teacher, and when openings occurred in the school of Film and TV, he took them, as it gave him a chance to lecture, debate and then move into the direction of students in making films. Because of the long and broken schedule of third level, Liam's health during these years was uneven. The correct prescription of medicines for epilepsy is an art not a science, and Liam suffered as a result. Over-prescribing left him depressed and heavy, while the opposite risked the onset of an attack. But despite the setbacks, Liam always bounced back. It gave him the impetus towards what had not yet happened and an impatience with any structure that stood still. And yet, the number of close friendships among lecturers and students he made in those years tells of his real commitment at all times to the individual.

After Tabor House closed, Liam went to live in Cherry Orchard with Gerry O'Hanlon and Bill McGoldrick. Liam in his own way got to know the local people and befriended them. His sense of humour helped to lighten even the most difficult situations, and there were some tricky ones in Cherry Orchard! So the move later to Campion House, Hatch Street, was to a quieter place, although Liam missed the involvement with the local people. As a part-time chaplain in the Eye and Ear Hospital he was able to show his care for those in need. His interest in the students in University Hall led to friendships that lasted many years, and led to links with families in Florence, Rome, France and Lithuania. He even gave a retreat to Jesuits in Lithuania using an interpreter! At this time as well Liam took a renewed interest in his mother's relations in the Galtee Mountains in Co. Cork. He became a source of the family lore of the older generations that stretched back to Famine times, but especially the burning of the local “great house” during the Troubles. Being with them and the very personal way he had of saying Mass became a great consolation to them in times of pain and loss.

When Kevin O'Higgins started the JUST Project in Ballymun in 2006, Liam became a member of the team. He spent a few days a week there and once more his teaching abilities came to the fore. He was greatly involved with helping the students master the skills of writing and presentation in the programmes geared to help them gain entry to third level education. He was also in charge of the cultural dimension to the programme, introducing students to the galleries, museums and theatres of the city. His work with the post-graduate group led to wide-ranging debates on art, history and matters of faith. Liam was in his element again. And that is how death found him: in good health, in good form, in full flight, in work he loved. He went at the height of his powers to a place of greater and deeper connections and explorations. Among his papers was found the following piece:

The Green Wood and the Dry
I'm not saying the journey is over
I'm not saying the end is in sight.
I cannot even call up those metaphors for the end:
The chapter closing;
The folding away of the blanket;
The putting of affairs in order.

My affairs are not in order and they never will be.
I am always beginning to spring-clean
And it never comes to an end.

I'm just saying that I am beginning to forget.
Whether this is age, weariness
Or just simply the overloading of the system,
I don't know.

But this has been a week where the refrain
“Lest we forget” has been repeated over and over again,
(By some - only by some.)
And while it would suit me to forget
To get lost in the whole business of trying to keep up with now,
I would not like to be forgotten,
Especially by those who have heard very little from me
And for whom my whole life must have been a mystery,
As much a mystery to them as to me.

I see this piece as an introduction Liam intended for some reflections and recollections on his life that he never got to write. Perhaps more enduring will be the sculptures he carved in France in the last few years. Although an artist, Liam had never tried sculpture until he got the opportunity to participate in a class while on holiday in France. The teacher, Christine, was gifted and she prodded and poked Liam into committing himself to the work. In the first year came what I call the Pretty Face - an initial study in the craft. The next year came The Hand, tentative, reaching out, just failing to grasp, or something else. It is striking in the complexity of its symbolism of the human condition. Then followed the Job-like head filled with pain and anguish and a scream for help that he said was what he often felt in his life. But he also felt a lot more than that, because his final sculpture is that of a serene, wise, peace-filled face gazing from a place of immense peace and certainty. That was his last statement that stays with us.

I finish by remembering Liam's love of meals, of the gathering of family, of friends, like Joan and Cathal in Barna, with Connla Ó Dúlaine in Aran, of the community with Charlie O' Connor in Hatch St., of the gatherings for the sacred meal of the Eucharist that he put his heart and soul into. Now he is, I am sure, taking part in the Eternal Banquet and awaiting our arrival.

Born: 24 September 1815, Draperstown, County Derry
Entered: 19 June 1851, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Final vows: 08 September 1862
Died: 18 December 1905, St Mary’s, KS, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Born: 15 May 1812, Westport, County Mayo
Entered: 03 February 1837, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Ordained: 1845
Died: 07 August 1850, Upper Marlboro, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)

Part of the White Marsh MD, USA community at the time of death

Born: 20 September 1775, Athy, County Kildare
Entered: 17 November 1817, Richmond, Virginia, USA - Maryland Mission (MAR)
Final Vows: 15 August 1829
Died: 09 August 1864, Georgetown College MD, USA - Maryland Province (MAR)

Born: 24 June 1777, County Galway
Entered: 26 September 1820, White Marsh MD - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Final Vows: 15 August1833
Died: 13 March 1862, Georgetown, Washington DC, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)

Born: 20 December 1822, Ballyheane, County Mayo
Entered: 25 July 1854, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Final Vows: 15 August 1864
Died: 30 December 1895, Georgetown College, Washington DC, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 01 January 1794, Shandrum, Charleville, County Cork
Entered: 01 July 1845, St Mary’s, Lebanon, KY, USA - Franciae Province (FRA)
Final Vows: 25 March 1857
Died: 28 July 1875, Xavier College, New York, NY, USA - Neo-Eboracensis-Canadensis Province (NEBCAN)

Born: 15 July 1922, Portlaoise, County Laois
Entered: 07 September 1939, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1953, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1956, Loyola, Tai Lam Chung, Hong Kong

Left Society of Jesus: 1970

Transcribed: HIB to HK - 03 December 1966

by 1948 at Yim Yuan, Paak Chue Lo, Tungshan, Canton, China (Hong Kong) - Regency, learning language
by 1964 at Fordham NY, USA (NEB) studying

Born: 07 January 1930, Portlaoise, County Laois
Entered: 07 September 1948, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1962, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died: 02 November 2006, Palmyra, ME, USA

Left Society of Jesus: 07 September 1966

Younger Brother of Paddy Gannon - LEFT 1949

by 1965 at Loyola Chicago IL, USA (CHG) studying

https://www.bangordailynews.com/2008/09/25/obituaries/donal-robert-gannon/

DONAL ROBERT GANNON

PALMYRA – Donal R. Gannon, 76, died Nov. 3, 2006, in Ireland, after a brief illness. He was born Jan. 7, 1930, in Portlaoise, Ireland. He was educated in Ireland and came to the United States to complete a master’s degree in industrial relations. He married his wife, Peggy, in Chicago, and they relocated to Maine in 1974. As a supervisor in Maine’s Department of Child Support Enforcement, Donal devised a set of guidelines for non-custodial parents that was subsequently adopted virtually nationwide. The family moved to Palmyra in 1977, where, after retiring from the state, Donal and his spouse opened a greenhouse and nursery business, The Shepherd’s Garden, which they ran jointly for 12 years and where he was able to pursue his love of gardening. Donal returned to Ireland in the spring of 2001. He is survived by his ex-wife, Peggy of Palmyra; a daughter, Kirstin Larson of Palatine, Ill.; a daughter, Nancy of Brooklyn, N.Y.; a son, Kevin of Tempe, Ariz.; a son, Brendan of Cambridge, Mass.; three grandsons, Robert and Nathan Krause of Chicago and Benjamin Larson of Palatine, Ill.; five brothers, Anthony and James of Ireland, Ignatius of Wheathampsted, England, Francis of Philadelphia and John of Hong Kong; three sisters, Claire Gill and Gertrude Dunne, both of Ireland and Gabrielle Nahaboo of London; many nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by two brothers, William and Patrick, both of Ireland; and a sister who died in childhood. Services and burial took place Nov. 6, in Portlaoise, Ireland.

Chicago
Palmyra, Maine, USA

Born: 25 August 1939, Dublin
Entered: 08 October 1961, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 23 June 1972, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows; 02 February 1978, University Hall SJ, Dublin
Died: 06 November 2015, St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin

Raised in Collooney, County Sligo
Part of the Loyola, Milltown Park, Dublin community at the time of death

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1964 at Campion Hall, Oxford (ANG) studying
by 1966 at Heythrop, Oxford (ANG) studying
by 1969 at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore MD, USA - studying
by 1986 at Toronto, Canada (CAN S) Sabbatical
by 1991 at Bellarmino, Rome, Italy (DIR) Sec to Congregation for Unbelief
by 2001 at Gesù, Rome, Italy (DIR) teaching at Gregorian

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/death-of-fr-michael-paul-gallagher-sj/

Death of Michael Paul Gallagher SJ
Fr Michael Paul Gallagher SJ died last night (Friday 6 November) in St Vincent’s Private Hospital, just after the anointing of the sick and prayers with three Jesuit friends. He had been ill for some months. He was a native of Colooney, Co.Sligo. He received his secondary education at Clongowes Wood College. After joining the Jesuits he did special studies in Renaissance literature in Oxford, Michael Paul was a renowned lecturer and author of books on faith and contemporary culture. He lectured in English in UCD for over ten years in the 1970s and 80s before going to Rome, where he lectured in theology in the Gregorian University. He was also a valued contributor, for many years, to the well-known Jesuit publication The Sacred Heart Messenger. His latest article on ‘The Prospect of Dying’ is in the current issue. Shortly before his death he recorded a series of short videos for the Jesuit Guide to Making Good Decisions. He also wrote the text for an online Advent Retreat, shortly to be published on the Jesuit prayer website Sacred Space and on the Pray-As-You-Go podcast prayer website of the Jesuits in Britain. His book Into Extra Time, an account of his path of faith through illness, will soon be published by Darton, Longman and Todd/Messenger Publications. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/the-long-learning-of-love-m-p-gallagher-rip/

‘The long learning of love’
Jesuits, family and friends have been paying tribute to Michael Paul Gallagher SJ, who passed away on Friday 6 November. His friend and fellow Jesuit Donal Neary presided at the reception of his remains in Milltown Park Chapel on Monday evening. He spoke of the contribution Michael Paul made to the many people with whom he came in contact including the students he taught in University College Dublin who felt free enough to call in for coffee and a chat with him. So too did their parents who were often concerned that their beloved children were losing their faith. Michael Paul, he said, would reassure them that the love and concern they had for their adult children was the real lasting kind of support their children needed as they struggled with important questions of doubt and faith. He said his first book Help My Unbelief, published in 1983, made a real impact on the cultural landscape as a substantial contribution to the understanding of issues of faith in modern times. On Tuesday at 11am a large number of people filled the pews in Milltown Chapel, where Michael Paul had requested his funeral mass take place. (Listen to the mass here). They were invited by the main celebrant Jim Culliton SJ to “engage in celebrating the life of an extraordinary man, a man of great intellect, heart and warmth”. He said even inevitable death, (for Michael Paul was terminally ill and knew he was dying) was awful, raising many troubling questions. But the answers came, he said, when he thought about the kind of life Michael Paul lived, the reflections he offered in his writings and lectures, the impact he made in the courses and retreats he gave. “He was a fiercely loyal servant of all those whom he loved, fiercely proud of his Sligo roots, and proud of being an Irish Jesuit.”
In the homily Bruce Bradley SJ, spoke of the man he first met in 1962. He said he was someone who was gifted in “intuiting and imagining the horizons of others, inviting them in turn to share his”. He said the renowned author “did not take himself too seriously but he was aware and quietly proud of some of his own gifts and accomplishments”, adding with a smile, “Perhaps with just some of the small harmless vanity you occasionally meet with in an only child”. He said Michael Paul was impressive in how he faced his impending death with “clear-eyed courage and a lack of self-absorption”.

He book-ended his tribute with a moving story about his final meeting with Michael Paul just two weeks previously to the day. Having spent some precious time together and as he was leaving, he accompanied Michael Paul to the community chapel at mass time. Michael Paul dipped his hand in the holy water font and made the sign of the cross on his own forehead. “Then in a spontaneous gesture I will never forget, the made the same sign of the cross on my forehead too.” And he quoted from some of his final writings or ‘fragments’ as he called them, published in The Sacred Heart Messenger, where Michael Paul described his life as “The long learning of love”, adding, “ When I am close to death there may be weakness and distress. But I hope then to have the freedom to surrender into the arms of God so dying can be a prayerful letting go.” His three Jesuit friends (Donal Neary, Jim Culliton and Liam O’Connell) who were with him when he died peacefully at 11 pm on Friday, all attest that this is exactly what they witnessed, a dying that was indeed ‘a prayerful letting go’.

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/messenger-of-wonder-and-wonderful-messenger/

Messenger of wonder and wonderful messenger
Early in his rich and varied teaching career, the gifted Irish Jesuit, Fr. Michael Paul Gallagher, who died last Friday (6th November 2015) at the age of 76, used to give an introductory course to students of English literature in University College Dublin. At a certain point, he liked to write these three intriguing words on the blackboard: “ha”, “aha”, and “ah”. He made his students sit up and think by claiming that these three strange sounds stood not only for the three basic approaches toward literature, but also for the three fundamental stances toward human life as a whole. He asked them not to fall into the trap of arriving too quickly at judgments, to be careful not to rush hastily into uttering a smug and even contemptuous “ha”, before they even took the trouble to experience and understand things properly. He then pronounced the second sound – “aha” – with a rising rhythm, to make audible the moment when we understand something. He told them how college was meant to be full of these “aha” moments, as they learned new things and discovered new insights. But, then, looking solemnly at his audience, Fr. Michael Paul would warn them not to become so excited by their “aha” moments that they ended up stifling the deepest and most central experience of all – the experience of wonder, the “ah” experience. Michael Paul Gallagher brought a liberating “ah” of fresh air to individual Irish people, to the Irish Church, and, later, through his work in the Vatican and at the Pontifical Gregorian University, to countless students and Catholics from around the world. He was a messenger of wonder and a wonderful messenger of God. He had an uncanny gift for helping people to reach the threshold of wonder in their lives, to get in touch with their deepest hungers and desires. He invited them to open new doors into the mystery of themselves, and to discover a God who was much more loving than they had dared imagine.
Born in 1939 in the village of Collooney, County Sligo [born in Dublin, raised in Sligo], he credited it with shaping his feelings and imagination, and was always grateful for the stability and roots this village world gave him. Precisely because it was such a reassuring anchor, it gave him the leeway to broaden his horizons as time went on. At the age of twelve he was sent to the Jesuit boarding school Clongowes. From there he went to UCD, and after finishing his degree in English and French literature, was awarded a grant from the French government to study at the University of Caen Normandy from 1960 to 1961. The year in France was a turning point in his life. Although the Second Vatican Council would only open in 1962, there was already great excitement and new life palpable in French Catholicism. Michael Paul met young French Catholics who were passionate about their faith, who read the Bible, prayed in nearby monasteries, and invited notable French philosophers and theologians to address them. He also met significant numbers of agnostics and atheists for the first time in his life. Over the course of many long conversations that went on late into the night, he found he had a gift for explaining faith in a new and fresh language, not the technical jargon of abstract arguments, but the living poetry of personal discovery.
After returning from Caen, he entered the Jesuits, with a sense that he was being called to help people discover the wonder of faith in a world where unbelief was in the ascendant. When he completed his two- year novitiate, he was sent to Oxford to study Renaissance literature. While there, he began to realize that despite the distance some of his fellow students felt from faith, the language of poetry opened up for them an avenue into wonder and their inner experience. Over the years ahead, he began to form the conviction that doctrine alone was not enough to speak to people; like Jesus, who used parables, Michael Paul found himself drawn to an imaginative presentation of faith, drawing on the resources of literature.
From his Jesuit formation, Michael Paul learned how to find and trust the hidden poetry in himself, and this skill enabled him in his turn to help others to liberate their human depths. He realised that his surface self was driven toward performing and being successful. From childhood onwards, he had wanted to do well and make his parents proud of him, and so excelled in academic studies as well as drama and debating. But as well as this “performer” side to himself, at a deeper level he felt at home with the wonder of being a “child”, he was happy to trust his feelings, to allow himself to be playful, and to reach out to others without pushing himself to perform in order that they would like him. He made a sustained and conscious effort to live out of the deeper level of himself. When he became aware of surface desires and immature responses, he knew he was out of tune with himself. He picked up the warning signs through a certain sense of dissatisfaction and emptiness. He countered this gnawing surface self by re-tuning into the deeper and more serene wavelength inside, where he lived from a satisfying rootedness together with a great openness of vision. Because his experience of prayer and discernment taught him to be aware of the dangers of this false, performing, “impressing everyone” side to himself, he was particularly well equipped to help others go beyond the surface self and find that deeper peace to help them negotiate the challenges of life.
Michael Paul was ordained to the priesthood in 1972. Afterwards he continued to lecture in English at UCD, and also researched the phenomenon of atheism and how churches and pastoral workers were responding to it. As a result of this research he became the first Roman Catholic ever to be awarded a doctorate in theology by Queen’s University, Belfast.
In 1974 he published a controversial article, “Atheism Irish Style”. At a time when the general consensus held that Irish Catholicism was in a thoroughly healthy state, Fr. Michael Paul alarmed many by suggesting that it was actually dying a slow death. He claimed that Irish Catholics (most of all young Irish Catholics) were becoming increasingly disillusioned with many of the externals of church life – religion taught impersonally or in an authoritarian manner in school, dull Sunday rituals, and boring sermons. Although a huge emphasis was placed upon attendance at Mass, the actual practice of it was spiritually impoverished with little prayerfulness, no sense of living worship, and no real attempt to create a human community. The article and subsequent talks and interviews generated huge discussion and debate.
Less than 10 years later, in 1983, he published his first, and most famous book, Help My Unbelief, aimed at readers who were bewildered at why God was becoming so unreal for them. His focus was not on intellectual arguments for or against God, because he did not believe this was where the real story was. He concentrated instead on dispositions and basic attitudes. He was wise enough to know that people do not make decisions about faith upon purely rational grounds. Our decisions for or against faith generally involve a strong sense of how we feel about ourselves and life. He gave the example of a college student who came into his office to discuss an essay, but suddenly announced in an aggressive tone, “I’m an atheist, you know.” When Michael Paul ignored this declaration, and continued to give him feedback on his essay, the student asked, “Isn’t it your job to convert me?” Michael Paul responded, “I wouldn’t dream of converting anyone in that tone of voice”, and went on to say that faith was so precious to him that he would not even consider indulging in a useless argument about it. But if the student were willing to listen, he would be more than happy at some other time to explain what faith meant for him. Sure enough, the student returned a few days later. He spoke about this and that for a while, before suddenly announcing, “I suffer from asthma.” And then he went on to share how asthma had destroyed his childhood because it had cut him off from other people, made him ashamed, and angry at God and at life. This story taught Michael Paul something crucial: behind many aggressive denials of faith (“I’m an atheist”) there can be a much less aggressive reality of hurt and disenchantment (“I suffer from asthma”).
In 1990, Michael Paul was invited to work in the Holy See’s Pontifical Council for Dialogue with Non- Believers. Five years later he began teaching theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he later became Dean of Theology as well as Rector of the large “Bellarmino” community of Jesuit graduate students. Despite his teaching and the big burden of administration, he somehow found time to write, give talks, and listen to many young individuals, helping them to enter into a space of freedom they often did not know they had. In terms of his own writing, he began to see himself more and more as a “translator”, translating the insights of major theologians into a language that honest, educated, non-specialised searchers could understand. Michael Paul read through countless books in a way that was faithful to those who hadn’t the time or energy to read such books. He tried to carry out his academic work in tune with Christ’s compassion for all seekers and searchers.
When Michael Paul was hit by cancer for the second time in January 2015, he was faithful to his lifelong practice of applying the lessons he learned from his own struggles for the benefit of others. He reflected upon his illness and wrote down his reflections. His final book, about his own journey through cancer, Into Extra Time, is due to be published soon. In this month’s Sacred Heart Messenger, he has an article called “The Prospect of Dying”. Its final paragraph encapsulates the graced imagination that always enabled Fr. Michael Paul Gallagher to see seeds of hope in what at first looks like a burnt-out desert:
“The outer process of dying may be frightening, but do I really want to stay here forever? If I listen to my heart, I know I am made for more life than I can imagine. When God’s promise overcomes my fears, what St. Paul calls the ‘last enemy’ becomes an unexpected friend.”
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam uasal.
This article was published in The Irish Catholic, 12th November, 2015

https://www.jesuit.ie/books/wisdom-at-the-crossroads/

Wisdom at the Crossroads
Author: Thomas G. Casey SJ Publisher: Messenger Publications

Wisdom at the Crossroads: The Life and Thought of Michael Paul Gallagher SJ follows the journey of this gifted Jesuit priest, theologian, author and educator from the simplicity of an Irish rural childhood to the more complex world he soon encountered. That changing world prompted him to think deeply about the question of faith in our times, the effects of a shifting culture on our perceptions, and the challenge of unbelief and atheism as it manifests itself today. It illuminates Michael Paul’s rare gift – both in personal conversation and in the written word – of helping people to move from a detached consideration of faith to an awareness of what was deepest in their own hearts, for it was from that hidden layer of wonder that he believed the journey of faith could unfold.
The early part of the book covers the first forty years of Michael Paul’s life. This includes a description of his hometown of Collooney in Co. Sligo which the Jesuit was able to recall most vividly upon a return visit with Italian friends many years later. He attended Clongowes Wood College SJ in his early years and studied at UCD and in Caen, France, as a university student. After entering the Jesuit novitiate, Michael Paul studied poetry in Oxford and philosophy in London. Some of his other key experiences during these years included lecturing and further studies; the Charismatic Renewal; work in Kolkata; and the formation of young Jesuits.
Later, Fr Gallagher’s direct dealing with unbelief is explored culminating in the Jesuit’s first and most famous book, Help My Unbelief, aimed at readers who were bewildered at why God was becoming so unreal for them. He continued to write many books including Faith Maps which outlined how three dimensions of faith – the institutional, the critical, and the mystical – correspond to the three ages in life – childhood, youth, and adulthood. He pondered where people were at in terms of the dimensions and ages, encouraging them to ask searching and critical questions about their faith.
Michael Paul loved the culture of the theatre and cinema, but more importantly he appreciated culture as ‘the set of meanings and values that informs a way of life’. In this regard, he spent a year in Latin America where he befriended a seminarian named Eliseo who showed him that faith was not a private matter between God and himself; it was something that was alive in a shared way. Furthermore, although Michael Paul didn’t personally experience Irish Catholicism as repressive, he was aware that for many people of his generation it was associated with a petty vision, confined largely to external rules and narrow moralism. He was in touch with the culture of the people.
Of the seven chapters in this book, it would be worth referring to the sense of wonder in chapter five. Michael Paul loved to communicate the experience of wonder, the ‘ah’ experience to his many students. The author notes that he had a disarming gift for helping people to reach the threshold of wonder in their lives. On one occasion, Fr Gallagher spoke with a former student who struggled to believe in a God who was out of touch with his new passion for science. As the conversation continued, the former student began to think that he wasn’t as far away from faith as he had imagined. He began to wonder about faith in a fresh way, a on to others.

https://www.jesuit.ie/books/into-extra-time-2/

Into Extra Time
Author: Michael Paul Gallagher SJ
Publisher: Messenger Publications
Michael Paul Gallagher’s book, ‘Into Extra Time – Jottings Along The Way’, is an account of his path of faith through illness and facing death. In Michael Paul’s own words from the preface:-
“The opening words of the Introduction spoke of my path towards death as highly probable. Now several months later death is certain, a question of months. The story of treatment, remission and then return of more than one zone of cancer is told in the second section of this book. As time has gone on, I often wondered why I was publishing such a personal narrative. It started as a diary for myself, trying to explore my experience of illness. Then I began to think it could be of help to others. But I also fear it could inflate my own fairly ordinary adventure, and I ask forgiveness from those who may find it too self-centred or too pious. It tries to tell the story of a believer going through stages of cancer. If it offers some spiritual light on others in such times of struggle, that justifies it for me. ”
Michael Paul Gallagher SJ died on 6 November 2015.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 162 : Winter 2015

Obituary

Fr Michael Paul Gallagher (1939-2015)

26 August 1939 : Born in Dublin. Raised in Collooney, Co. Sligo.
Early Education at Collooney NS; Clongowes Wood College SJ; UCD
8 October 1961: Entered Society at St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
9 October 1963: First Vows at St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
1963 - 1965: Oxford, UK - Studying for B Litt at Campion Hall
1965 - 1967: Chipping Norton, UK - Studying Philosophy at Heythrop College
1967 - 1968: Loyola - Regency: Lecturer in English at UCD
1968 - 1969: Baltimore, MD, USA - Research Fellow at Johns Hopkins University
1969 - 1975: Milltown Park - Studying Theology
23 June 1972: Ordained at Gonzaga Chapel, Milltown Park, Dublin
1973: Lecturer in English at UCD; Doctoral Studies in Theology at QUB
1975 - 1978: University Hall - Vice Superior; Lecturer in English at UCD
1976: Tertianship in Bangalore, India
2 February 1978: Final Vows at University Hall, Hatch Street, Dublin
1978 - 1986: John Sullivan, Monkstown – Doctoral Studies; Co ordinator for Atheism; Lecturer in English at UCD
1980: Rector of John Sullivan House
1981: Province Consultor; Assists in Tabor
1986 - 1987: Sabbatical in Latin America
1987 - 1990: Rutilio Grande - Superior; Lecturer in English at UCD; Formation Delegate; Co-ordinator for Atheism
1990 - 1992: Bellarmino, Rome, Italy - Pontifical Council for Dialogue with Non-believers
1992 - 1993: San Saba Parish, Rome - Pontifical Council for Dialogue with Non-believers
1993 - 1995: Gesù, Rome, Italy -- Pontifical Council for Dialogue with Non-believers
1995 - 1999: Leeson St – Faith & Culture Apostolate; Writer; Lecturer in Theology at Gregorian, Rome (Sem I)
1999 - 2000: Loyola - Faith & Culture Apostolate; Writer; Lecturer in Theology at Gregorian, Rome (Sem I)
2000 - 2009: Rome, Italy - Writer; Professor of Fundamental Theology at Gregorian University
2005: Dean of Theology at Gregorian University
2009 - 2015: Bellarmino, Rome, Italy - Rector; Emeritus Professor of Fundamental Theology at Gregorian University
2015: Loyola - Writer

On a visit home for a conference in January 2015, Michael Paul realised that he needed to see his doctors again, as he was feeling unwell. So began another battle with cancer, and following various treatments, he enjoyed a good period of remission through the summer months. He remained in contact with his wide circle of friends and continued to write. In September further treatment was required, which did not agree with him, and he entered a period of palliative care. He became quite unwell and went into St Vincent's hospital on Monday, 2 November. His condition deteriorated through the week, and on Friday he began to fade significantly. He died very peacefully on Friday night in the presence of his community and some Jesuit friends, having just received the Sacrament of the sick.

In memory of Michael Paul - A letter of thanksgiving

Brendan Staunton

Dear Michael Paul,

You were a Renaissance man who understood the modem world. The world Vatican II addressed as a friend, not a foe, in Gaudium et Spes; a first in the history of 21 Councils. You too, being a child of Vatican 2, moved from the ad intra to the ad extra, married them, and generated fresh faith.

You played brilliantly many a role: teacher, lecturer, writer, spiritual director, retreat giver, administrator, Vatican delegate, Dean of Theology, Jesuit Superior and Rector, formation work, film critic. I could go on, but you were not only a role. Your mission included many friends and family with whom you shared the joys and sorrows, the griefs and anxieties. Your loss will be felt by many for a while to come.

We go back a long way: as a young and naive philosophy student you invited me to give a talk in University Hall, on culture. I shrink now recalling the shallowness of my reflections then. But a seed was sown, and this year alone I spoke on Faith and Culture to the Down and Connor priests in Dromalis; the Tuam Diocesan priests and bishop in Westport; at Dublin's Culture Night in the Pro Cathedral.

Also spoke at the Hopkins festival in Newbridge and attended the Hopkins weekend in Oxford. Your lectures in UCD on Joyce still bearing fruit! And how you opened up Joyce's humorous observations, lively language and bittersweet memories of Jesuit Schools. When we talked after the Hopkins weekend, memories of your time in Oxford were evoked, and how we laughed at the academic follies.

I recall fondly your time with us as Tertians in Tullabeg. I shredded all my notebooks two years later, except four pages of your wisdom sayings. I recall now off the top of my head,”priests today need to be bi-lingual”. Spirituality and Psychology; Art and Spirituality, Faith and Culture; Poetry and Theology. Newman's thinking on Imagination a constant, key theme for you, from which I benefited hugely.

Writing this, the day following your death, after teary phone calls, the sadness is with me still. The memories are so warın though. Especially the times you helped me find the words for growing pains crying within me. (A gift I also received from another Gallagher, Cormac.)

Most memorably, an evening walk around the Pantheon, when you bought a particular coffee to be brought home to Donal Neary. That night, you spoke to me about Charles Taylor, who hit the nail on the head. I may have been "flourishing", but a lack lingered. I had grown beyond “psychology”, after 30 years in a psychoanalytic world; London and Klein, Dublin and Lacan. And more than ten years on the couch. Still appreciate Freud for the genius he was, but the Ignatian ideal was into something more. Our talk that night returned me to a Spiritual Director, and a retrieval of formal prayer that had been neglected. The Martha had forgotten the Mary; doing good and avoiding God. Sure, I still prayed, vocal prayers, petitionary prayers, prayers of praise, liturgical prayer, but very little time given to tuning in the Holy Spirit praying within me. That indwelling presence that echoes unconscious, manifested in dreams. “I think where I am not”. You loosened that bond for many, as Tom Casey's exarnple in his glowing Irish Catholic tribute shows; the student declaring himself an atheist, and it emerging from the way he was listened to, that his asthma suffering was there.

Remember you saying the “Jesuits were founded in bed”?! The Ignatian genius was to take his subjectivity seriously, attending to the emotional vicissitudes he was experiencing while recovering from his wound. (What we now call Cognitive Behaviour Therapy), He was ahead of his time, embracing pagan humanism.

You were such a great host in the Bellarmino. Your flowing fluent Italian was beautiful - brought out the poet in you - as was your care for all your Community, over a hundred students and staff from four continents. And yet you had time for me, with your listening attitude and ability not to understand too quickly. Remember some of our anger in Tertianship? Your insight has stayed with me: “spiritual maturity is accepting not being understood by Authority”! (Later I learned you heard that from Kolvenbach, who got it from Gabriel Marcel?)

I was chuffed when you told me the title of a recent book, Faith Maps, came to you as I talked about the story of painting as a map and metaphor to contextualise faith, for the generation of our nephews and nieces, for whom Tridentinism was so uncool. For people who think Vatican II is the Pope's summer residence! Or for young people who think the four evangelists are John, Paul, Ringo and George!! I recall your enthusiasm when we first heard Bridge over troubled waters": "first song in the history of pop music that sings of desire more than need”, reaching out to an other.

I was delighted you came to my golden jubilee and 70th birthday last May in Gonzaga, where we were ordained. And so good to meet you at Bill Mathew's jubilee last month too. Little did we know on that joyous occasion what lay ahead for you. I can't imagine the pain of these last three weeks. Your legacy will last, I've no doubt about that: verba volant, scripta manent!
And now I imagine you enjoying the company of Rahner, Lonergan and Von Balthazar. You saw early on that their theological style was a function of their historical period. You now too are seeing face-to-face the vision of Gods' glory. And no one deserves that more than you. It is so consoling to know you will be praying for me and us.

I don't forget all the hidden goodness of your good life. Did you not write Joe Dargan's 'Our Mission in Ireland'? Put Joe's sociological prose into English!

Your life was an open book, and hidden with Christ in God. Yeats County certainly bore fruit from UCD to the Greg, and for this I thank you and God for you. You are now, to quote a hero of yours, the Bard of Avon, “one of precious friends, hid in death's dateless night”.
And the light you shone is truly a holy one. You were a spiritual master for our season, where “symbols clashed”, and the unrecognised presence of culture was recognised by you, and shown to be a friend rather than the foe of faith.

You once quoted Merton to me: “our greatest fear is a fear of depth”. Ignatius is proud of you! You found God in culture. Thanks to Newman and the other giants you identified with through your generous and open response to your Jesuit calling. Would I be reviewing films for the Messenger now, had you not pioneered that work for Studies?
LDS.
In Xto,
Brendan

Messenger of wonder and wonderful messenger

Tom Casey

Early in his rich and varied teaching career, the gifted Irish Jesuit, Fr. Michael Paul Gallagher, who died on 6th November at the age of 76, used to give an introductory course to students of English literature in University College Dublin. At a certain point, he liked to write these three intriguing words on the blackboard: “ha”, “aha”, and “ah”. He made his students sit up and think by claiming that these three strange sounds stood not only for the three basic approaches toward literature, but also for the three fundamental stances toward human life as a whole.

He asked them not to fall into the trap of arriving too quickly at judgments, to be careful not to rush hastily into uttering a smug and even contemptuous “ha”, before they even took the trouble to experience and understand things properly. He then pronounced the second sound – “aha” – with a rising rhythm, to make audible the moment when we understand something. He told them how college was meant to be full of these “aha” moments, as they learned new things and discovered new insights. But, then, looking solemnly at his audience, Fr. Michael Paul would warn them not to become so excited by their “aha” moments that they ended up stifling the deepest and most central experience of all - the experience of wonder, the “ah” experience.

Michael Paul Gallagher brought a liberating “ah” of fresh air to individual Irish people, to the Irish Church, and, later, through his work in the Vatican and at the Pontifical Gregorian University, to countless students and Catholics from around the world. He was a messenger of wonder and a wonderful messenger of God. He had an uncanny gift for helping people to reach the threshold of wonder in their lives, to get in touch with their deepest hungers and desires. He invited them to open new doors into the mystery of themselves, and to discover a God who was much more loving than they had dared imagine.

Born in 1939 in the village of Collooney, County Sligo, he credited it with shaping his feelings and imagination, and was always grateful for the stability and roots this village world gave him. Precisely because it was such a reassuring anchor, it gave him the leeway to broaden his horizons as time went on. At the age of twelve he was sent to the Jesuit boarding school Clongowes. From there he went to UCD, and after finishing his degree in English and French literature, was awarded a grant from the French government to study at the University of Caen Normandy from 1960 to 1961. The year in France was a turning point in his life. Although the Second Vatican Council would only open in 1962, there was already great excitement and new life palpable in French Catholicism. Michael Paul met young French Catholics who were passionate about their faith, who read the Bible, prayed in nearby monasteries, and invited notable French philosophers and theologians to address them. He also met significant nurnbers of agnostics and atheists for the first time in his life. Over the course of many long conversations that went on late into the night, he found he had a gift for explaining faith in a new and fresh language, not the technical jargon of abstract arguments, but the living poetry of personal discovery.

After returning from Caen, he entered the Jesuits, with a sense that he was being called to help people discover the wonder of faith in a world where unbelief was in the ascendant. When he completed his two year novitiate, he was sent to Oxford to study Renaissance literature. While there, he began to realize that despite the distance some of his fellow students felt from faith, the language of poetry opened up for them an avenue into wonder and their inner experience. Over the years ahead, he began to form the conviction that doctrine alone was not enough to speak to people; like Jesus, who used parables, Michael Paul found himself drawn to an imaginative presentation of faith, drawing on the resources of literature.

From his Jesuit formation, Michael Paul learned how to find and trust the hidden poetry in himself, and this skill enabled him in his turn to help others to liberate their human depths. He realized that his surface self was driven toward performing and being successful. From childhood onwards, he had wanted to do well and make his parents proud of him, and so excelled in academic studies as well as drama and debating. But as well as this "performer" side to himself, at a deeper level he felt at home with the wonder of being a "child”, he was happy to trust his feelings, to allow himself to be playful, and to reach out to others without pushing himself to perform in order that they would like him. He made a sustained and conscious effort to live out of the deeper level of himself. When he became aware of surface desires and immature responses, he knew he was out of tune with himself. He picked up the warning signs through a certain sense of dissatisfaction and emptiness. He countered this gnawing surface self by re-tuning into the deeper and more serene wavelength inside, where he lived from a satisfying rootedness together with a great openness of vision. Because his experience of prayer and discernment taught him to be aware of the dangers of this false, performing, “impressing everyone” side to himself, he was particularly well equipped to help others go beyond the surface self and find that deeper peace to help them negotiate the challenges of life.

Michael Paul was ordained to the priesthood in 1972. Afterwards he continued to lecture in English at UCD, and also researched the phenomenon of atheism and how churches and pastoral workers were responding to it. As a result of this research he became the first Roman Catholic ever to be awarded a doctorate in theology by Queen's University, Belfast.

In 1974 he published a controversial article, “Atheism Irish Style”. At a time when the general consensus held that Irish Catholicism was in a thoroughly healthy state, Fr. Michael Paul alarmed many by suggesting that it was actually dying a slow death. He claimed that Irish Catholics (most of all young Irish Catholics) were becoming increasingly disillusioned with many of the externals of church life – religion taught impersonally or in an authoritarian manner in school, dull Sunday rituals, and boring sermons. Although a huge emphasis was placed upon attendance at Mass, the actual practice of it was spiritually impoverished with little prayerfulness, no sense of living worship, and no real attempt to create a human community. The article and subsequent talks and interviews generated huge discussion and debate.

Less than 10 years later, in 1983, he published his first, and most famous book, Help My Unbelief, aimed at readers who were bewildered at why God was becoming so unreal for them. His focus was not on intellectual arguments for or against God, because he did not believe this was where the real story was. He concentrated instead on dispositions and basic attitudes. He was wise enough to know that people do not make decisions about faith upon purely rational grounds. Our decisions for or against faith generally involve a strong sense of how we feel about ourselves and life.

He gave the example of à college student who came into his office to discuss an essay, but suddenly announced in an aggressive tone, “I'm an atheist, you know." When Michael Paul ignored this declaration, and continued to give him feedback on his essay, the student asked, “Isn't it your job to convert me?”: Michael Paul responded, “I wouldn't dream of converting anyone in that tone of voice”, and went on to say that faith was so precious to him that he would not even consider indulging in a useless argument about it. But if the student were willing to listen, he would be more than happy at some other time to explain what faith meant for him. Sure enough, the student returned a few days later. He spoke about this and that for a while, before suddenly announcing, “I suffer from asthma”. And then he went on to share how asthma had destroyed his childhood because it had cut him off from other people, made him ashamed, and angry at God and at life. This story taught Michael Paul something crucial: behind many aggressive denials of faith (“I'm an atheist”) there can be a much less aggressive reality of hurt and disenchantment (”I suffer from asthma”).

In 1990, Michael Paul was invited to work in the Holy See's Pontifical Council for Dialogue with Non-Believers. Five years later he began teaching theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he later became Dean of Theology as well as Rector of the large “Bellarmino” community of Jesuit graduate students. Despite his teaching and the big burden of administration, he somehow found time to write, give talks, and listen to many young individuals, helping them to enter into a space of freedom they often did not know they had. In terms of his own writing, he began to see himself more and more as a "translator”, translating the insights of major theologians into a language that honest, educated, non-specialized searchers could understand. Michael Paul read through countless books in a way that was faithful to those who hadn't the time or energy to read such books. He tried to carry out his academic work in tune with Christ's compassion for all seekers and searchers.

When Michael Paul was hit by cancer for the second time in January 2015, he was faithful to his lifelong practice of applying the lessons he learned from his own struggles for the benefit of others. He reflected upon his illness and wrote down his reflections. His final book, about his own journey through cancer, Into Extra Time, is due to be published soon. In this month's Sacred Heart Messenger, he has an article called "The Prospect of Dying". Its final paragraph encapsulates the graced imagination that always enabled Fr, Michael Paul Gallagher to see seeds of hope in what at first looks like a burnt-out desert:

“The outer process of dying may be frightening, but do I really want to stay here forever? If I listen to my heart, I know I am made for more life than I can imagine. When God's promise overcomes my fears, what St. Paul calls the 'last enemy' becomes an unexpected friend.”

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam uasal

◆ The Clongownian, 1980

Interview : Young People and the Faith Today

Father Michael Paul Gallagher SJ

Clongownian
Fr Gallagher you have been working for about a dozen years now in University College, Dublin in the English Department, and you have had contact with students throughout those years and as far as we can make out you have been specializing and doing some research in “unbelief” and various responses to "unbelief. What are your general impressions now of the new generation and of their relationship with traditional faith?

Michael Paul Gallagher SJ
Well, first of all, I don't think people have changed all that much. I think what has changed is the context in which they live and the environment in which faith has to be discovered and decided and committed, In fact, I would put much emphasis on the fact that in our new condition, faith won't happen, faith won't be passed on just passively or easily. More and more its going to be a decision against the tide. I am talking now about the kind of young people I have been seeing in UCD, as you mentioned, for many years; I don't think they have changed all that much. The change lies rather in the pressures that are on them, the pressures that come from a whole transformation in life style, in expectancies. It's the whole change of Ireland in the past twenty years from a largely rural and stable society to an increasingly urban, complex, modern and pluralist society and the young people are obviously the ones that this affects most. I don't, in fact, feel at all despairing about the faith. I think it is conventional faith that is in danger, but then conventional faith, just as conventional and no more than that, was never perhaps worth very much anyway.

Clongownian
What exactly do you mean by that? Are you saying that the faith that many of the parents have is shallow or merely conventional?

Michael Paul Gallagher SJ
Oh! No. Don't get me wrong on that one. I am saying that growing up in the 1980's is very different from growing up in the 1950's. Let me put it in an image. Let me borrow the image from the Gospel, the parable of the Sower. Our Lord talks there about planting the seed, the seed of faith. And let's say that if in the 1940's or 30's, it was enough to plant the seed of Faith 2 inches down in the ground and it would grow and it would come to maturity even and real fullness; that 2 inches down won't do anymore. One will need, to keep the metaphor, at least 4 inches down. It needs to be sown twice as deep because the conditions above the ground, so to speak, are now stormy in a way that they were not before; because we are living with
an accumulation of influences that are undermining faith and it is as well to be conscious of them. I am not suggesting that we lament them: I am not suggesting for a moment that one goes around be moaning our new affluence or bemoaning the fact that we have a more complex society. It has come and it is here to stay and it is a most futile exercise to hope to put the clock back, but I am saying in this new more complex environment, a merely conventional faith that might have been good and might have survived under the old conditions, will now be shown to be incapable of surviving through, what I am calling, the stormier conditions of nowadays.

Clongownian
But if I may return to the point, you still seem to be implying that it is a merely conventional faith that would have survived say in the 40's.

Michael Paul Gallagher SJ
Well, perhaps, I am if you push me, and I don't think I would be altogether alone in saying that much of what passes for faith, Mass going and so on, may not be the fullness of the Catholic and Christian tradition. There was a marvellous pastoral from the Irish Bishops last St Patrick's Day called “Handing on the Faith in the Home”; I am quoting them now; they put things pretty strongly. “Are we adults going through our lives with ideas about religion more suitable for primary schoolboys and schoolgirls than for modern adults?” I think that question is very real. I think that I come across many people of my generation, I'm just forty exactly, who have children who are going to primary school and who themselves are very devout Catholics, but quite unable, to quote St. Peter from the New Testament, "to give an account of the hope that is in them”. I think that is a serious lack. I think that very many people of my generation have not thought much about their faith since school days and, more importantly still, they have not experienced their faith since school days and, more importantly still, they have not experienced their faith at any great depth or newness or freshness since schooldays. I put a good deal of emphasis on the experience side of it, meaning what one might get in a Retreat or in a Marriage Encounter or in any form of a renewal of faith with others in the various ways which have become very popular in recent years.

Clongownian
Are you saying then that there is a kind of a gap between the parents in their understanding of religion and the teenagers; let's focus in on them, in what they are asking or seeking in religious matters?

Michael Paul Gallagher SJ
Yes, very much so. There is a serious gap there and if I may refer back to that same Pastoral Letter it once again puts it pretty strongly. It talks about the reaction of teenagers in rejecting the religion of their parents and says that it should make the parents conscious of the need to close the gaps between their devotions and their lives, between their prayers and their behaviour. As it puts it, "between their Sunday christianity and their Monday to Saturday living”. And again, this same Pastoral of the Bishops is very accurate, at least to judge from my own experience of students, in that it says quite strongly that the gap between parents and young people is a gap about different expectancies of faith. They say, for instance, that young people have become cynical about words and are impressed only by deeds. Now their parents tend to hold on to the right words, saying the right thing about God. And the Pastoral takes the opposite line, saying in a very blunt expression that the biggest obstacle to Christian Faith today is not intellectual doubt, but quite simply the unchristian life style of so many of us who think we are good Christians.

Clongownian
Where do you see the gap there?

Michael Paul Gallagher SJ
The gap lies partly in the fact that a slightly older generation, now in their middle years, are content with a certain obedience to a tradition, a certain holding on to doctrine that they were taught. They are not asking the same kind of questions as the young people are. The young people want something on the level of experience, some thing on the level of commitment where the older people were content with something that was more to do with authority. There is a real gap here. I think many of the parents, if they reflect a little bit, are themselves suffering from a certain malnutrition. Malnutrition as I learned in the East is not starvation; it is a hidden hunger that one may not always recognise. I think many of the people in the parents' generation may have hungers on the level of spiritual searching, and also on the level of clarification of their understanding of the faith. And if they allow those hungers to go unsatisfied for years and years, they will find themselves unable to communicate what is genuinely very valuable for them. Now the young people start, as it were, from the other end. They start from themselves, their experience, their searching and they ask that the message of Christianity through tradition, through the Church, through revelation speaks to them relevantly, Relevance is a big word for them. "It bores me” they say about Mass. They talk about it not meaning anything to them.. Whereas the parents may go through a period of boredom, but it is not quite the same crisis, because they are approaching the whole thing from a different standpoint.

Clongownian
Fine! Let's focus in on that question of Mass, because I think it is a real problem for many parents. What do you say to a student who comes to you and says “I am not going to Mass anymore”?

Michael Paul Gallagher SJ
Well! That is something that happens very frequently to me. In fact, I am not at all surprised when a student tells me he is not going to Mass. I feel in Ireland perhaps our greatest strength could be our greatest weakness, Our greatest strength is the fact that we have an immensely strong fidelity to Sunday worship at Mass together. It could become our greatest weakness if we become complacent about it and if that becomes the only expression our faith has. It's meant to be the crown of a Christian life; it's not meant to be the one and only expression of a Christian life. So that I tend to say to people, “are you doing anything else, have you any other expressions of your attempting to follow Christ?”And generally I find that they either have or have not. If they have, then I would put the emphasis on that. If, for instance, a student says to me “well I try to help people, I belong to an organization that helps the old people or that collects money for the Third World and I believe in Christ, although he is not a very real figure for me, but it connects up what I believe Christianity to be”. Then I would emphasize that, reflect on the meaning of that, see if that can't be in some way strengthened, deepened, broadened and used as a springboard for a greater integration of faith. If they say to me '”well, no I don't believe at all or its pretty well gone out of my head or the whole idea of faith is eclipsed for me and I don't go to Mass either”, then I say “no wonder, because you have nothing to bring to the altar”. That is not blaming them, it is simply stating a fact. “No wonder you are bored at Mass, if you have nothing to bring from the rest of your life”.

Clongownian
So you are saying that it doesn't matter if one does not go to Mass, that the Sunday observance is not all that important?

Michael Paul Gallagher SJ
Once again, no. I am not saying that; that would be going too far. What I am saying is that Mass on its own is not the fullness of a Catholic life. That Sunday practice on its own is not enough to be a mature life of faith today.

Clongownian
What else do you want then, as well as Sunday Mass?

Michael Paul Gallagher SJ
I want what I may call Sunday supplements, not the news .paper kind, but let me call them that. As well as Mass, I would want some dimension of stillness, some dimension of scripture and some social commitment, three S's if you like. A dimension of stillness: under that heading I would put any kind of effort at prayer, at an interior life, at taking one's search and hunger for God seriously, whatever form it may take. But I think every single one of us, if we are to go against the tide of the superficial society in which we are growing up, every single one of us has to protect our consciousness. There is a kind of pollution of consciousness going on in modern society, and just as with the pollution of the rivers, one has to have protection. The protection is some form of inwardness, some form of stillness, some form of prayerfulness. That dimension needs to be there in each life. If it is not, then the faith will be, to that degree, immature.

Clongownian
Are you saying that people should keep saying their prayers and that all will be well?

Michael Paul Gallagher SJ
I think I am probably saying more than just say your prayers. I am talking about prayer rather than prayers. I am not against saying prayers, but there is something deeper and I think more people are called to it than they perhaps realise. To pray is to relax into the reality of being loved. I would want people to find ways, different for each individual, perhaps, of relaxing into God's presence with them and within them. And from that period of stillness in God's presence to be able then to love from him and from a deeper part of themselves. I think we live on the surface unless we move and keep growing through a lifetime in some form of personal prayer.

Clongownian
What about the other dimensions that you said were important?

Michael Paul Gallagher SJ
Well the others were scripture and the social dimension. I mean under scripture I would take the whole area of understanding the faith. People are terribly ignorant, say of the New Testament, even at University. I come across very few students who know the difference between Ezekiel and Ephesians. I ask myself what the secondary schools are doing in this respect and indeed, may I be naughty and remark that I think that a good study of St. Paul, the man and his meaning and message, would be a great deal more relevant to maturity of faith, than studying Gaudium et spes or other Vatican Council documents, which I don't think speak to people very profoundly. They are good documents, but I don't think they are as important as scripture and I find people are very ignorant of scripture, and that religion time in school has been wasted, I would say, on what is less important. So I am asking that both the young people and their parents keep growing in their understanding of faith.

That is the second dimension which I call scripture. The third dimension is what I call the social dimension, and this is relatively new in the emphasis that we must put on it today. The link between faith and justice is being realised in a new form today, mean ing that I cannot say I believe in God and not allow it to change the way I live, the way I want society to be and the way I want the world society also to be. But to be a Christian is to be committed to changing the world towards justice for all and indeed of questioning one's own life style in this respect.

Clongownian
Why do you single out those dimensions and may I ask how you put them together?

Michael Paul Gallagher SJ
I single out those dimensions of the community worshipping on Sunday, which is very important, and often the centre of our belonging to the Church. Secondly, the contemplative inner dimension. Thirdly, the dimension of understanding the revelation of Christ and its meaning. Fourthly, the social dimension of how we live it, trying to change society. I see those four dimensions as a map of maturity of faith. I see it as leading to a decision to be committed to Christ in these various ways, within the Church, in prayerfulness and inwardness in a relationship with him and in how one lives. And I see faith today as needing a decision; one cannot drift into faith any more. The tide is too much against it, and so a maturity of faithi needs that kind of integration of those various dimensions if it is to be living and growing through a lifetime.

Clongownian
Can we come back to the point about Mass then? How does that fit in?

Michael Paul Gallagher SJ
That fits in, I think, fairly simply into that map. It is one crucial and important expression, but there are three more and at least three more that are equally important.

Clongownian
And how does this effect the belief and unbelief of young people?

Michael Paul Gallagher SJ
I am saying that young people are under the pressure of a whole host-of negative influences and they will need a greater fullness of faith to survive than did their parents.

Clongownian
And what can the parents do? Are you saying they should be educating their children by talking scripture to them or what?

Michael Paul Gallagher SJ
No, I wouldn't envisage it quite like that. The relationship is more important than the content. I have yet to come across an un believer in all my years of dealing with students, the real total un believer, who had a good relationship with believing parents and who had some experience of prayer since childhood. Put that negatively, if you want. A bad relationship with parents and an absence of experience of prayer seem to be a formula for creating a nominal faith or the possibility of unbelief and drift away from faith. But I would put much emphasis, as indeed that pastoral did, on handing on the faith, on the relationship in the home. That document says very strongly that the greatest service parents can give their children is to spend time with them and to have a good relationship with them. And it also says that homes that are filled with supposed religion, but empty of love, simply turn people off religion. I think there is a deep truth here. It's not so much that parents are asked to be forever talk ing to their children about God, but that young people do experience God through the whole atmosphere and through the values of the home. This is one thing.

Clongownian
Is that the whole story then, just have a good relationship?

Michael Paul Gallagher SJ
No! That's not quite the whole story. I think the parents need to recognise their own needs. It's not as if they were fully mature Christians by simply going to Mass and living relatively good lives. The parents also need to be growing in inwardness, in understanding and in some challenge to their life style. If the parents put a full stop to their practice of the faith, then they will be passing on an im mature faith. If they are content with less than the full map of faith, that I have been suggesting, their children will see faith as something less than its true reality. So as well as putting a great emphasis on the relationship as primary, I would also be saying to the parents that they too need to be seeking out ways in which to protect their own faith and to foster it, so that it grows. Because it is not, it is not as if the parents were not being challenged by the adverse and superficial forces in our society today. The parents also need to find new forms of prayer, new ways of understanding their faith and new ways of commitment and of living it. They live in the same world as their children. They just happen to be older, therefore, a bit more secure in themselves, but that does not mean that they should be complacent and stop growth.

Clongownian
Fr Gallagher, thank you very much.

◆ The Clongownian, 1988

A Month in Paraguay

Father Michael Paul Gallagher SJ

Paraguay is seldom in the news here. In many ways it is a small and forgotten coun try, not least because it is ruled by the longest-lasting dictatorship in Latin America. In recent years a proud but tragic moment of its history was highlighted in the film “The Mission”. In May 1988 it was the last Latin American country to receive a Papal visit. For a regime that calls itself officially Catholic, many of the speeches of the Pope proved embarrassing. From the moment of his touching down in Asuncion, he began a strong defence of individual rights and called for participation by all in the building of a new society. He advocated a 'moral cleaning-up of the nation', which he described as 'a form of social organisa tion in which some people subject others, for their own advantage, to the rule of the strongest'. Since May there has been evidence of a clamp down on dissidents from among the Church. One Spanish Jesuit, Fr Juan de la Vega, was taken away by unidentified police and found across the border in Argentina. The Archbishop of Asuncion described this act as a 'shameful kidnap' and went to the extreme measure of suspending some acts of religious worship on the feast of the Assumption, the date on which President Stroessner was entering into his eighth term of office. This article gives one person's summary of the background to these tensions in Paraguay, as glimpsed in a one-month visit in 1987.

April 1987 will remembered as important in the history of Paraguay, at least for the government announcement that after more than thirty years in force, it was lifting the state of emergency or “estado de sitio”. This measure, which had always been religiously renewed every six months, gave headlines, but during that same month of April other less reported but significant events took place in Paraguay and they will be the focus of this article.

Ever since he came to power in 1954, it has been the custom of General Alfredo Stroessner to give a lengthy address at the opening of parliament on the first of April each year. 1987 was no exception. His car arrived at the congress building surround not only by motorcycle and horse guards but accompanied by van loads of heavily armed soldiers. His address to the government party deputies (Colorado members, many of them sporting the red colour that gives them their name) and to diplomats (including the papal nuncio in a white cassock) lasted the best part of a hundred minutes.

The content of the 1987 speech was fairly standard. Much of it was taken up with figures of expenditures, products and road works. There were less ideological statements than on many previous occa sions. In a country which had seen the clos ing down of the major opposition newspaper ABC Color in March 1984 and the Radio Nanduti (due to “atmospheric” interference) at the end of 1986, the only reference to this area was a warning not to confuse 'freedom of expression with freedom to defame' or to express 'antisocial impulses'; the general also criticised “newspapers drenched in pessimism”. There was by now the customary self-praise of the regime as a 'genuine democracy' and a “friend of the ballot box”, a country where “the people are the soul and the brain of our democracy”. Yet about a fifth of the Paraguayan people'are in fact in exile in Argentina and it is well known that to get a good job in the civil service and even more so in the army, one has to be able to prove that all one's immediate relatives are members of the Colorado party. Hence 40% of the population are officially members of that party and many of them believe its rhetoric. Their fidelity is their ticket to minor favours of all kinds, such as a bed in hospital or getting through the red tape of some official permission. With most of the Liberal opposition party in exile, the elections every five years are of interest only to see what wing of the Colorado party has most influence.

Since one of the definite attractions of the dictatorship has been the version of social and political stability it has provided, Stroessner's speech included plenty of reference to the tragedies of Paraguay's long history of turmoil before 1954. There were forty four presidents in the eighty five years before his coming to power, and that period included the terrible War of Triple Alliance which killed some 90% of the male popula tion, Hence Stroessner's old boast- 'we have put behind us completely the times of an archy and backwardness. There is peace and order under the rule of law, there is no terrorism nor any serious social or political crisis'. This is a familiar message echoed again and again each evening at 8.30 when La Voz del Coloradismo takes over practically all radio stations for a special pro-. gramme. The exception is the church-run Radio Caritas which is itself often the object of attack in this broadcast as an 'instrument of the left and of terrorism'. This nightly propaganda programme makes free and fre quent use of the word “communist” to dismiss international critiques of the Stroessner regime: “there will be no communism in Paraguay: we live in peace”. It also indulges in personal and bitter attacks on individuals especially in the world of communication and the church.

The President's speech contained only one and somewhat solemn reference to the Catholic Church”

The national government, inspired by the Christian and patriotic roots of our people, always offers its collaboration to the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, the official religion of the State.

All this is a rhetoric that conceals more than it reveals, because this longest dictatorship in Latin America seems to be entering one of its several phases of tension with the Church in Paraguay

These few pages aim only to show how the blandness of General Stroessner's reference to Catholicism was undermined by other words and deeds even within that same month of April, and that as Paul Lewis claimed in his scholarly study of Paraguay under Stroessner t

Born: 21 June 1827, Granard, County Longford
Entered: 14 August 1850, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Ordained:
Final Vows: 21 February 1866
Died: 14 January 1908, St Andrew-on-Hudson, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 18 July 1850, County Meath
Entered: 24 October 1870, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained:
Final Vows: 02 February 1890
Died: 10 February 1925, St John’s College, Texas Avenue, Shreveport LA, USA - Neo-Aurelianensis Province (NOR)

Transcribed HIB to NOR: 1872

Born: 23 April 1941, Dangan, Thomastown, County Kilkenny
Entered: 06 September 1958, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 20 June 1971, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1977, St Ignatius, Lusaka, Zambia
Died: 06 May 2020, St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin

Part of the Milltown Park, community, Dublin at the time of death.

by 1963 at Pullach, Germany (GER S) studying
by 1974 at Guelph ONT, Canada (CAN S) making tertianship
by 1975 at Lusaka, Zambia (ZAM) working
by 1978 at Pleasanton, CA USA (CAL) studying
by 1981 at Chicago IL, USA (CHG) working

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/david-gaffney-sj-a-gentle-and-dedicated-jesuit/

David Ga(ney SJ: a gentle and dedicated Jesuit
Irish Jesuit David Gaffney, a native of Thomastown, Kilkenny, passed away in St Vincent’s Hospital on 6 May. He was 79. Due to current government guidelines regarding public gatherings, the funeral is private. A memorial Mass to celebrate David’s life will take place at a later date.

The condolences posted on the RIP.ie website display the high regard and warm affection which people had for him wherever he lived and worked. The same adjectives are used repeatedly: kind, wise, gentle, pleasant, peaceful, caring.

“We joined the Jesuits on the same day, September 6, 1958,” writes Barney McGuckian SJ; “He always edified me with his gentleness but also his tenacity in following the highest ideals of a Jesuit vocation. Gifted intellectually, he placed his God-given talents at the service of ordinary people, both as a writer and as a “hands-on” visitor to their homes.”

In the decades after he joined the Jesuits, David gained a great deal of intellectual and pastoral experience in many parts of the world. After an Arts degree in UCD, he went to Germany to study philosophy, returned to Ireland to study theology, then did further Jesuit formation in Canada before working for three years in a parish in Lusaka, Zambia.

He then worked in the United States in marriage counselling for four years before his definitive return to Ireland in 1982.

In the years since then he worked in marriage and family apostolates and as an editor of various publications. He was a regular columnist at the Kilkenny People and later with The Avondhu for a number of years, writing reflective opinion pieces regularly.

Regarding this work, Conall O’Cuinn, former Jesuit and Rector of Milltown Park, notes that in his articles David wanted to promote truly human values and “worked ceaselessly to ‘vamp up’ in his own mind his writing so that it would be more eye-catching, even if that aspiration was contrary to his retiring personality...”

In all of David’s activities he worked with great grace and devotion.

Read below the appreciation by Conall. He had not known of David’s illness and so says, ” I write this piece as my way of mourning David’s passing, for a passing it is, into the permanent presence of Jesus who leads him into the Joy of the Father.” :

A Gentle Giant
I ‘met’ David first in 1989 when I sent him a letter from Zambia on hearing he had taken over the editorship of Interfuse, an internal Irish Jesuit Province magazine. I had had an article rejected by a previous editor, and, once David took over, I immediately resubmitted it for consideration. By return post, he accepted the article. Since then on he has remained in my good books!

David took his editing and writing seriously, and later, during the years I lived with him in Milltown Park, I witnessed him faithfully send out his articles to provincial newspapers which were still accepting spiritual reflections. He worked ceaselessly to ‘vamp up’ in his own mind his writing so that it would be more eye- catching, even if that aspiration was contrary to his retiring personality, full of a depth that promoted true human values.

His other ‘apostolate’ at that time was Parish Visitation. Day after day he left the comfort of Milltown Park in his legendary anorak, in good, bad, or indifferent weather – “you’d never know, it might rain, or turn cold “- to travel by car across to Cherry Orchard Parish to visit the parishioners in their homes. He went with such dedication that I am sure he had many fans over there who appreciated his sincerity and his unassuming and unimposing manner.

David did not like fuss. He came quietly into a room and left quietly. Ideal for him would be a chat with one or two people in a quiet corner, where his sense of comedy and humour would show. A gathering was enhanced and deepened by his presence, even if he never took centre stage.

Many will remember that driving was not his forte. Smooth transitions from gear to gear eluded him, and he kept the local garage busy in clutch replacement. Eventually, we got an automatic in the community, and he liked that.

David was a member of the Milltown Park Consult. I valued his quite, gently proffered, wisdom. He always looked for the kind step to take, never encouraging harshness, always advising to proceed with gentleness and prudence.

I will always remember him as a gentle giant. He was personable and encouraging, always able to meet you in a way you knew afterwards you had been seen, had been regarded, esteemed, and valued. You felt bigger, never smaller. He did not crush the bruised reed, not extinguish the flickering flame. May he rest gently in the bosom of his Lord.

Conall O’Cuinn 12 May 2020

Early Education at Thomastown NS, Kilkenny; Mungret College SJ

1960-1963 Rathfarnham - Studying Arts at UCD
1963-1966 Pullach, Isartel, Germany - Studying Philosophy at Berchmanskolleg
1966-1968 Belvedere College SJ - Regency : Teacher; Studying H Dip in Education at UCD
1968-1972 Milltown Park - Studying Theology
1972-1973 Manresa House - Socius to Novice Master; Directs Spiritual Exercises
1973-1975 Belvedere College SJ - Teacher
1974 Guelph, ON, Canada - Tertianship at Ignatius Jesuit Centre
1975-1978 Lusaka, Zambia - Assists in Matero Parish
1978-1980 Pleasanton, CA, USA - MA in Counselling at Santa Clara University & Parish work at St Augustine’s Church
1980-1982 Chicago, IL, USA - Marriage Counselling at Our Lady Mount Carmel Church
1982-1987 John Austin House - Marriage & Family Apostolate; Community Co-ordinator; Minister; Bursar
1987-2020 Milltown Park - Parish Assistant, Most Holy Sacrament, Cherry Orchard; Marriage & Family Apostolate
1989 Editor “Interfuse”
1992 Parish Assistant, St Vincent de Paul Parish, Marino
1994 Assistant Editor of “Messenger Booklets”; Family Apostolate
1998 Assistant Editor “Pioneer”
1999 Family Apostolate; Working in “Studies”; Writer
2017 Family Apostolate, Writer

Born: 28 June 1826, Alexandria, Virginia, USA
Entered: 01 September 1843, Frederick Maryland, USA (Marylandiae Province)
Final vows: 15 August 1862
Died: 05 September 1895, Santa Clara California, USA

Father Provincial of Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB) 28 May1882-14 July 1887.
Visitor to Irish Province of the Society of Jesus 1886-1888.

◆ HIB Menologies :
Note from Fr Thomas P Brown SJ Menology Entry
1883-1888 Provincial Irish Province, During his Provincialate Tullabeg was closed and Father Robert Fulton (MARNEB) was sent as Visitor 1886-1888.

Note from Fr Timothy J Kenny SJ Menology Entry
1882 He was appointed Rector at Galway, a position he held until he was appointed Provincial by the then Visitor, Robert Fulton (MARNEB) in 1888.

Born: 28 February 1819, Dingle, County Kerry
Entered: 20 August 1850, Frederick MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Ordained: 1860
Final vows: 02 February 1863
Died: 15 November 1869, Petersville, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)

Part of the Loyola College, Baltimore MD, USA community at the time of death

Uncle of Thomas McDonough (MAR) RIP 1879
?? Patrick Forhan (MARNEB) - RIP 1910

Originally entered 17 September 1839 at Drongen, Belgium (BELG) which had a mission in Missouri, and Left in 1840

Born: 10 October 1836, County Waterford
Entered: 27 February 1855, Florissant MO, USA - Missourians Province (MIS)
Final Vows: 02 February 1867
Died: 10 March 1918, Florissant MO, USA - Missourians Province (MIS)

Born: 24 April 1921, Limerick City, County Limerick
Entered: 07 September 1939, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1953, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1956, Wah Yan College, Hong Kong
Died: 04 September 2006, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the Coláiste Iognáid, Galway community at the time of death.

Transcribed HIB to HK: 03 December 1966; HK to HIB: 21 May 1993

by 1948 at Hong Kong - Regency
by 1958 at Cheung Chau, Hong Kong - Regency studying language

◆ Hong Kong Catholic Archives :
Hong Kong says farewell to a friend and a scholar
Father Neary

Around 500 people gathered at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on 14 September for a memorial Mass, celebrated by the local ordinary, Bishop Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, to mourn the passing of a much-loved teacher and creative administrator, who began the process of systemising Catholic education in the diocese.

A revered teacher at both Wah Yan College in Kowloon and in Hong Kong, Jesuit Father Joseph Foley died in his native Ireland at 11pm on 4 September 2006 at a nursing home in Dublin. Born in Limerick on 24 April 1921, Father Foley entered the Society of Jesus at Emo, Ireland, in September 1939, and eight years later was appointed to the China mission, arriving in Canton for language studies in 1947.

Forced to leave the mainland in 1949, he taught as a scholastic in the Hong Kong Wah Yan campus for one year before returning to Ireland to finish his theological studies and final formation for priesthood. He was ordained at Milltown Park, Dublin, on the feast of St. Ignatius, 31 July 1953.

The year 1955 again saw him teaching in Wah Yan, once again at the Hong Kong school. Then after another year studying Cantonese at Xavier House in Cheung Chau, he was back teaching, an activity he continued for the next 13 years, alternating between the Kowloon and Wan Chai schools. He did a stint as principal in Kowloon from 1962-1968, then in 1970 completed a masters’ degree in education at Loyola College in Chicago, the United States of America.

The photograph published with this tribute to the man who is remembered as much for his joviality, good humour and ceaseless care for students as for his excellence in education, is one of fond memory for many alumni of both colleges. “It is how we remember him,” reads a short obituary on the alumni Website.

The tribute comments that the value of a teacher can be measured by the number of past pupils who take the trouble to revisit. “You may be comforted to learn that of late, many old boys have written to the late Father Foley and a few even made the trip (to Ireland) especially to visit him,” the Website tribute reads.

Father Foley spent 1973 and 1974 setting up a junior college of education in Singapore, returning to Hong Kong in 1978 to take up what was maybe his greatest professional challenge, an appointment as the first Episcopal vicar for education in the diocese. His successor, Alice Woo Lo-ming, said that it was a difficult time of “breaking the ice.” She explained that up until then, each school had operated quite independently, but Father Foley persistently wrote to the Education Department on various issues and “worked hard to promote “collaboration” between the different institutions.

“It was difficult work,” she said. “Many were not so willing to move.” However, she said that his legendary sense of humour assisted him to break through deadlocks and “he tried to make central management work and drew up guidelines for the Catholic Board of Education and the diocesan and religious councils.”

Woo said that “he achieved much, even though he was a one man office with only one secretary to assist him.”

Father Foley stepped down in 1991 and returned to Ireland to work in parishes until ill health forced his retirement earlier this year.
Sunday Examiner Hong Kong - 24 September 2006

◆ Biographical Notes of the Jesuits in Hong Kong 1926-2000, by Frederick Hok-ming Cheung PhD, Wonder Press Company 2013 ISBN 978 9881223814 :
He first came to Hong Kong as a Regent in 1947 and went to Guangzhou to learn Cantonese.
1949-1950 He was sent to Wa Yan College Hong Kong teaching
1950-1955 He went back to ireland for Theology and was Ordained in 1953.
1955-1968 He returned to Hong Kong and Wah Yan College Hong Kong. By 1962 he was Provincial there (1962-1968)
1968-1971 He was sent to Wah Yan Kowloon
1971-1972 He went to the USA to gain a Masters in Education
1972-1973 He was sent to Singapore (Principal of Catholic Junior College)
1973-1977 He was back in Hong Kong at Wah Yan College, Hong Kong
1977 He was appointed Episcopal Vicar for Education. His task was to coordinate the work of all Catholic schools in the territory. An educationalist of many years standing, he said in an interview that there were many problems i Hong Kong’s educational system. A particular issue was about education in the vernacular. He believed that each school should form its own policy, but all parties locally must discuss the vernacular issue thoroughly before coming to any decision.

Sermon at the Requiem Mass for Fr Joseph Foley SJ, by Freddie Deignan SJ on 14 September 2006 (excerpts) :
“We gather here this evening to celebrate the Eucharist and to thank God for the gift of the life of Fr Joseph Foley who has passed away and to pray for the repose of his soul. We remember him as he touched the lives of many of us here. Today happens to be the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross.....His death on the Cross has made it possible for us to join him in the eternal happiness of Heaven. Father Foley is now enjoying that happiness......and we should celebrate that he has finally reached his home safely and joyfully after a life of service.......
He was born in Limerick on April 24th 1921. He entered the Society of Jesus when he was 18 years old and went through the usual course of studies. He got an Arts Degree at University College Dublin and this was followed by three years of Philosophy. He first came to Hong Kong in 1947 when he was 26 years old, studied Chinese in Canton for two years and then spent a year teaching at Wah Yan College Hong Kong.
He returned to Ireland to study Theology and was Ordained on 31st July 1953. So, he died having been 53 years a priest. In 1955 he came back to Hong Kog, which was to be his home for 34 years. He first spent a year at Cheung Chau trying to improve his Chinese, and in 1962 he was appointed Rector and Principal of Wah Yan College Kowloon. he held this post until 1968. He was fondly known as “James Bond”, as people thought he looked like Seán Connery, and his office was 007!
I knew him at this period of his life as I worked with him as Prefect of Studies. As a newcomer in education I learned so much from him about education in Hong Kong, about teaching and administration. I was only a raw recruit then.
So, I am very grateful to him. His example of personal care and thoughtfulness for teachers and students and of those he met or worked with was an example and inspiration to me.
So, I am very grateful to him and I owe him a lot.
He loved teaching, was lively and active in class, so no student would fall asleep in his class! He participated in all the school activities, and he particularly loved playing football, and he usually played in goal.
He was always concerned about the character formation of the students and made great efforts to instil in them Christian values. In his concern for the formation of the students, he organised groups of students to do social work for the poor, sick and the elderly during the summer months. He wished them to be willing to serve others. Of course he led them by example.
Students in the school obviously admired him for his care for each one of them, and his generosity, as he often visited them in their homes. In administration he had wonderful analytical abilities and he could sum up the main points of a book, document or article very easily. This was very useful when it came to dealing with documents from the Education Department.
He also had a very good memory. he was very good at cantonese, and in his good humour used love to make fun and joke in the language. His ability to lead was obvious and he earned the trust of teachers, staff and all with whom he worked. he won their cooperation and respect by his dedication, hard work, fairness and his friendship and care for each one. There was a break in his life in Hong Kong when he was sent to study for a Masters Degree in Education at Loyola University Chicago.. This was a preparation for him to take up a post as Principal at a Catholic Junior College in Singapore.. When this project failed to materialise, he returned to Hong Kong in 1973. he again taught in Wah Yan when Father Barrett was principal until 1977, when he was appointed by Bishop John Baptist Wu as the first Bishop’s Delegate for Education, and Chairman of the newly formed Catholic Education Board which replaced the Catholic Schools Council. There were then 309 Catholic schools in Hong Kong. This was a very challenging job. he helped coordinate, unify and improve the system of administration in the Catholic Schools of the Diocese, and helped set up the Central Management Committee of Diocesan schools. He wrote many responses to changes proposed by the Education Department on behalf of the Catholic schools after discussion with the Diocesan Schools Council and Religious Schools Council.
After 14 years of service he resigned his post as Delegate and was succeeded by Sister Marie Remedios, now Mother General of the Canossian Congregation.
Besides Father Foley was a member of the Inter-religious Committee on Religious Broadcasting and later became Chairman. He was a commentator for the broadcast Mass for Radio Hong Kong and often did the job of announcer and commentator in English for the Feast of Christ the King in the Government Stadium. He was Secretary in Hong Kong for the Jesuit Mass Media Apostolate, and was one time Chair if the Grant Schools Council.
He returned to Ireland in 1992 to rest and change his apostolate from education to pastoral work. He served as an Assistant to the Parish priest in S Francis Xavier’s Church in Dublin until 2000, when he took similar work in St Ignatius Galway. Early in 2006 he began to show the effects of terminal cancer and he was moved to Dublin and the Jesuit nursing home. When I was back in Ireland this summer I went to visit him on July 18th, and again before I left on August 7th. I noticed his condition had deteriorated from the time of my first visit. He had little energy but he was very resigned, peaceful and still very humourous. He knew his life on earth was coming to a close. He wanted to know all the news about Hong Kong, about the Church, education and Wah Yan Past Students. He expressed his gratitude to all who wrote to him and sent “get well” cards, and to those especially who came all the way from Hong Kong or Canada to visit him. He knew that I was going to attend the Wah Yan Alumni conference in Vancouver and said “Tell them how I am and thank them for their kind invitation”.
A former teacher in Wah Yan, Helen Lee went to visit him from Toronto and she wrote a letter to the Past Students : “Some of you may cherish fond recollections of Father Foley. Others may remember him by his nickname 007! He taught us the best things to choose. Yes I mean us, including myself. As a former colleague in Wah Yan and a friend ever since, I have benefitted much from Father Foley’s teachings, not just his words, but in deeds as well.
When I paid him a brief visit at the end of April this year, I was impressed by his calm disposition in his illness. He was quite frail and lacked energy. Most of the time he stayed in bed. Yet he made quite an effort to entertain visitors. He showed much concern and consideration for others around him. He was very courteous to the staff caregivers. he lived Christ’s teaching of being meek and humble of heart.
The Alumni of ‘62 compiled a book entitled “To Father with Love” for him. It is a collection of photos and writings from them. he showed me this invaluable souvenir. As I read through it, I learned more about the good he had done for his students. It was little wonder that they held him with love and affection”.
What inspired Father Foley was his deep love of Christ who loved him.......
We thank God for him, and I know he would like me to thank all those people who shared their love and care with him, especially during his illness........."

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 133 : Special Issue September 2007

Obituary
Fr Joseph (Joe) Foley (1921-2006)
24th April 1921: Born in Limerick
Early education at Model School, CBS Sexton St. Limerick
7th September 1939: Entered the Society at Emo
8th September 1941: First Vows at Emo
1941 - 1944: Rathfarnham - Studied Arts at UCD.
1944 - 1947: Tullabeg - Studied Philosophy
1947 - 1950: Hong Kong
1947 - 1949: Language studies
1949 - 1950: Wah Yan, HK -Teaching.
1950 - 1954: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
31st July 1953: Ordained at Milltown Park
1954 - 1955: Tertianship at Rathfarnham
2nd February 1956: Final Vows at Hong Kong
1955 - 1992: Hong Kong
1955 - 1962: Wah Yan, Hong Kong - Teaching
1956 - 1957: Cheung Chau Language School
31st July 1966: Transcribed to Hong Kong
1962 - 1968: Wah Yan, Hong Kong - Rector
1968 - 1970: Wah Yan, Kowloon - Teaching
1970 - 1973: Loyola, Chicago - M.A. in Education
1973 - 1974: Singapore - Junior College of Education
1974 - 1977: Wah Yan College, Hong Kong - Teaching
1977 - 1992: Vicar for Religious
1992 - 2000: Gardiner Street -
1992 - 1995: Parish Curate
31st July 1993: Transcribed to Irish Province
1995 - 2000: Assisted in the Church
1998 - 2000: House Consultor
2000 - 2006: Galway Assisted in Church, Spiritual Director (SJ)
4th September 2006: Died in Cherryfield Lodge

Frank Doyle writes:
Two days after his birth, Joe Foley, son of Denis Foley and Alice Gould, was baptised in St Michael's Church in Limerick and at the age of 12 received the Sacrament of Confirmation from Bishop D. Keane in St Joseph's Church, also in Limerick, on the feast of St Peter and Paul, 1933. He received his secondary education at the Irish Christian Brothers' School in Sexton Street and completed it by doing' his Leaving Certificate in 1939.

On September 3, 1939, Britain and France declared war on Germany. It was the formal beginning of the Second World War. Four days later, on September 7, Joe entered the Society at Emo Park in Co. Laois. His novice master was Fr John Neary.

There then followed the usual six years of Juniorate in Rathfarnham from 1941-1944 and Philosophy at St Stanislaus' College, Tullabeg, 1944-1947. For his regency he was assigned to the Irish Province's Mission in Hong Kong and spent three years there from 1947 to 1950. As was the custom, he spent the first two years studying the Cantonese dialect, used in Hong Kong, and then taught for one further year in Wah Yan College, Robinson Road, in the Mid-Levels district of Hong Kong Island.

It was during this period that Joe became part of an “incident” which could have had unpleasant consequences. He was with two other scholastics - Donal Taylor and Martin Cryan - in Macau, the Portuguese enclave about 40 miles down the coast from Hong Kong. They passed through an archway on the edge of the territory with the intention of taking photographs on the other side. However, they had unwittingly crossed the border dividing Macau from China. They were arrested by Chinese police and taken into custody. Fortunately, through the good offices of a wealthy Portuguese in Macau, their early release was arranged.

In 1950 Joe returned to Ireland for his theological studies and finished with a Licentiate in Theology. At the end of his third year he was ordained to the priesthood on 31 July 1953. Theology was followed by Tertianship in Rathfarnham Castle in 1954-55 where the directors were Fathers John Neary and Hugo Kelly.

With the completion of his Jesuit formation, Joe returned to the Hong Kong Mission and took up teaching again at Wah Yan College. Just at this time, in 1955, Wah Yan moved from its original location in Robinson Road to a brand new building on Mount Parrish in the Wanchai district of Hong Kong Island. A year after his return, Joe made his Final Vows on 2 February 1956.

In 1957 Joe was made Minister at Xavier House on the offshore island of Cheung Chau and held the post for one year. Xavier House had become the language school for Jesuits arriving for the first time in Hong Kong. It replaced some previous venues - Loyola in the New Territories, which was used up the time of the Second World War, Canton (before the Communists moved in), the Missions Etrangeres de Paris (MEP) house in Battery Path in downtown Hongkong.

In 1957, however, there were plans to open a novitiate at Xavier House and this involved putting up a new building for the novices. The absentee superior of the house was Fr Eddie Bourke, who had been sent down to Singapore to relieve Paddy Joy. The acting superior was Canice Egan, who was to be the new novice master, with Joe Foley as his minister and Socius. There were also three scholastics in the house that year – John Jones, Joseph Shields, and Frank Doyle. It was here that the author first came to know Joe. It turned out to be one of my most enjoyable years in the Society, not least because of Joe's and Canice's constant teasing of each other. We did have a lot of fun together that year.

The original plans, however, were changed. Canice was replaced as novice master by John O'Meara and took up teaching in what were known as post-secondary colleges. Joe Foley, for his part, moved back to Wah Yan College in Wanchai and returned to teaching. In 1958 he was also made Minister at Wah Yan and four years later took over from Cyril Barrett as Rector, a post he held until 1968. It was during this period, in 1966, that the Hong Kong Mission became the Vice-Province of Hong Kong and Joe, with all the other members of the former Mission, was now transcribed to the new Vice-Province.

It was about this time that the Singapore government began implementing a plan to open special “Junior Colleges” for pre university (Form 6) students. The government opened one of its own but also invited other groups including the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, and the Buddhists, to open colleges of their own. In 1972, Joe went to Loyola College in Chicago and spent one year there doing a Master's in Education. The idea behind this move was a proposal that he become the first Director of the new Catholic Junior College in Singapore. However, he never did take up the post. For some reasons – perhaps because he was a European and from Singapore's rival territory of Hong Kong - he was not given the appointment. Instead a local De la Salle Brother was assigned to the post.

In the year 1978, Joe was appointed by the Bishop of Hong Kong as Vicar for Education for the diocese. He held this post for 14 years until he returned to Ireland in 1992. He now had his own office in the Catholic Diocesan Centre, beside the Catholic Cathedral. In this post he was basically responsible for coordinating all the Catholic diocesan schools in the territory - of which there were many.

After 14 years in the post, Joe was expressing a desire to retire and hand over to someone else. The Bishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal Wu, was, however, reluctant to let him go. Joe then decided that his best recourse was to take a year off and return to Ireland. He was assigned as a curate in St Francis Xavier's, Gardiner Street. He found this new apostolate so much to his liking that he decided to stay on in Ireland and, and in the following year, was transcribed back to the Irish Province. His assignment as curate was modified to 'assists in the church in 1995. In 1998 he became a consultor in the community.

In the year 2000, he was transferred to St Ignatius Church, Galway, 'assisting in the church and spiritual director of the Jesuit community. He became the house historian in 2004. It was during these years that he began to have problems with cancer and, when it became more serious and without any prospect of a cure, he was moved to Cherryfield Lodge where he spent the last months of his life there. He died there peacefully on 4 September 2006.

In his younger days, Joe would be remembered as a vigorous footballer. Most of his life in Hong Kong was devoted to some aspect of education - either as a teacher, a headmaster or the bishop's representative for education. He made no claims to being an intellectual but was competent in the posts he held. He had a good sense of humour and enjoyed teasing and being teased. He is missed by those who knew him.

Eulogy given in late September, 2006, by Helen Chia Chih Lee, former teacher at Wah Yan, Hong Kong, at a memorial Mass in Toronto for a gathering of Wah Yan alumni:
We gather here today to remember Rev. Fr. Joseph Foley, a fine Jesuit, and to celebrate his fruitful life. The last letter Fr. Foley sent me was dated April 12 of this year. Unlike his usual handwritten ones, it was typed, responding to a question I had asked him on prayer. In early June, I was shocked to learn that he was quite sick in the nursing home. It touched me deeply to realize that he still cared so much about me in his illness.

When I visited him some weeks later, I was impressed by his good spirits and quick wit despite suffering from terminal cancer. The concern he showed to those around him was edifying. His command of Cantonese, particularly the slang, was as amazing as ever. When he said 'wuun buun' in Cantonese, looking at the lotus paste bun in Fr. Doyle's hands, I couldn't understand the reason for the remark. It was when he said in English that Fr. Doyle was eating one bun that I got the pun.

I was privileged to have worked with Fr. Foley at Wah Yan HK in the mid 1970's. As a colleague, he was very friendly and helpful. He inspired me to instil moral values through teaching English. Up to this day, I adhere to his idea. As an adult ESL instructor, I often choose topics related to values, particularly Canadian ones, for my immigrant learners. After Father Foley left Wah Yan, he gradually became our family friend. His advice, moral support and prayers were invaluable, especially during the early years of our immigration to Canada,

Most alumni of the two Wah Yans knew Fr. Foley in different capacities, but everybody referred to him by his heroic nickname, “James Bond” or “007”. Students of the 1950's and 60's on the Hong Kong side had Fr. Foley as either their teacher or principal. Later, he served on the teaching staff of either school at different times. In 1978, the late Cardinal Wu appointed Fr. Foley to be the first Episcopal Vicar for Education, a position he held until 1992. Then he returned to Ireland and served the Irish Jesuit Province. In May this year, he was admitted to the Jesuit nursing home in Dublin. On September 4, with close relatives by his side, Fr. Foley passed away peacefully, aged 85.

Fr. Foley dedicated his whole life to the service of God. In his own words, “to be able to help people” was the most rewarding aspect in his priesthood. Indeed, he enriched innumerable people. Wah Yan students and staff benefited greatly from his words, his deeds and his remarkable personality. He was highly intelligent, full of humour, very caring and most generous. In the 14 long years of his tenure as the Cardinal's delegate for education, Fr. Foley's contribution was more widely felt, influencing the direction of Catholic education in Hong Kong.

Fr. Foley was much respected and loved by his students. Some alumni made special trips to Ireland to visit him. The class of 62 compiled a sentimental souvenir book entitled "To Father with Love" for him. In his illness, he received lots of cards from former students. All these show what a great teacher he was.

Before closing, I'd like to share with you a thought from a homily I heard Fr. Foley deliver when I visited him in Galway, Ireland, back in 2002. It has special relevance to those of us brought up in the traditional Chinese way. We were taught to be humble by declining praise. Fr. Foley said that true humility does not lie in denying or diminishing one's talents or achievements. Instead, when being praised, a humble person realizes his/her strong points and accomplishments are gifts from God and is, therefore, thankful for His blessings.

All of us whose lives have been touched by Fr. Foley are truly blessed. As we mourn the loss of such a fine Jesuit, let us be comforted at the thought that he is enjoying his well-deserved heavenly rewards. Let our fond memories of him prompt us to follow his good example. Let us ask Fr. Foley to intercede for us, especially for Wah Yan which he so loved.

Born: 04 September 1938, Taylor’s Hill, Galway City, County Galway
Entered: 07 September 1957, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 20 June 1971, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1978, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 26 November 2019, Sewickley PA, USA

Part of the St Ignatius, Lower Leeson Street community at the time of death

Raised at Taylor’s Hill, Galway
Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1962 at Chantilly France (FRA) studying
by 1972 at San Francisco CA, USA (CAL) studying
by 1973 at University of London (ANG) studying
by 1974 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) making Tertianship
by 1992 at Wernersville PA, USA (MAR) sabbatical
by 2009 at Pittsburgh PA, USA (MAR) working

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/phil-fogarty-rip/

Living the Jesuit vision: Phil Fogarty RIP

The funeral Mass of Philip Fogarty SJ took place in Sewickley, Pittsburgh on Tuesday 3 December 2019. The celebrant was Michael Shiel SJ who had flown over with fellow Jesuit and socius Declan Murray SJ. Cathal Doherty SJ flew from San Francisco to join all those who had gathered to give thanks for Philip’s life of service. Because he suffered from severe heart trouble over the past 20 years Philip spent a good bit of time in the United States but he continued to work both in Ireland and the states, “a testament to his courage” as one Jesuit colleague put it. He was well known as a retreat giver and writer and for the past 10 years in Sewickley, near Pittsburgh in the USA. He spent the latter part of his life engaged in the spirituality apostolate, both at home and with the CSJ Sisters in the USA. Philip had lived a full life in the Irish Province. Much of the early part of his ministry was in education, he taught in Coláiste Iognáid and spent 11 years as headmaster of Clongowes Wood College. Writing in the Clongownian (1987) about his time there the late Michael O’Dowd (former deputy headmaster) said Philip ‘eventually built Clongowes in his own image and likeness’. On hearing of his death, the current deputy headmaster of Clongowes, Martin Wallace, penned a moving tribute for the school’s website, echoing Michael O’Dowd’s sentiments. “As Headmaster, Philip was the leader of a remarkable triumvirate that included Michael O’Dowd as Deputy Headmaster and Fr. Michael Sheil SJ as higher line prefect. Soft-spoken and pipe smoking, Philip ran the school with kindness and compassion, relying on the goodwill of all, but backed up by his two enforcers, to ensure that a culture of mutual respect reigned in every domain of the college. Fairness, consistency and respect for all were the pillars of his authority and it would be no exaggeration to say that he transformed the culture of Clongowes through his vision of what a Jesuit school should be, his communication of that vision at every opportunity, and through the way he lived that vision in his interactions with every person in the community.” Philip frequently wrote for The Sacred Heart Messenger and published with Columba Press and Messenger Publications. For the last twenty years, his health was increasingly compromised. But as his friend and current editor of the Messenger, Donal Neary, notes, “He had a wonderful approach to his ailments and he tried to live as positively and as fully as he could, enjoying the fact that he was constantly defying all the medical prognoses.” His most recent visit home was in April 2019, where he enjoyed a great visit with his sisters, family and the community at Leeson St. Over the past two weeks, he had been detained in the ICU of the UPMC hospital with significant medical issues, but was released home from there only last Saturday. He wrote saying he was very happy to be at home and expected to recover. However, he died peacefully in his sleep in the early hours of Tuesday morning, November 26th in the care of the CSJ Sisters at Sewickley, and he will be buried with them there in their community plot. He was 81 years old. “We are grateful for his life” says Donal, adding “and his fellow Jesuits and family give thanks for having known him and his friendship. May he rest in peace.”

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/fitting-tribute-for-phil/

Fitting tribute for Phil
Clongowes Wood College SJ celebrated the life of Philip Fogarty SJ with a special memorial Mass in the school sports hall, on Sunday 19 January 2020. Phil died last year in America on Tuesday 26 November. Jesuits, teachers, former staff, family, friends, pupils and past pupils all gathered to pay tribute to Philip who was headmaster in the school from 1976 to 1987.
Michael Sheil SJ said the Mass and gave the homily, which included a touching account of the many years he shared with Phil. And he made special mention of Phil’s ground-breaking re-imagining of Clongowes and its ethos as a Jesuit boarding school.”
Mr Cyril Murphy, Director of Liturgy in Clongowes conducted the Schola choir comprised of current students. They sang the Requiem aeternam introit and the Pie Jesu from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Requiem. “ It felt like a homecoming requiem Mass for our former headmaster,” said Cyril, adding that “It was a very moving liturgy. To see the numerous past pupils flooding through the doors before the liturgy ever began was testament enough to ‘Phili’, as he was affectionately known.”
Phil’s sister Oonagh was present along with members of the Mc Keagney family who laid a framed portrait of Phil before the altar. The picture was later presented to Oonagh. Sr. Catherine Higgins, a great friend of Phil’s, travelled from the United States especially for the occasion. ”The whole event was a testimony to the affection and esteem in which Phil was held,” Cyril reflected, adding that “The pods of conversation and the reluctance of people to leave the sports hall after the Mass was over was striking in its manifestation of the legacy of goodwill which Phil left behind.”
One of those legacies was Phil’s promotion of an ecumenical friendship between Clongowes and Portora Royal School, Enniskillen which began 40 years ago. There is still a strong bond between the school and Ms Janet Goodall and family, long-time friends of Clongowes and Portora, attended the Mass. Present also were neighbours and friends from the King’s Hospital including Mark Ronan, the headmaster of King’s Hospital, his wife Fiona, Mr John Aiken, Deputy Head, Ms Jenny Baron and number of pupils.
Guests did eventually leave the sports hall moving to the refectory for a hearty Sunday lunch. Phil would have approved.

Early Education at Coláiste Iognáid SJ, Galway, Clongowes Wood College, SJ

1959-1962 Rathfarnham - Studying Arts at UCD
1962-1965 Chantilly, France - Studying Philosophy at Séminaire Missionaire
1965-1968 Clongowes Wood College SJ - Regency : Teacher; Studying CWC Cert in Education
1968-1972 Milltown Park - Studying Theology
1972-1973 San Francisco, CA, USA - Studying Educational TV at St Ignatius College Prep
1973 Mount St, London, UK - Studying Educational TV at London University
1973-1974 St Asaph, Wales, UK - Tertianship at St Bueno’s
1974-1975 Belvedere College SJ - Audio Visual Organiser for SJ Schools
1975-1976 Coláiste Iognáid SJ, Galway - Teacher; Promoting TV Ed in SJ Schools
1976-1987 Clongowes Wood College SJ - Headmaster; Editor “Clongownian”; Teacher
1987-1988 Sabbatical in South Africa (till Jan 1988)
1988-1991 Coláiste Iognáid SJ, Galway - Headmaster; Director Pastoral Care; Province Consultor (from Jan 88)
1991-1992 Wernersville, PA, USA - Sabbatical at Jesuit Centre of Spirituality
1992-1995 Sandford Lodge - Superior; Chair Young Adults Board; Provincial Team; Provincial Representative at NCIR; Chaplain to Jesuit Alumni/ae; Chair JVC Board
1994 Bursar
1995-1996 Leinster Road - Superior; Bursar; NCPI; Young Adults Delegate
1996-1999 Loyola House - Superior; Provincial Socius; Provincial’s Admonitor; Province Consultor; Provincial Team; Delegate Young Adults; Past Pupils Apostolate
1999-2019 Leeson St - Writer; Assists CLC; Assists LRA; Assists Cherryfield
2003 Hospice Chaplain (USA)
2009 Sewickley, PA, USA - Writer;19th Annotation Retreats in Parishes; Spiritual Direction; Assists the Jesuit Collaborative in Pittsburgh

◆ The Clongownian, 2020

Obituary

Father Philip Fogarty SJ : Living the Jesuit Vision

On 26th November 2019 we heard the sad news that Philip Fogarty (OC'57), reforming Headmaster of Clongowes (1976-1987) passed away in the United States, where he had been living for much of the last twenty years, due to the severe heart trouble from which he had been suffering. Philip's death sparked an out-pouring of fond and affectionate memories from former students, colleagues and friends both within and without the Society of Jesus touched by the life and love of this most remarkable man, who may truly be said to have lived the Jesuit vision...

Philip Fogarty was born on 4th September 1938 at Taylor's Hill in Galway. Following early education at Coláiste lognáid SJ, Galway he entered Clongowes in 1952 and, when he graduated five years later he was a member of the Sodality of Our Lady and the Choir as well as Reachtaire of An Cumann Gaelach. His membership of the Dramatic Society earned him a role as a “Reaper” in “The Tempest”, while in the winter session of the House Debates he opposed a motion 'That the British Empire has been, in the main, a force for good'. Three months after leaving Clongowes the young man entered the Novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Emo, where he spent two years before moving to Rathfarnham Castle to study Arts at UCD. His regency was spent in Clongowes (1965-68) where he also edited “The Clongownian”. Following his Ordination in 1971 a love for educational TV was sparked in San Francisco and nurtured at London University leading to his role as Audio Visual Organiser for SJ Schools (1974-75). He returned to Clongowes in 1976 as Headmaster, editor of “The Clongownian” and teacher. Following his eleven years as Headmaster the longest in the modern role to date) and a sabbatical in South Africa he returned to his other alma mater and his native land when he was appointed Headmaster at Coláiste lognáid (1988-91).

Because he suffered from severe heart trouble over the past twenty years Philip spent a good bit of tirne in the United States but he continued to work both in Ireland and the States, “a testament to his courage” as one Jesuit colleague put it. He spent the latter part of his life engaged in the spirituality apostolate, both at home and with the CSJ Sisters in the USA. He was well known as a retreat giver and writer for the past ten years in Sewickley, near Pittsburgh. Philip frequently wrote for The Sacred Heart Messenger and published other works with Columba Press and Messenger Publications. Despite the fact that, for the last twenty years his health was increasingly compromised his friend (and current editor of “The Messenger”) Donal Neary notes “He had a wonderful approach to his ailments and he tried to live as positively and as fully as he could, enjoying the fact that he was constantly defying all the medical prognoses. His most recent visit home was in April 2019, where he enjoyed a great visit with his sisters, family and the community at Leeson St”.

For two weeks before his death he had been detained in the ICU of the UPMC hospital with significant medical issues but was released home from there and expected to recover. However, he died peacefully in his sleep in the early hours of November 26th in the care of the CSJ Sisters at Sewickley, Pittsburgh and was buried in their community plot following his Funeral Mass on December 3rd. The celebrant was the rector of Clongowes, Fr Michael Shiel SJ, who had flown over with fellow Jesuit and socius Declan Murray SJ. Cathal Doherty SJ flew from San Francisco to join all those who had gathered to give thanks for Philip's life of service. “We are grateful for his life” says Donal Neary, adding “and his fellow Jesuits and family give thanks for having known him and his friendship”. May he rest in peace.

-oOo-

A Legacy which has Endured

We received news of the passing of Fr Philip Fogarty SJ in late November. Philip came as a new broom to the school, arriving with Fr Michael Sheil SJ as Higher Line Prefect and, together with the then Deputy Headmaster, Michael O'Dowd, they ushered in a new era with changed relationships and a friendlier atmosphere; a legacy which has endured, and is such a key feature of Clongowes life today. Philip was clearly a man of great vision and someone to whom we owe an enormous debt of gratitude. He abolished corporal punishment in Clongowes well before other schools in the country had the courage to do so. The leadership of schools has probably never been easy. In today's climate, with its financial pressures on all of us, the increasing volume of regulation from external agencies and; for Clongowes as a Catholic school, the growing secularisation of the culture around us, the demands are considerable. They were doubtless considerable for Philip too and i am really struck by his style of leadership, and the warmth with which he is remembered. Those who knew him use words such as considerate; kind, compassionate, and fair to describe him - something for all of us to draw inspiration from:

Mr Chris Lumb, Headmaster

-oOo-

A Truly Apostolic Priest

Homily at the Memorial Mass for Fr Philip Fogarty, SJ

He will always make you rich enough to be generous at all times - so that many will thank God for your gifts ... (2 Cor. 9: 10-15)

When I was asked to celebrate the Funeral Mass of Phil last month in Pittsburgh I happened upon the text of our first reading and it struck me as being very appropriate for the occasion of his passing to new life because of the legacy he has left behind. Phil was a year behind me when we were students here in the 1950s and we both returned here in 1976 as a double act - he as Headmaster and I as Higher Line Prefect. It was a time of great strife and suffering in Ireland and so to-day, as we celebrate Church Unity Sunday in more peaceful times and welcome our friends from The King's Hospital on their annual visit as well as some members of staff from Portora it is important to recall Phil's ecumenical initiative in setting up a twinning with Portora Royal School in Enniskillen. We gather also to thank God for the gift that he was to the Society of Jesus in treland and to Clongowes, fellow Jesuits and former pupils. We gather as the Christian Community mourning his passing - sad, yet in a deep way rejoicing in the New Life that is his. As humans we share our sense of the loss of a wonderful priest in service to his Lord and that sharing helps ease our individual pain. It is also a time for our Community when we reminisce on his life. We give thanks and - even in sorrow -laugh at shared memories. Surely that is how Phil himself would have wanted it to be, as his spirit lives on in the lives of each of us. For, as is promised to those who have received the gift of Christian Faith, Phil is indeed alive in that New Life to which God called him at his Baptism. Through all our pain we find reason to be happy for him because of what he has gained and we can give thanks to God for His gifts to Phil and for His gift of Phil to us as, in thanksgiving, we now offer that gift back to God. So as Christian believers we can, in spite of our pain, give thanks for his life and offer him back to God.

And what do we offer? The life of Philip Fogarty was a full, loving and sharing one, the life of a wonderful person and a truly apostolic priest. And a good listener. It is a very special gift to be a good listener and Phil received that gift in full and was also a very reflective educationalist. We all have our own memories and stories, precious and personal so, at his passing, it is only natural that a tsunami of thoughts should come flooding in, each of us with our own tale to tell. At one Farewell Dinner for our Final Year Students, I mentioned that Phil had taught me Irish dancing when in France and the Headmaster was prevailed upon to do a jig. His performance received a standing ovation - but it came at a price, for Phil spent most of the following summer holidays in plaster in hospitali He was also an inveterate pipe-smoker and one day went to visit a kindred chain-smoker soul in hospital. His friend, lying in bed wearing an oxygen mask, saw him enter; her eyes lit up and, as he approached to give her a hug, she whipped off the mask, grabbed his smoke-impregnated scarf and took a wonderful whiff of tobacco and replaced the mask!

For the past 20 years Phil lived out his life of giving in a way none of us could have expected. I am reminded of what Jesus said to Peter when, after the Resurrection, He met the Apostles on the Lakeshore after a night's fruitless fishing: When you were young - you went where you wished - but, when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will lead you. I am also reminded of Portuguese proverb, which says that God writes straight with crooked lines! How wonderfully did God tead Phil in what was to be the twilight of his life, using his illness all those years ago to bring him to Pittsburgh to do so much good for so many and to become, in turn, the gift of someone in need of the care of those whom God was calling to show just how much they could love Phil in return. And here I must pay tribute to the Sisters of St Joseph, whose home-from-home was their special gift to their very special person sent to them by God.

Now, as we offer him back to God, we offer all those gifts and memories and our thanks for all that he meant to us, and we entrust him to the care of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, Who has told us: “Trust in God still and trust in Me! There are many rooms in My Father's house. I am going now to prepare a place for you - and I shall return to take you with Me - so that, where I am, you may be too”. (Jn 14: 1-6)

For now - like Jesus - Phil has gone ahead of us and is preparing to welcome us when our turn comes to answer God's call home so that we may share together the place Christ has prepared for each one of us. And is it not this that brings us together in the Eucharist this afternoon? Is it not this that makes sense of our being here? God calls us home when He sees best. Late last year, in a moment unnoticed and unmarked by the world, Christ did indeed return to call Phil home in his sleep in a meeting known only to himself and his Lord. He called His good and faithful servant to come and share in his Master's happiness. Phil has followed his Master who was his Way - Truth - Life. He had known for so long the place to where he would be going. It was for Phil the celebration of what the ancient Roman martyrology proclaims as the Christian's dies natalis - his heavenly birthday - Phil's birth into New Life. So often in life we say 'good-bye'. It comes from the ancient wish or prayer 'May God be with you' ('Dia dhuit' in Irish) and to day we say it to you, Phil, at this, our last Mass with you and we pray in these words:

May Christ enfold you in His Love and bring you to eternal life. May God and Mary be with you.

We will pray for you, Phil - may you also pray for us. And so we say farewell and - until we meet again - Good-bye!

Fr Michael Sheil SJ, Rector

-oOo-

Fairness, Consistency and Respect for All

When Philip Fogarty stepped down as Headmaster of Clongowes in 1987 after eleven years at the helm, his deputy, the late Mr Michael O'Dowd wrote an appreciation of his time in Clongowes “The Clongownian” 1987, 3-4). Now -32 years later - it has fallen to one of Michael's successors, Mr Martin Wallace, to put pen to paper in memory of the man most associated with the development of the modern Jesuit school that we know today...

...[Philip) eventually rebuilt Clongowes almost in his own image and likeness. - Michael Byrne

On Tuesday, 26th November, Seamus Aherne, Declan O'Keeffe, Tony Pierce and I gathered with unqualified sadness to mark the passing of Philip Fogarty - Uncle Phil - the man who employed and inspired us during that belle époque (or so it seemed to us] from the late seventies to the mid eighties. As Headmaster, Philip was the leader of a remarkable triumvirate that included Michael O'Dowd, Deputy Headmaster, and Fr Michael Sheil SJ, Higher Line Prefect, Soft spoken and pipe smoking, Philip ran the school with kindness and compassion, relying on the good will of all, but backed up by his two enforcers, to ensure that a culture of mutual respect reigned in every domain of the college. Fairness, consistency and respect for all were the pillars of his authority and it would be no exaggeration to say that he transformed the culture of Clongowes through his vision of what a Jesuit school should be, his communication of that vision at every opportunity and through the way he lived that vision in his interactions with every person in the community. So much of what he changed about Clongowes is encapsulated in his very firm decision to abolish corporal punishment long before anyone else in the country had the courage or conviction to do so. While he always sought consensus, there were certain issues that were fundamental to his understanding of community.

Philip always enjoyed seeing the humorous side of human affairs and relished the convivial gatherings that became known as 'The Tuesday Night Club', a sortie to one of the local establishments for what might be called an offsite meeting'. Everything that was happening in the school was laid bare from every angle, allowing Philip, as he puffed his pipe and sipped his Black Bush, to chuckle away at the anecdotes, but also to discern what was really going on amidst the fog of subjectivity that enveloped conversations. He understood instinctively that, when all the rules and regulations, curricula and governance issues are stripped away, a school is a community of relationships, and the quality of those relationships is where the ethos is found. When I arrived in Clongowes in 1979, I was astonished by the gentle culture that emanated from the Headmaster through the whole school. It felt strange to have an immediate sense of trust in a person I hardly knew - especially as he was the boss! I came to learn over the years that this was also the experience of every student and teacher, every employee of and visitor to the school, and that is why Philip is remembered by all with such warmth and deep affection. To quote Michael Byrne again:

By the time I left Clongowes at the end of his first year there, it was slowly beginning to dawn on me that this man was in charge in a way in which no one else that I had ever seen, in my vast experience of seventeen years, was in charge.?

Rest in peace, Philip - we miss you.

Mr Martin Wallace, Deputy Headmaster

-oOo-

His Reign was Mild

The editor of The Clongownian has many reasons to be grateful to the late Philip Fogarty, not least the receipt of a teaching job in Clongowes, when positions in education were not easily come by. He echoes the observations of the previous contributors and adds his own thanks to his erstwhile boss for the many kindnesses shown to him as a newly minted university graduate. As a devotee of the work of another Old Clongownian, James Joyce, the editor has always felt that Philip's holistic view of education draws a direct line from the philosophy of one of his predecessors, Fr John Conmee. Like Philip, Conmee was an Old Clongownian (one of the earliest in 1837) and “the decentest rector that was ever in Clongowes” (1885-91) according to James Joyce, masquerading as Stephen Dedalus in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. He had been Prefect of Studies and Rector in Clongowes, where he oversaw the difficult and sometimes fractious merger with Tullabeg in 1886 and Philip Fogarty supervised an equally momentous period of transition during his time as Headmaster of Clongowes. As another former Headmaster, Bruce Bradley (1992-2000) has observed, “the traditional values of the Ratio Studiorum are embodied in Fr Conmee, and the same may be said of Fr Fogarty. Philip was - above all - a kindly; diligent; sympathetic listener, and we all knew it: Conmee is affectionately remembered again in Ulysses and Joyce's summing up could be easily re-worked by many a pupil; teacher and Jesuit to apply to Philip Fogarty:

He was their Headmaster: his reign was: Mild

Mr Declan O’Keeffe, Editor

-oOo-

The Portora Connection

In February we welcomed visitors from Enniskillen Royal Grammar School (formerly Portora Royal School) to Clongowes. During the visit, Ms Janet Goodall from Enniskillen delivered the following tribute to Philip Fogarty at Morning Prayer...:

On the 26th November Fr Philip Fogarty passed away after a lifetime as a good and faithful servant of God and The Society of Jesus. On Sunday two weeks ago, I was honoured to join with you to celebrate his life and his tremendous contribution to the living culture and ethos of Clongowes Wood College. I did not know Fr Phil personally, but I know of his legacy. It was a legacy of friendship and a legacy of bravery. In 1980, when Fr Phil was Headmaster at Clongowes, Ireland was a different place, and Northern Ireland was a very different place. The series “Derry Girls” has painted the picture of how the people of Northern Ireland found normality and dark humour during “The Troubles”, but in 1980, 80 people died in Northern Ireland as a result of sectarian violence. This week 40 years ago three people were killed, two Catholics and one Protestant; one was from Fermanagh, and one was just a child. Northern Ireland was not a safe place. Unsurprisingly most people in the Republic of Ireland just chose not to go there. Fr Philip Fogarty knew that peace could not be achieved without first understanding our differences but also our shared Christian values and identities. His part in seeking this understanding was to reach out and propose a twinning with Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, the alma mater of Blessed John Sullivan. This was a risk that could have provoked much criticism. This was a risk that Dr Alan Acheson, then Headmaster of Portora, also took. Today crossing the border into Northern Ireland is marked only by the change of the road signs. In 1980 it could be an intimidating or frightening experience. You queued, you were profiled, your car was searched or your bus was boarded. The noise from overhead military helicopters was deafening. On one journey to Enniskillen, the Clongowes minibus had its tires blown by a UVF roadside trap. I often wonder how Margaret Doyle must have felt, with a bus full of boys, flagging down help, not knowing who, if anyone, would stop. Today as a teacher planning a trip, I risk assess hazards such as “stopping at a service station”; I think that the assessment of the hazard “terrorist booby-trap” might be off the scale.

What was mportant was that the match was played
While life in Enniskillen was quieter than other parts of the North, daily life was punctuated with checkpoints, security alerts, control zones and army patrols. When Clongowes boys arrived at Portora they bore witness to the effect and pain of the troubles. On one visit they were told “I'm not sitting with that Fenian”. How easy would it be to be offended by this? How much harder is it to listen and learn? That Portora boy's father was an RUC officer who was killed by the IRA. That Clongowes boy extended his hand in sympathy for his loss, The Clongownian 1981 reports that Fr Michael brought a cricket team to Portora where they were welcomed with “marvellous hospitality”. It was 11 days after the death of republican hunger striker Bobby Sands. No one remembers the result of the cricket for the result was not important - what was important was that the match was played. Following an overnight visit to Portora, Fr Michael recalls that a student reported to him how a Clongowes “republican” and a Portora “Paisleyite” had kept the dorm awake with their exchanges, They eventually fell asleep after becoming the best of friends.

In November 1987, Enniskillen suffered one of the worst terrorist atrocities of the troubles. The IRA bombed the town's Remembrance Ceremony: 12 lives were lost and 63 were injured. The following year, Clongowes joined Portora at the Cenotaph to share the pain of Enniskillen's community. Again this risk was both political and perilous. In more recent years, An Taoiseach has represented the Irish people at Remembrance in Enniskillen; Clongowes has being doing this for decades. So much has changed in 40 years - the Good Friday Agreement, prosperity, the Internet - but our friendship has been sustained and has thrived through the relationships between both pupils and staff. Today, thousands of Portorans and Clongownians live and work on this island knowing more of each other and our faiths. In 1980 Fr Phil was a visionary; today we are so very grateful for his legacy, which reminds me of the prayer attributed to John Wesley:

Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as ever you can.

So today I ask you to live Fr Phil's legacy; reach out when you can listen when you can, and learn when you can. That good could change lives and resonate for decades. Buíochas on chroí leis an Athair Phil, agus buíochas agus beannacht libh go léir. Thank you, Fr Phil and thank you all.

Born: 04 September 1860, St Louis, MO, USA
Entered: 18 September 1880, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died; 18 August 1884, St Ignatius College, Riverview, Sydney, Australia

Early Irish Australian Mission 1882

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He was raised at both Wexford and St Louis, MO, USA. When he came back to Ireland he received an education at Tullabeg.

Due to health issues he was sent to Australia while still a Novice, and he made his First Vows at Riverview, Sydney. By that stage he knew his recovery was hopeless, but he performed his duties as Second Prefect with all his remaining energy, until a few days before his death. He received the Last Sacraments on August 13th 1884, and his next few days were spent in meditation and prayer. His weakness increased rapidly and he died calmly in his chair on the night of 18/08/1884. A zealous promoter of the Holy Childhood, he had collected five pounds just before he died for the redemption of Chinese children.

Note from Edmund Bohan Entry :
1882 He was sent for Regency to Australia with John Flynn, both being delicate in health.

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280
John Flynn spent much of his childhood in the USA. After education at St Stanislaus' College, Tullabeg, he entered the Society at Milltown Park in September 1880. After a year it was discovered he had consumption and was sent to Australia with another novice sufferer, Edmund Bohan, and arrived in December 1882. He went to Riverview where he took vows, but the disease was worse than expected and little could be done. He worked in the school as second division prefect up to a few days before he died.

◆ Fr Francis Finegan : Admissions 1859-1948 - Born in America of Irish parents (County Wexford)

Born: 17 March 1815, Monsea, County Tipperary
Entered: 07 December 1857, Santa Clara CA, USA - Taurensis Province (TAUR)
Final vows: 19 March 1868
Died: 21 May 1875, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara CA, USA - Taurensis Province (TAUR)

Born: 06 January 1822, County Fermanagh
Entered: 14 August 1848, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Final Vows: 15 August 1859
Died: 08 January 1882, St Mary's, Kansas, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Born: 17 March 1828, Leinster
Entered: 03 December 1850, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Final Vows: 15 August 1862
Died: 28 February 1865, St Louis University, St Louis MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Born: 13 July 1832, Blackditch, County Wicklow
Entered: 21 August 1857, Sault-au-Rècollet Canada - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1865
Final Vows: 15 August 1878
Died: 31 October 1880, Fordham College , NY, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 01 July 1814, Mortlestown, County Tipperary
Entered: 19 October 1843, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Final Vows: 15 August 1855
Died: 09 April 1873, St Mary’s, Kansas, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Born: 01 April 1799, Ireland
Entered: 06 June 1834, Florissant MO USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Died: 09 June 1855, Loyola College, Baltimore, MD, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Born: 07 November 1910, Mallow, County Cork
Entered: 01 September 1928, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 31 July 1939, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1978
Died: 29 August 1993, Manresa, Toowong, Brisbane, Australia - Australiae Province (ASL)

Transcribed : HIB to ASL 05/04/1931

◆ David Strong SJ “The Australian Dictionary of Jesuit Biography 1848-2015”, 2nd Edition, Halstead Press, Ultimo NSW, Australia, 2017 - ISBN : 9781925043280 :
His early education was at Mungret College Limerick, and he lived in the Apostolic School there, where boys interested in priesthood lived. he Entered the Society in 1928 at St Stanislaus College Tullabeg.

1930-1933 After First Vows he was sent to Rathfarnham Castle to study at University College Dublin, majoring in Latin and English.
1933-1936 He was sent to Leuven for Philosophy where he also learned French and Flemish
1936-1938 He was sent immediately from Leuven to Innsbruck for Theology, where he learned German as well and made the acquaintance of Karl Rahner.
1938-1940 As war was begin in Europe he was brought back to Milltown Park Dublin to complete his Theology, and was Ordained there in 1939.
1940-1941 He made Tertianship at Rathfarnham Castle under Henry Keane, the former English Provincial.
1941-1942 He spent this year in Liverpool at a parish awaiting a ship to Australia. He finally made the journey, but it was a dangerous trip, involving dodging German submarines, but he and his Jesuit companions arrived safely.
1943-1949 He was appointed Minister of Juniors at Loyola Watsonia where he remained for seven years. He was like by the Scholastics for his youth - only 33 years of age - and he was full of bright ideas and encouragement. He taught English, Latin and French there. He was also a great raconteur and rarely lost for a word. He was also engaged in giving Retreats at Watsonia to many groups who passed through Loyola. His cheerful presentation of the spiritual life had a wide appeal.
Among his innovations at the Juniorate was the introduction of a course in education (pedagogy) to prepare Scholastics for Regency. To prepare himself for this course he undertook a Diploma in Education himself at University of Melbourne, which included a six week training at Geelong Grammar School. He also instituted a Summer School on education for the Scholastics, inviting various experts to come and address them.
1949-1950 He began an MA himself at University of Melbourne focusing on the influence of the Spiritual Exercises on the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. However at this time he was also appointed Dean of Students at Newman College left him not time to complete this MA.
1950-1952 He was appointed Rector at Aquinas College, Adelaide and was expected to develop this College. A stately home was purchased at North Adelaide and a new residential wing erected. By 1952 Aquinas had 40 resident students and 50 non-residents. During this time he also tutored students in French, English, Latin and Philosophy as well as carrying out chaplain duties. By the end of that year he had something of a breakdown and was given a rest.(1952-1953)
1953-1960 He was considered to have recovered his health sufficiently to be appointed the founding Rector at St Thomas More College in Perth. During 1954 he was expected to fundraise for new buildings there and this proved difficult. Meanwhile Archbishop Prendiville asked him to take over a new Parish at Attadale, where land hand been donated for a Jesuit school. He supervised the building of a parish school, St Joseph Pignatelli. By 1955 he was relieved of his parish duties to focus exclusively on the Newman College, which was due to open in March 1955. While unable to effect much influence on the grand design of the College, he did see to some of the finer details, such as the stained glass windows in the Chapel, the work of the Irish artist Richard King. He gave the College its motto “God's Servant First”, chose the first students and welded them into a community.
He was a very energetic chaplain to the Newman Society, holding the Annual Catholic Federation of Australia conference in 1958 - the first time for Perth. For some years he conducted “The Catholic Answer” programme on radio, and he continued to be in demand for Retreats and sermons. Overall he spent six years at this work.
1960-1968. He returned to Loyola Watsonia, somewhat tired to resume his former work as Minister of Juniors and Retreats. He spent much of these years between Loyola Watsonia and Campion College, including being appointed Rector at Campion for a new community for Scholastics attending University at the Dominican House of Studies in Canberra.
1969-1973 He began his long association with Corpus Christi College at Werribee and Clayton. It was to last 17 years. There he did what he had usually done, teaching English together with Liturgy and Scripture, and giving Spiritual Direction and retreats.
Between the end of Werribee and Clayton, he was given a sabbatical year in 1972, taking courses in San Francisco, Glasgow, Ireland and Rome. He was preparing for a position at the Catholic Education Office in Sydney helping teachers with catechetics. He took up this position in 1973 and resided at St John’s College.
1974-1986 His work at Clayton began in 1974. His first years were as Spiritual Director and then as Moderator of the Second Year students. This role involved tutoring. Students experienced him as quiet, diffident even, but sincere with integrity and deep spirituality.
1986 Following retirement his health and confidence deteriorated. After a year at Thomas More College and the Hawthorn Parish he spent his last four years at Toowong, where the climate was more suitable. He would return to Hawthorn and Queenscliff during the more oppressive Brisbane summers.

He was remembered for his Irish wit, his friendliness, his kindness, his wisdom and gentleness as a spiritual director, his “marketing” of the “discernment of spirits”, his preaching and his zeal in promoting vocations to the Society. he was a man of many talents but very humble.

Note from Michael Moloney Entry
Michael Moloney came to Australia as director of the retreat house at Loyola College, Watsonia, and worked with Conn Finn, 1964-66.

Born: 15 February 1851, Bessbrook, County Cavan
Entered 02 March 1866, Milltown Park, Dublin
Ordained: 1881, Tortosa, Spain
Final Vows: 02 February 1886, St Beuno’s, Wales
Died: 21 October 1929, St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin

Part of the Milltown Park community at time of death.

Younger brother of Tom Finlay - RIP 1940

by 1869 at Amiens France (CAMP) studying
by 1870 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying
by 1872 at Maria Laach College Germany (GER) Studying
by 1879 at Poyanne France (CAST) Studying
by 1880 at Dertusanum College, Tortosa, Spain (ARA) studying
by 1886 at St Beuno’s Wales (ANG) studying
by 1888 at Woodstock MD, USA (MAR) Lecturing Theology

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
Early education was at St Patrick’s Cavan. Admitted aged 15 by Edmund J O’Reilly, Provincial and his brother Thomas A Finlay was a fellow novice.

1868 He was sent to St Acheul (Amiens) for a year of Rhetoric, and then to Stonyhurst for two years Philosophy, and then to Maria Laach for one more year.
1872 He was sent for Regency teaching Latin and French at Crescent for two years, and the four at Clongowes teaching Greek, Latin, French, German, Mathematics and Physics.
1878 He was sent to Poyanne in France with the the CAST Jesuits, expelled from Spain, and then three years at Tortosa, Spain where he was Ordained 1881. He also completed a Grand Act at the end of his time in Tortosa which attracted significant attention about his potential future as a Theologian.
1882 He returned to Ireland and Milltown where he lectured in Logic and Metaphysics for three years.
1885 He was sent to St Beuno’s as professor of Theology and made his Final Vows there 02 February 1886.
1887 He was sent to Woodstock (MARNEB) to help develop this Theologate with others from Europe - including Aloisi Masella, later Cardinal.
1889 Milltown opened a Theologate, and he was recalled as Professor of Scholastic Theology, and held that post for 40 years. During that time he hardly ever missed a lecture, and his reputation as an educator was unparalleled, shown in the quality of his lecturing, where the most complex was made clear. During this time he also took up a Chair of Catholic Theology at UCD from 1912-1923. In addition, he was a regular Preacher and Director of retreats, and spent many hours hearing Confessions of the poor.

He was highly thought of in HIB, attending two General Congregations and a number of times as Procurator to consult with the General.
His two major publications were : The Church of Christ, its Foundation and Constitution” (1915) and “Divine Faith” (1917).
He died at St Vincent’s Hospital 21 October 1929. His funeral took place at Gardiner St where the Archbishop Edward Byrne presided.

“The Catholic Bulletin” November 1929
“The death of Father Peter Finlay......closed a teaching career in the great science of Theology which was of most exceptional duration and of superb quality, sustained to the very close of a long and fruitful life. ..news of his death came as a shock and great surprise to many who knew him all over Ireland and beyond. ...in the course of his Theological studies at Barcelona he drew from the great tradition of Suarez and De Lugo. ....Behind that easy utterance was a mind brilliant yet accurate, penetrating, alert, subtle, acute in its power of analysis and discrimination, caustic at times, yet markedly observant of all the punctilious courtesies of academic disputation. ...The exquisite keenness of his mind was best appreciated by a trained professional audience .... and with his pen even more effective in English than Latin. Those who recall “Lyceum’ with its customary anonymity failed to conceal the distinctive notes of Peter Finlay’s style, different from, yet having many affinities with the more leisurely and versatile writing of his brother Thomas. The same qualities...
were evident in the ‘New Ireland Review”, from 1894-1910. Nor were the subjects ... narrowly limited ... he examined the foundations and limitations of the right of property in land, as viewed by English Law and Landlords in Ireland. On the secure basis of the great Spanish masters of Moral Philosophy, he did much to make secure the practical policies and enforce the views of Archbishops Thomas Croke and William Walsh.
He had a close relationship with the heads of the publishing house of ‘The Catholic Bulletin’. That said, this relationship was far outspanned by his marvellous service in the giving of Retreats to Priests and Religious and Men, added to by his work in the ministry of Reconciliation among the rich and poor alike, the afflicted and those often forgotten.”

Note from James Redmond Entry
He studied Rhetoric at St Acheul, Amiens with Michael Weafer, Thomas Finlay and Peter Finlay, Robert Kane and Vincent Byrne, among others.

◆ Royal Irish Academy : Dictionary of Irish Biography, Cambridge University Press online
Finlay, Thomas Aloysius
by Thomas J. Morrissey

Finlay, Thomas Aloysius (1848–1940) and Peter (1851–1929), Jesuit priests, scholars, and teachers, were born at Lanesborough, Co. Roscommon, sons of William Finlay, engineer, and Maria Finlay (née Magan), who had four other children: three daughters, all of whom became religious sisters, and a son William, who became secretary of Cavan county council. Tom and Peter were educated at St Augustine's diocesan college, Cavan (predecessor to St Patrick's College), and in 1866 both entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus at Milltown Park, Dublin. Subsequently, they were sent for studies to St Acheul, near Amiens, after which they moved in somewhat different directions.

From St Acheul Peter Finlay went to Stonyhurst College, England, for two years philosophy, and spent a further year in philosophic studies at the Jesuit college of Maria Laach in Germany. Returning to Ireland (1872), he taught for two years at Crescent College, Limerick, and for four years at Clongowes Wood College, Co. Kildare. His theological studies were conducted with distinction at Poyanne in France and Tortosa in Spain. Recalled home, he lectured in philosophy at the Jesuit seminary college, Milltown Park, and at UCD for three years; and then in theology at St Beuno's, Wales, for three years. The next six years were spent at Woodstock College, USA, where he professed theology. When in 1889 a theologate was established at Milltown Park, Peter was summoned home. He professed theology there from then till his death. His lectures, said to have been models of clarity, were presented in fluent and exact Latin, the medium of the time for such lectures. He also lectured (1912–22) in catholic theology at UCD. In constant demand for retreats and lectures, and with a heavy weight of correspondence, he was also rector (1905–10) of Milltown Park, and was three times elected to represent the Irish province at general congregations in Rome. Peter Finlay did not have his brother's range of interests nor his literary productivity, but his published writing on theological and apologetic themes were widely read. These included The church of Christ: its foundation and constitution (1915), Divine faith (1917), and smaller works reflecting the issues of the day, such as The decree ‘Ne temere’; Catholics in civil life, The catholic religion, The catholic church and the civil state, The authority of bishops, Was Christ God?, The one true church: which is it?, and Is one religion as good as another?. He was an unassuming man, dedicated to a life of poverty, obedience, and obligation – never, it was said, missing a lecture for thirty-nine of his forty-four years as lecturer. He died of cancer of the kidneys on 21 October 1929, having lectured till 2 October, the day before going to hospital for the final time.

The brothers were among the most influential academics in Ireland in the last quarter of the nineteenth and the first quarter of the twentieth centuries. Thomas was described by W. E. H. Lecky (qv) as probably the most universally respected man in Ireland. Peter, who professed theology in Britain, America, and Ireland for 44 years, was widely consulted on most aspects of theology and highly regarded for his gifts of exposition.

Provincial consultors' minute book, 20 Feb. 1890 (Irish Jesuit archives, Dublin); Irish Jesuit Province News, Dec. 1929 (private circulation); ‘Sir Horace Plunkett on Professor Finlay's career as social reformer’, Fathers of the Society of Jesus, A page of Irish history: story of University College, Dublin, 1883–1909 (1930), 246–57; W. Magennis, ‘A disciple's sketch of Fr T. Finlay’, Belvederian, ix (summer 1931), 19; obit., Anglo-Celt, 13 Jan. 1940; George O'Brien, ‘Father Thomas A. Finlay, S.J., 1848–1940’, Studies, xxix (1940), 27–40; Aubrey Gwynn, obit., Irish Province News, Oct. 1940 (private circulation); R. J. Hayes (ed.), Sources for the history of Irish civilization: articles in Irish periodicals (1970), ii, 310–12; Thomas Morrissey, Towards a national university: William Delany, S.J. (1835–1924) (1983); Trevor West, Horace Plunkett: co-operation and politics (1986)

◆ Irish Province News

Irish Province News 1st Year No 3 1926

On March 2nd, Fr Peter Finlay celebrated his Diamond Jubilee. After a brilliant Grand Act at Tortosa, Fr. Peter was working at Hebrew and Arabic, with a view to further study at Beyrouth, when a telegram summoned him back to Ireland to be Prefect of Studies at Tullabeg. From Tullabeg he passed to Milltown to Professor of Philosophy, thence to St. Beuno's where he professed theology, but Fr General sent him to Woodstock instead. From Woodstock he was transferred to Milltown in 1889; he took possession of the Chair of Theology and held it ever since. Fr, Finlay has spent 42 years professing theology, and during all that time never once missed a lecture till he fell ill in March, 1924.

Irish Province News 5th Year No 1 1929

Obituary :

Fr Peter Finlay

Fr. Peter Finlay died at St. Vincent's hospital, Dublin on October 21st of cancer of the kidneys. Some twelve months previously, he felt the first symptoms of the attack. But so far was he from giving in, that he continued his lectures during the entire scholastic year that followed. This year he gave his last lecture on October 2nd, went to hospital on October 3rd, and died on October the 21st. His loss will be keenly felt far beyond the limits of the Society, for his opinion on all questions of theology was eagerly sought for and highly valued here at home in Ireland, and in many another country outside it, into which his wide learning and wonderful power of exposition had penetrated.

Fr. Peter was born in Co. Cavan, on the 15th February 1851, and educated at St. Patrick's College, Cavan. He had just turned his 15th year when on March 2nd 1866, he began his novitiate at Milltown Park. He made his juniorate at St. Acheul, France, two years philosophy at Stonyhurst, a third at Maria Laach in Germany, and returned to Ireland in 1872, Two years were passed at the Crescent and four in Clongowes as master. Theology was commenced at Poyanne in France, where the Castilian Jesuits, driven from Spain, had opened a theologate. The remaining three years of theology saw him at Tortosa in Spain, and the course was concluded by a very brilliant Grand Act.
Fr. Peter was working away at Hebrew and Arabic, with a view to further study when a telegram recalled him to Ireland. Milltown Park had him for three years as Professor of philosophy, and St. Beuno's for two as Professor of theology. It was said that at the end of these two years he was under orders to start for Australia, but Fr. General sent him to America instead to profess theology at Woodstock.
In 1889,the theologate was established at Milltown Park, and of course Fr. Peter was summoned home to take the “Morning” Chair. That chair he held with the very highest distinction, and without interruption, until less than a month before his death. In all, Fr Finlay was 44 years professing theology, and it is said that he never missed a lecture until he fell ill in the year 1924. And often, these lectures were given at a time when suffering from a bad throat.
Milltown Park had him for Rector from 1905 to 1910, and he was Lecturer of Catholic Theology in the National University Dublin, from 1912 to1922.
Fr. Peter was three times elected to represent the Irish Province at General Congregations, and on three other occasions at Procuratorial Gongregations at Rome.
His published works are : “The Church of Christ, its Foundation and Constitution”, 1915; “Divine Faith” 1917. In addition, he has left us several smaller publications, such as : “The Decree Ne Ternere”; “Catholics in Civil Life”; “The Catholic Religion”; The Catholic Church and the Civil State”; “ The Authority of Bishops”; “Was Christ God”; “The One Church, which is it”.
Fr. John McErlean, who had the privilege of having him as Professor for four years, writes as follows : “Merely to listen to his lectures was an education, for he was gifted with a wonderful power of exposition before which difficulties dissolved, and his hearers became almost unconscious of the subtlety of the argument. A past master of the Latin tongue, he poured forth without an instant's hesitation, a stream of limpid language in which the most critical classicist failed to detect the slightest grammatical inaccuracy in the most involved sentences”.
In addition to his duties as professor, he was frequently employed as Preacher, Director of the Spiritual Exercises etc. His correspondence alone must have been a heavy tax on his time, for his advice was much sought after by all classes of society. All these manifold duties did not prevent him from spending many hours every week hearing the confessions of the poor in Milltown village.
Fr. Finlay's piety was not of the demonstrative order, but was very genuine. He was a model of regularity. Day after day he said one of the very earliest Masses in the Community. He was most careful to ask permission for the smallest exemption. In the matter of poverty, he was exact to a degree that would astonish a fervent novice. He never parted with a trifle nor accepted one without leave. Devotion to duty, to the work in hand, accompanied him through life. His brother, Fr. Tom, gave his usual lecture in the University on the very morning that Peter died, and another lecture on the day of the Office and funeral. When some one mildly expostulated with him, his answer was : “I have done what I knew would please Peter, and what I am sure he would have done himself under like circumstances”.
Peter is now, please God, reaping the rich fruits of his 63 years loyal and devoted services to the Society.

Irish Province News 5th Year No 2 1930

Obituary : Fr Peter Finlay
We owe the following appreciation to the kindness of Fr, P. Gannon
“No man is indispensable, but some create by their departure a void that is very sensible and peculiarly hard to fill. To say that Fr. Peter Finlay was one of these is certainly not an exaggeration. Milltown Park without him causes a difficulty for the imagination. He was so large a part of its life since its foundation as a scholasticate, its most brilliant professor and most characteristic figure. Others came and went, but he remained, an abiding landmark in a changing scene. Justice demands that some effort be made to perpetuate the memory of a really great career, which, for many reasons, might escape due recognition. In this notice little more can be attempted than an outline sketch of his long and fruitful activities.
Fr. Finlay was born near the town of Cavan on Feb, 15, 1851, of a Scotch father, and an Irish mother. He was one of seven children of whom three girls became Sacred Heart Nuns, and two boys Jesuits.
The boys of the family attended St. Patrick's College, the seminary to Kilmore. Diocese, - then situated in the town. In 1866 Peter, now barely fifteen years of age, entered the Noviceship, Miiltown. Park, where his elder brother Torn soon joined him, and thus began a brotherly association in religion that was to be beautifully intimate and uninterrupted for over sixty years - par nobile fractum.
In 1868 he went to S. Acheul for his Juniorate. In 1869-70 he did his first two years Philosophy at Stonyhurst, and his third at Maria Laach (Germany) in company with his brother (1871-2). On his return he commenced his teaching in the Crescent (1872-74), passing to Clongowes in 1874, where he remained till 1878. The versatility of the young scholastic may be gauged from the fact that he is catalogued as teaching Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Latin, Greek, French and German.
In 1878 he was sent to Poyanne, France, where the exiled Castilan Province had opened up a house of studies. Here he commenced his study of Theology (1879-9). This was continued in Tortosa, Spain, (1879-82), and crowned by a Grand Act which became historic even in that land of theology, and marked him out at once for the professor's chair.From 1882 till 1885 we find him in Milltown Park teaching Philosophy and acting as Prefect of Studies. From 1885-1887 in St. Beuno's, Wales, teaching Theology (Short Course), In 1887 he was invited to Woodstock USA. where he lectured on Theology for two years with Padre Mazella, the future cardinal, as a colleague. In 1889 he finally cast anchor in Milltown Park, as professor of “Morning” Dogma. and this position he held till within a few weeks of his death in 1929 - over forty years. He was also Prefect of Studies from 1892 till 1903, and Rector from 1905 (Aug.) till 1910. In 1912 he was requested by the Bishops of Ireland to undertake the Lectureship in Dogmatic Theology which they were founding in the National University of Ireland. This he retained till 1922 when he insisted on resigning. The weekly lectures he delivered during Term time were published in full in “The Irish Catholic” and made his teaching accessible to wide circles. They formed the basis of his two published works “The Church of Christ” and “Divine Faith”. Earlier in his career he had written some articles for The Lyceum, under his brother's editorship, which caused no small stir and led to certain difficulties. It would almost appear as if this disagreeable experience had frozen a promising fountain at its source. For a long time it ceased to play. The invitations of The Catholic Truth Society and the pressure of friends to reprint his University lectures were needed to win him back to authorship, For the C.T. S. he wrote several very valuable pamphlets such as “Was Christ God”, The “Ne Temere Decree” etc. Occasionally also he penned public utterances of great weight and influence as, for example, his letter to the Press vindicating the Bishop's action in regard to Conscription (1918 and his article in Studies on Divorce when that topic occupied the attention of the Dáil (1924-25).
To finish with his literary activities a word of criticism may not be out of place, And the first thing that occurs to the mind is a sense of regret that he did not write more, he, who was from every point of view so well equipped for the task. What he has left us is very precious. All he wrote was solid, practical and beautifully clear. He had in a high degree the gift of exposition and could render the abstrusest questions of theology intelligible to any educated reader. He passed from the technicalities of the Schools to the language of the forum with instant success. Only those who have attempted something similar will be in a position to appreciate the skill with which he could combine thoroughness, accuracy and lucidity. His style was very correct. Indeed he was a good deal of a purist. He abhorred slovenliness, slang, journalese and Americanese. His prose is consequently classical clear, flexible, fitting his thought like a well-made garment, but perhaps a trifle cold, lacking colour and emotional appeal.
The occupations hitherto outlined might seem enough to fill his days and hours, But Fr. Finlay managed to add many other zealous endeavours. He was one of the founders of the Catholic Truth Society and remained to the end an energetic member of its committee. He played a large part in the creation of The Catholic Reserve Society, which has done such good work in the fight against Protestant proselytism in its meanest form.
During his Rectorship and under his auspices Week-End retreats for Laymen Were inaugurated in Milltown Park. And it would be difficult to estimate all the good these have done in the intervening years, He was a lover of books, and all through a busy life found time to keep an eye on booksellers' catalogues for rare and useful volumes, especially in Theology,
Philosophy, Church History and Patristics. More than anyone else he is responsible for the excellent library which Milltown possesses.
It was he who built what is sometimes known as “the Theologians' wing” and sometimes as “Fr. Peter's building” with its fine refectory characterised by beauty of design without luxury or extravagance. Finally he did much for the grounds and garden, planting ornamental and fruit-bearing trees. And unlike Cicero's husbandman he lived long enough to enjoy the fruit and beauty of the trees he planted.
In his relations to the outer world Fr. Peter never became as prominent a public or national figure as Fr.Tom. But he was well known in ecclesiastical circles, where his advice on theological questions was often sought. Through diocesan retreats and in many other ways he came into contact with most of the Irish bishops of his time, and he was on very intimate
terms with Cardinal Logue. He was regularly invited to examinations for the doctorate in Maynooth, when his mastery of theology and dialectical skill were conspicuous.
He counted many of the leading Catholic laymen of Ireland among his friends, such as Lord O'Hagan and Chief Baron Palles, to name only the dead. His inner, personal knowledge of Catholic life in Rome, Spain and England was also considerable , and in private conversation he could give interesting sidelights on much of the written and unwritten history of the Church in his generation.
As a confessor and director of souls he enjoyed a wide popularity. His prudence, wisdom and solid virtue fitted him peculiarly for the ministry, and his labours in it were fruitful Since his death the present writer heard quite spontaneous testimony from two nuns in widely different places as to the debt they owed him. They went the length of saying that they attributed their vocation and even their hopes of salvation Under God to his wise and firm guidance in their youth. He possessed a rare knowledge of human nature and he spared no pains in helping all who came to him. His fidelity to the Saturday-night confessions in Milltown parish chapel to the very end, in spite of obviously failing health, was truly edifying. And spiritual direction involved him in a wide correspondence that must have made big inroads on his time. In general Fr.Finlay was prodigal of time and trouble in helping others, whether by way of advice, theological enlightenment, or criticism of literary work. This seemed to spring from that strain of asceticism in him which was noticeable in his whole life - in his regularity, punctuality and devotion to duty. There was some thing of the northern iron in his composition or, as some might style it, Scotch dourness. He could be steely at times in manner, but most of all he was steely with himself. This was seen very clearly in the closing years of life when he really kept going by a volitional energy and a self-conquest which, though entirely unostentatious, was yet unmistakable to close observers, and revealed to them as never before the fundamental piety of his character - a piety made manifest in his death .
It was, however, as a professor that he won his high reputation and gave the true measure of his greatness.Only those who had the privilege of knowing him in this capacity were in a position to appreciate his real eminence. He seemed the incarnation of what Kant calls a the “pure intelligence”. He united qualities rarely combined, subtlety, profundity, clarity. He had something of the nimbleness of a Scotus without his obscurity. And that perhaps explained his marked leaning to Scotistic views on disputed questions, and his liking for Ripalda. His mind seemed attuned to theirs, though he was too independent to be addictus iurare in verba magistri. When we add to these characteristics a conscientious care in preparation, an admirable method, and a power of expressing himself in a Latin which Cicero could hardly have disowned (allowance being made for the necessary technicalities of the schools), it will be seen that his. equipment for his life's task was very complete. At his best he was a model of scientific exposition. Theology is a vast and difficult science. How would it be otherwise in view of what it treats? And to expound it adequately demands a combination and gifts granted to few. Fr. Finlay's pupils were nearly unanimous in the belief that hardly anyone of his generation possessed this combination in a higher measure or more balanced proportions than he. The only exception that could be taken to his lecturing was perhaps that it was more analytical and critical, or even destructive, than constructive. But these very features of it gave one the assurance that a conclusion which had stood the test of his scrutiny was sound indeed. Moreover he was genuinely tolerant of dissent from his views. Though a professor of dogma he was the least dogmatic of men and even strove rather to elicit your own thinking than to impose his on you. He revelled in the thrust and parry of debate and respected a good fighter. This could be seen best during the repetitions at the end of the year, and in the examinations, where he sought to test the pupil's understanding and grasp of principles rather than mere memory of councils or scripture texts. His objections were clear, crisp, to the point and faultless in form. There was no side-stepping them, no escape into irrelevancies, no chance of eluding him by learned adverbs or ambiguous phrases. Patiently, with perfect urbanity, but with deadly insistence he brought the candidate back to the point and held him there till be solved the difficulty or confessed that he could not do sol which was often enough a saving admission. Yet on the other hand no examiner was really fairer. For he seemed to see one's thoughts before they were uttered, and could penetrate through the worst Latin periphrases to what one was really trying to say. Hence no one was ever confused by misunderstanding him or lost by being misunderstood.
Neither did he keep urging a difficulty when it was solved. The answer once given he passed, easily and lightly, to something else.
Again, in Provincial congregations, of which he was the inevitable secretary, his conduct of business was a sheer delight. His writing of minutes, his resumés of previous discussions were masterly. Many a speaker was surprised, and perhaps a little abashed, to hear all he had laboured, in broken Latin and through many minutes, to express, reproduced integrally, in a few short sentences, which gave the substance of his remarks without an unnecessary word. As this was done almost entirely from memory, with the help of a few brief jottings, it compelled a wondering admiration. His election to represent the Province in Rome was nearly automatic. He attended every Congregation, general or procuratorial, which was summoned since the election of Fr. Martin, After the last general congregation he was specially thanked by our present Paternity for his signal services as head of the Commission in the Reform of Studies. These services taxed his strength severely and on his return the first clear signs of serious infirmity made them selves manifest. If even then he had taken due precautions, his essentially robust constitution might have enabled him to live for many years. But he would not take precautions and no one dared suggest any remission of work. He obviously wished to die in harness. And he did. His last lecture, as brilliant as those of his prime, was delivered within three weeks of his death, which took place on Monday Oct. 21, 1929.
No life escapes criticism, and it would be idle to pretend that Fr. Peter did not come in for his share of it. It would be even flattery to deny that he afforded some ground for it. But, take him all in all, only blind and incurable prejudice can deny that he was a very remarkable man, intellectually and morally, an ornament to the whole Society and a just source of pride of the Irish Province, which is the poorer for his loss and will feel it for many a day. May he rest in peace.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Peter Finlay 1851-1929
In the death of Fr Peter Finlay at Milltown Park on October 21st 1929, the Province lost its greatest Theologian. His death ended a teaching career in Theology, which was of exceptional duration and superb quality, which made him renowned not only in Ireland, but far beyond.

He was born in County Cavan on February 15th 1851 and was educated at St Patrick’s College Cavan. He was accepted for the Society by Fr Edmund O’Reilly at the early age of 15.

His teaching career began in 1872 at the Crescent, followed by four years at Clongowes, during which his curriculum included Greek, Latin, French, German, Physics and Mathematics. At the end of his theological course at Tortosa Spain, he was chosen for the Grand Act, the public defence of all Philosophy and Theology. His brilliant defence placed him in the front rank of the rising generation of Theologians. He lectured in Philosophy at Milltown, Theology at St Beuno’s and at Woodstock USA.

On the opening of the theologate at Milltown Park he was recalled to fill the chair of Dogmatic Theology, a chair which he held for a full 40 years, even during his Rectorate of Milltown Park from 1905-1910.

When a chair of Catholic Theology was established at the National University, Fr Finlay was appointed and continued to held it from 1912-1923.

He was an able administrator and builder. The old Refectory at Milltown, which later burnt, was built by him. He often represented the Province in Rome. He was an able controversialist and an incisive writer, as may be seen by the numerous articles of his in the Lyceum and the New Ireland review. His writings, popular and appreciated even today, include “The Church of Christ”, “Divine Faith”, “Catholics in Civic Life”, “The Authority of Bishops”, “Was Christ God?” and “The one Church, which is it?”.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

Bonum Certamen ... A Biographical Index of Former Members of the Limerick Jesuit Community

Father Peter Finlay (1851-1929)

A native of Co. Cavan and educated at St Patrick's College, Cavan, entered the Society in 1866. He did all his studies abroad, in France, Germany and Spain. His future work in the Irish Province was in the chair of dogmatic theology at Milltown Park, where he was engaged for the next forty years. Father Finlay was one of the most brilliant theologians of his time. He spent two years of his regency at Crescent College along with his brother, Thomas Finlay (q.v. infra).

Born: 13 May 1919, Galway City, County Galway
Entered: 04 October 1937, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1951, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1954, Gonzaga College SJ, Dublin
Died: 22 February 2000, University Hospital, Galway

part of the Coláiste Iognáid, Galway community at the time of death

by 1979 at Manhattan Beach CA, USA (CAL) working
by 1986 at Santa Barbara CA, USA (CAL) working
by 1989 at Long Beach CA, USA (CA) working

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 105 : Special Edition 2000

Obituary

Fr Peter (Peadar) Feeney (1919-2000)

1919, May 13th Born in Galway
Early education, Patrician Brothers and St. Ignatius College, Galway
1937, Oct 4: Entered the Society at Emo
1939, Oct 5: First vows at Emo
1939 - 1942: Rathfarnham, Arts at UCD
1942 - 1945: Tullabeg, studying philosophy
1945 - 1948: Clongowes, teacher, Cert. in Education
1948 - 1952: Milltown Park, studying theology
1951, July 31: Ordained priest at Milltown Park
1952 - 1953: Tertianship at Rathfarnham Castle
1953 - 1954: Gonzaga College, teaching
1954 - 1958: Clongowes, teaching, Dir. Dramatic Society
1958 - 1965: St. Ignatius, Galway, teaching, Rowing club
1965 - 1970: Clongowes, teaching, Dir. Dramatic Society
1970 - 1976: St, Ignatius, Galway, teaching, Games Master, Rowing Club
1976 - 1978: Belvedere, teaching
1978 - 1995: California, parish work
1955 - 2000: St. Ignatius, Galway, ministering in the community

Peadar was admitted to the University College Hospital, Galway, on 21st January. After surgery on 10th February his health continued to deteriorate. He died peacefully on 22nd February 2000, Feast of the See of Peter, aged 80.

Bob McGoran writes ...

Peadar Feeney and I entered the Society on the same day, October 4th 1937. We were pert of a group of six, who for various reasons arrived later than the usual September novices. I soon learnt that Peadar was a Galway city man, living only a stone's throw away from the Jesuit house. over the next few years I got to know his family well - father, mother, one brother and three sisters. My friendship with them continued over many years.

Peadar had many talents and abilities. Physically strong and hardy, he was an excellent oarsman, swimmer and diver. A fine Gaelic footballer, he had been selected for the Galway minor team. He was also a talented actor and had won various awards in Feiseanna and festivals at a national level. He had a fine tenor voice and he later became a fluent French and Spanish speaker. All of these stood him in good stead in his later work in the Colleges.

He spent almost thirty years of his life teaching in various colleges, especially Colaiste Iognáid and Clongowes. He was a strict teacher - possibly over strict. Not many of his pupils came up to the standard he expected of them. There was no doubt about his ability and knowledge of the subjects he taught : his more talented pupils invariably did well. But the poor progress of others often led to tension in the class-room.

Peadar was a happier person on the playing field or on the river. Here again, he expected a high level of dedication and application, He coached the rowing crews in Galway for a number of years with great success. An indication of this is given by one of the teachers whom I quote later on in this account.

Peadar's other great love was acting and the stage. His productions in both Clongowes and Galway were highly successful. In Clongowes, he was director in the Dramatic Society for the pupils for the two periods he was teaching there. In Galway a great deal of his leisure time was devoted to drama. He founded the highly successful Dominican and Ignatian Dramatic Society (the D&I) among adults, producing mostly Shakespearean and well-known plays such as “Macbeth”, “As you like it”, “The Barrets of Wimpole St.”, “Pride and Prejudice”, “Rebecca” and many others. He had a flair for discovering and developing talent in quite ordinary people and he insisted on high standards not only in the acting but in the staging, costumes and attention to detail. “Even a whisper” was one of his sayings “must be heard at the back of the hall”. Peadar was almost sixty years old when he felt the need to take a break from college life and seek a wider experience. Over the years, he had spent many Summer holidays helping in parishes in America. Now he felt the desire to go into full-time parish work there. He had become friendly with a Pastor in Manhattan beach in California who was glad to have him on a full-time basis. Peadar was very happy in this situation. However, when the Pastor was changed things were not working out so well. He got a change to Santa Barbara parish and a final assignment to Long Beach, a parish which was largely for Spanish-speaking people. Altogether he spent seventeen years in this Apostolate.

Peadar was a man of strong convictions and definite standards. In religious and spiritual matters he was an upholder of traditional values and practices. The liturgy was to be treated reverently, without undue haste. In church, his congregation - many of them daily Mass-goers - did not quite see eye to eye with him, but Peadar could not be budged from his principles, The Mass and the Breviary were sources of great strength to him and he was unfailingly faithful to them up to the time of his death.

At Peadar's funeral Mass, new ground was broken in the oration being delivered not by the usual S.J. but by one of the lay staff in the college, Mr Bernard O'Connell. Bernard had known Peadar for many years and grew particularly close to him in the period before his death. He spoke very eloquently of Peadar in both Irish and English. I finish this account with some short quotations from the sermon.

It was designed to be a five minute visit. Saturday afternoon afforded its usual tempting possibilities but having been sufficiently discommoded to visit a doctor about my back, I wasn't too inclined for temptation. It's a very strange sensation to talk to a dying man and hear him give you eminently sensible advice about your back and your health. But after the advice was proffered and duly accepted, discourse ensued. Five minutes became ninety. A conversation which concentrated on topics such as education, sport, music, the Coláiste, Galway and the call to the Society of Jesus was both rich and provocative

From his entrance into the Society of Jesus on October 4th 1937, Peadar set the highest standards both for himself and others. Meeting him on the Prom on vacation from the States he would despair at the state of the bay. He'd ask you directly what were you going to do about it? Not much, as it happened. But I did admire that righteous indignation of his. About Peadar's prowess as a rowing coach I admired the man that brought a Jes senior crew with just one sixth year aboard to within half a canvas of the Maiden Championship of Ireland in 1974. The winning Garda crew later beat its own senior crew that season. Subsequently, the Guards won the Petite Final at the Olympics and were timed fourth fastest in the world. And Peadar's fifth year lads nearly beat them.

Bob McGoran SJ

◆ The Clongownian, 2000

Obituary
Father Peadar Feeney SJ

Fr Peadar Feeney was three times a member of the Clongowes community and staff. He taught here as a scholastic between 1945 and 1948. He returned after ordination in 1954 for four years as teacher and director of drama and he repeated this dual role for a further spell from 1965 until 1970. He had been in California engaged in parish work from 1978 until five years before his death, when he came back to the St Ignatius community in his native Galway, where he died peacefully in University College Hospital on 22 February 2000, at the age of 80.

Born: 14 February 1818, Glin, County Limerick
Entered: 20 February 1859, Santa Clara CA, USA - Taurensis Province (TAUR)
Final Vows: 02 February 1872
Died: 19 December 1876, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara CA, USA - Taurensis Province (TAUR)

Born: 09 September 1821, Castlegregory, County Kerry
Entered: 09 October 1849, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Final Vows: 02 February 1860
Died: 13 October 1873, St Thomas, Port Tobacco, MD, USA (MAR) - Marylandiae Province (MAR)

Born: 19 March 1811, Bagenalstown, County Carlow
Entered: 10 June 1847, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Final Vows: 07 May 1859
Died: 09 March 1890, Holy Cross College, Worcester, MA, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 08 September 1797, Faheran, Tober, County Offaly
Entered: 08 September 1842, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Died: 08 September 1849, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Born: 29 August, 1926, St Paul, Minnesota, MN, USA
Entered: 08 August 1950, St. Stanislaus, Florissant, Missouri, MO, USA - Missourianae Province (MIS)
Ordained: 01 September 1962, Saint-Jean-Baptiste Cathedral, Pl. Saint-Jean, 69005 Lyon, France
Final Vows: 15 August 1967
Died: 4 March 2022, St Camillus, Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, USA, United States Midwest Province (UMI)

by 2009 came to Milltown (HIB) teaching

https://www.jesuitsmidwest.org/memoriam/faricy-robert-l-father/

Let us pray in thanksgiving for the life of Fr. Robert L. Faricy, SJ, who died on March 4, 2022, at St. Camillus Jesuit Community in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. He was 95 years old. May he rest in peace.

Bob was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on August 29, 1926. He was very proud of growing up in St. Paul and spending his summers at Steamboat Lake where his family operated a resort. He attended St. Mark’s Catholic grade school and St. Thomas Military Academy in St. Paul before graduating from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1949 with a bachelor’s degree in engineering. He was a proud graduate of the United States Naval Academy, and he was honored to serve his country in the navy (1949–1950). He entered the former Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus at St. Stanislaus Seminary in Florissant, Missouri, on August 8, 1950, and became part of the former Wisconsin Province when it was created in 1955. He had the usual course of Jesuit studies at St. Stanislaus Seminary and Saint Louis University. During regency, Bob taught math at Marquette University High School in Milwaukee (1956–1959). He studied theology in Fourvière, Lyon, France. He was ordained at St. John’s Cathedral in Lyon on September 1, 1962. After tertianship in Flanders, Bob completed a doctoral program in theology at The Catholic University in Washington, D.C. His dissertation topic was “Teilhard de Chardin and Christian Effort.” He professed his final vows on August 15, 1967.

Bob began his long career as a professional theologian by teaching for five years at The Catholic University of America (1966–1971). In 1971, he moved to the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he taught until he was named Professor Emeritus of Spiritual Theology in 2000. Bob combined teaching and writing in Rome with an extensive, in practice, worldwide ministry of lectures and workshops in spirituality and charismatic renewal. He continued his spirituality ministry when he returned from Rome to reside in the Marquette University Jesuit Community as a writer and researcher in 2000. Bob was able to return to Rome often when he taught courses at Regina Mundi Institute (2002–2005). In 2012, declining health led to his being missioned to St. Camillus to pray for the Church and the Society.

He was a smart, talented, and complex man who did not avoid important, controversial matters. He was fluent in Italian and French. During his almost 30 years in Rome, Bob was known as a demanding and effective professor. Although Bob’s doctoral dissertation was on the theology of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, he later turned his focus to spirituality and Catholic charismatic renewal. He coauthored more than 40 books about prayer with authors such as Sr. Lucy Rooney, SND; Luciana Pecoraio; and Fr. Francis Sullivan, SJ. Throughout his Jesuit life, Bob was a strong promoter of spirituality—including during his time spent as director of tv programming at EWTN (1987–1988).

Bob helped establish the Heart of Jesus Community in Rome. Hearing of his death, some members wrote the following tributes:

Thank you for being an exemplary instrument of the Lord, exercising the charisms of the Holy Spirit in your priesthood and teaching us to use them for the common good.

You have been a father different from all the others. You knew how to give love, laughing and joking.

Bob lived his life with passion and a certain exuberance. He was a man of strong convictions, and he was action-oriented and always on the move. He found the diminishments of old age very challenging. But he turned peacefully towards the good and gracious Lord whom he loved.

Born: 01 April 1809, Barna, County Galway
Entered: 25 September 1839, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province
Died: 26 September 1841. Newtown, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province

Born: 20 December 1829, Richardstown, County Louth
Entered: 23 September 1850, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Final vows: 02 February 1865
Died: 10 April 1903, Woodstock College, MD, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 10 May 1814, Birr, County Offaly
Entered: 13 September 1855, St John’s, Fordham, NY, USA - Franciae Province (FRA)
Final vows: 02 February 1866
Died: 19 January 1892, Fordham College, NY, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 04 July 1923, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 06 September 1941, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 28 July 1955, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1959, Leuven, Belgium
Died: 11 August 1973, New York NY, USA (in a drowning accident)

Part of Milltown Park community, Dublin at time of his death.
Died in boating accident in New York;

Educated at Belvedere College SJ

by 1959 at Louvain (BEL M) studying

◆ Irish Province News
Irish Province News 48th Year No 4 1973
Loyola
The Province was well represented by Irish Jesuits at the memorial Mass held for Fr Eamon Egan at the parish where he had been on supply prior to his tragic death. Brian Grogan reports that the clergy and parishioners turned out in large numbers, and that the homily preached by the pastor emeritus was most eloquently delivered. Numerous tributes were paid to Fr Eamon, indicating the place he had gained in the hearts of many, though he had been with them only a brief while.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1974

Obituary :

Fr Eamon Egan (1923-1973)

Shortly before he left for the United States in July of this year Fr Egan said to a friend that now that he was fifty he must think about reorganising his life. A fortnight later he was dead. What he might have done in the years which he could reasonably have expected to lie before him is now, of course, a matter of futile speculation. The fact is that a freakish accident carried off some one who had already served his Province and, indeed, his fellow countrymen well; who was at the height of his powers and, to all appearances, seemed to have much more to give.
The circumstances of his death were almost grotesque, if for no other reason than that it is, at this moment, almost impossible to determine them precisely. What we know is that he was drowned by a freak storm off Rockaway Point, Jamaica Bay, New York Harbour. All the other occupants of the boat were rescued. What happened to Fr Egan is unsolved, but the most likely (and merciful) explanation is that he was knocked unconscious; for, though not a good swimmer, he could swim.

Eamon was the son of Robert Egan, the first news editor of The Irish Press. He was born in Dublin in 1923. He was sent to school at Scoil Mhuire, Marino where he attained a grasp of Irish which was eventually to bear fruit in a first class degree in UCD. He finished his secondary education at Belvedere. In 1941 he entered the noviciate at Emo Park. There then followed the usual sequence of studies : Rathfarnham, where he distinguished himself as a debater; Tullabeg, where he again distinguished himself in the, now defunct, disputations (circles and menstrua); teaching in Belvedere and Galway; theology in Milltown. He was ordained in 1955.

After his tertianship in Rathfarnham, Eamon was assigned to Tullabeg to teach rational psychology. However, it was decided that he should first acquire a doctorate, so he was sent to Louvain for two years, which ultimately extended to three. He returned to Tullabeg in 1961, his doctorate still unfinished, and began to teach philosophy.

In 1963 the Visitor closed Tullabeg as a house of philosophy and Eamon, joining the ranks of displaced persons, found himself in Milltown. In 1964 he was appointed to teach philosophy in Mungret. This was something which he took to with all his heart, the work and atmosphere being congenial. When the Institute of Philosophy and Theology was set up in Milltown he became a member of the staff and taught, with great success and flexibility, courses in the history of ancient and medieval philosophy and the philosophy of man (formerly rational pyschology).

While in Milltown he began to come more and more into contact with the outside world. He was invited to teach foundation courses in philosophy at Maynooth and did so with great success. He became the guiding figure in the Irish Philosophical Circle which included philosophers from Trinity College and Queen's, Belfast, when, in its early days, it was threatened with extinction. Thanks to Fr Eamon’s astute advice the Circle not only survived but emerged into tranquil waters as the Irish Philosophical Society of which, at his death, he was the chairman. In the enormously successful Milltown lectures he was one of the most popular lecturers and chairmen.

Among the subjects of these lectures he was assigned some facets of Père Teilhard de Chardin's much discussed thought. Eminently a perfectionist his own exacting standards impelled him to seek an intimate acquaintance with Père Teilhard's work. He shared the reserve of the Society generally towards his author's ideas but he was more sympathetic possibly more understanding, to them than most. With his exceptional sense of impartiality he was able to present them in such a way as to be recognised as a key exponent in the Teilhard debate.
More important, he came increasingly to be a spokesman on Marx to Marxist groups as an informed but not, again, un sympathetic critic. He was also a member of an ecumenic group that met once a month.

There were occasions when he appeared positively perverse but his endearing ingenuousness and honesty, pursuing truth quocum que duxit, and the humorous, to the observer, hesitancy that betrayed his sensitiveness won instant condonation for his ebullitions. It may be admitted he had not yet attained that equipoise that the years which alas were not to be would give. Dolor atque decus!

In spite of his intellectual ability and success as a lecturer Eamon Egan published very little. That is not unusual in the Irish Province, but in Fr Egan’s case it was due to a paralysing self depreciation. He was incredibly diffident. After delivering a brilliant lecture or course of lectures, which would have more than satisfied most other people, he would be genuinely dissatisfied, That is not to say that his lectures could not be unsatisfactory; at times they went over the heads of his listeners and at other times he tended to debate with himself in public, but in most cases his dissatisfaction was totally unfounded.

He was most scrupulous about giving his students the effort and time he believed they deserved. Indeed, his attitude to life in general verged on the scrupulous. He would reproach himself for laxity in circumstances where others might not be aware that there was any problem of conscience.

To those who have lived and worked closely with Fr Egan over the years his sudden death has been a shattering blow and his loss is likely to be more rather than less keenly felt a stime goes on. In varying degrees this loss will be felt within the Province, particularly among the younger members, and in the wider circle of those who had come in contact with him. Though in years he was middle-aged, in mind he was not only young but he had that elasticity which can compass the problems and aspirations of the present time. He was a man for this season. They are not numerous. His loss is therefore all the greater.

We add an appreciation from The Irish Times of August 22nd; we sincerely thank the editorial staff for their courtesy in allowing a reproduction :

“Many of us even outside his immediate family circle felt in expressibly bereaved as we met to render our last respects to Father Eamon Egan, who had died in a boating accident outside New York at the age of 50. At the Mass for him in St. Francis Xavier's Church, Gardiner Street, Dublin, which preceded the interment, a lovely service instinct with Christian hope and faith and love. Father Doyle, Rector of Milltown Park, where Father Egan taught philosophy, spoke for us all in recalling his gentleness and sensitivity, his kindness and integrity.
Eamon can, I think, have had no adequate idea of the affection and regard with which he was held by those who knew him. By some miracle, he had come through untouched by a pretension, all too common among clerics, however cloaked. Never gauche, he was diffident.

His thoughtfulness for others could sometimes become anxious, and occasionally fretful, concern, yet he was too firmly grounded in the Christian faith to allow that to govern his thought or conduct for long. For a man capable of identifying with so very many different sorts of people, his own life was in ways curiously patterned and predictable. He could at times seem conservative to a fault; basically, however, he was courageous and well balanced, refusing (just to take a few instances) to be over impressed by Lonergan, on the one hand, yet still very typically, on the other hand, showing himself warmly if critically appreciative of his controversial fellow-Jesuit, Teilhard de Chardin.

His characteristic attitude was open-hearted and generous, and he did good almost by stealth. Those of us privileged to know him loved his shy smile, his patience, his friendly humanity, his intellectual honesty, his refusal to impose a particular interpretation or conclusion on anyone, And may I say, as one not of his communion, how deeply I appreciated the naturalness with which he brought us, his friends, to God in occasional simple acts of wor ship. Prayer to him was like breathing.
In iothlainn Dé go gcastar sinn. Ba de bhunadh Bhaile Átha Cliath Éamon, ach bhí Gaeilge aige, agus i nGaeilge a labhraíodh sé le mo leithéidse i gcónaí nuair a bhímís i dteannta a chéile.

Ba bhall de Chumann na Sagart é. Canadh 'Ag Críost ag Síol' ag an Aifreann an lá a cuireadh é. Sin rud ba dheas leis."

Risteárd Ó Glaisne

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1974

Obituary

Father Éamonn Egan SJ

Fr Éamonn Egan, who died so tragically in New York harbour last Summer, was a man, to put it simply, that it is good to remember. Most writers of obituaries face the dilemma of trying to tell the truth and yet be kind to the one who has passed away. But with Éamonn Egan no such problem arises. For he was a very unusual man, pos sessing two qualities that rarely go together, an ice-clear mind and a tender heart. People admired his mind, so quick to see a problem, utterly fair in argument, always seeking the truth, but they loved the heart, so sensitive to the feelings of others, and identifying totally with them, especially in times of trial.

It was his power of clear thinking, articu lated so fluently, that made him a great teacher of philosophy both at Mungret and Milltown Park. He was the centre of the philosophy school in Mungret during the early 1960s and he won the unlimited admiration of the philosophers, not all of whom would have been satisfied with anything less than the best. I remember him often saying that the standard there was higher than at the Jesuit philosophy school in Tullabeg, where he had been a professor until its closure. It was never clear to me whether this remark was intended as a compliment to Mungret or a slight to Tullabeg! It is only fair to add that Eamonn never felt quite at home, teaching in the secondary school division of Mungret. He was a man destined for success, amongst minds more mature than is normal, or perhaps desirable, in the schoolboy world.

I once went on holiday with him, when we were both in Mungret. It was in one of those modest seaside boarding houses that flourished and indeed still flourish, in the west of Ireland. The hostess never adver tised, but the same families, very pleasant, but by no means unsophisticated, came there every year. In a matter of days; Eamonn was the most popular man in the house. This was, in part, due to his much admired talent for painting, but above all to his charm of manner, which was the outward expression of his natural feeling for people. He was so lacking in conceit, that when I pointed out his social success, he seemed both astonished and annoyed.

Those Mungret men now working as priests all over the world who had the privilege to be his students, will, I know, never forget him. I am certain that they are united in sympathy with his relatives and countless friends in Ireland, who still mourn such a tragic loss. May he rest in peace,

KF

Born: 01 July 1814, Maguiresbridge, County Fermanagh
Entered: 23 August 1834, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Ordained: July 1845, Trinity Church, Washington DC, USA
Final vows: 08 September 1853
Died: 23 May 1873, Georgetown College, Washington DC, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)

Born: 25 July 1832, Drumshambo, County Leitrim
Entered: 15 July 1855, Sault-au-Rècollet Canada - Franciae Province (FRA)
Final vows: 15 August 1865
Died: 10 May 1908, St Andrew on Hudson, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 11 November 1830, Ballinruan, County Wexford
Entered: 24 March 1855, St John’s, Fordham, NY, USA - Franciae Province (FRA)
Professed: 15 August 1865
Died: 09 July 1894, Fordham College, NY, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 02 February 1819, Cloonygormican, County Roscommon
Entered: 09 November 1854, St John’s, Fordham, NY, USA - Franciae Province (FRA)
Final vows: 02 February 1865
Died: 22 June 1888, Sault-au-Récollet, Montréal, Québec, Canada - Missions Canadiensis (CAN)

Born: 15 May 1944, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1962, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 21 June 1974, Gonzaga College SJ, Dublin
Final vows: 31 May 1979, Crescent College Comprehensive, Dooradoyle, Limerick
Died: 27 December 2008, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the Loyola, Sandford Road, Dublin community at the time of death

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

◆ https://www.jesuit.ie/news/john-dunne-sj-rip/

John Dunne SJ RIP
Fr John Dunne SJ died peacefully at 10:30 am on the morning of 27 December 2008, the Feast of John the Evangelist. He was commended to the Lord by the prayers of his sister, Anne, Jesuit colleagues and nursing staff.

John Dunne SJ
15 May 1944 – 27 December 2008
John’s early education was in Trim and Coláiste na Rinne, Dungarvan. After secondary school in Clongowes Wood College he entered the Society of Jesus on 7 September 1962 at Emo. After First Vows, John went to Rathfarnham and studied Arts at UCD and later Philosophy at Milltown Park. He taught at the Sacred Heart College in Limerick before returning to Milltown in 1971 to study theology.

After ordination on 21 June 1974, he studied guidance counselling at Mater Dei and went as teacher and guidance counsellor to Crescent College Comprehensive where he remained until 1981. During this time he made Tertianship in Tullabeg and took his Final Vows on 31 May 1979. While in Limerick he studied computing and continued this interest, later beginning LayJay bulletin, forerunner to today’s AMDG.ie. He served in Galway from 1981 to 1987 as Rector, teacher, guidance counsellor and chair of the board of management. In 1987 John was appointed to Gonzaga where he was to spend the next fourteen years in roles as various as pastoral co-ordinator, guidance counsellor, teacher, librarian and Rector.

Following a year’s sabbatical, during which John spent some time at the Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley, California, and travelling in Asia and Africa, he moved to Loyola House in 2002 where he became Superior and Socius (Assistant Provincial).

John was admitted to Cherryfield Lodge on 19 December following a short illness which was diagnosed at the beginning of October. He died peacefully on the morning of Saturday 27 December, feast of Saint John the Evangelist.
May he rest in the peace of Christ

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/john-dunne-sj-funeral-homily/

John Dunne SJ: funeral homily

The death of Fr John Dunne has drawn condolences from near and far, including, from Zambia-Malawi, Declan Murray SJ and Provincial Peter Bwanali. Also, there have been
numerous requests for the text of the homily which Brian Grogan SJ gave at the funeral mass in Gonzaga Chapel. Brian spoke warmly of John’s life and character, concentrating on three areas – the “three E’s”: the Enterprise of John’s life, his Endurance, and his Everlasting joy. Read the full homily below :

It’s impossible to capture a person’s life fully and I shall not try. But John loved photography: he lost 18 volumes of snapshots in the fire on Good Friday 2007! So I too shall be content with snapshots. I also note that at the Vigil we held for him last evening, friend after friend came up to the microphone and each gave us a distinct snapshot of how John had impacted on their lives. And the stories will go on and on. So I shall focus just on three areas:

The Enterprise of John’s life – this is the longer bit! His Endurance. His Everlasting joy. Three “Es” so you will know when I’m coming in to land!

1. The Enterprise of John’s Life
   We celebrate a good man. Now that may seem obvious: but I believe that one should try to write a homily with the bible in one hand and the Irish Times in the other – which makes it hard to do any writing, but there you are! Now there are two things to note about today’s Irish Times: first, those of you who are worried about your stocks and shares should take my advice and not invest in Pringles (= a form of potato crisps), because the value of these shares has plummeted since John lost his appetite!

Next, the paper is full, as always, of the wrongdoings of many people: violence, deception, murder, rape, domination – the unsavoury side of humankind. Measure John’s life against that picture. True, his life was ordinary: he taught for 25 years, but many of you have taught for much longer. He was a Superior for 18 years, but that was nothing special. We had a famous man, a scripture scholar, who was once asked if he’d like to be a Superior. ‘No’, he said finally, ‘but I’d like to live like one!’ But in fact it’s an ordinary job of service, just as being the assistant to the Provincial is. An ordinary man: John was not an academic; he liked the quip: ‘You can tell an intellectual but you can’t tell him much!’

An ordinary man. A good man. 46 yrs of service as a Jesuit. His story is ours. We can relate to him: I speak to the ordinary among you – please remain seated! The others can stand!
There’s a book of short stories by Flannery O’Connor: A Good man is Hard to Find. Good people are hard to find, and would that our world had more of them. Don’t take the faithful servant for granted! God doesn’t: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant!’

About 50 years ago John made a decision as an adolescent: not to do his own thing, not to win public approval or to make lots of money. He chose a life of love and service. He would serve the world! ‘In all things to love and serve’ is an Ignatian phrase. It sounds fine, but he took it seriously and lived it out, year after plodding year, until Dec 19 of this year to be exact, after the end- of -year office lunch. He then went home and spruced up for a Christmas meal given by Anne, his sister. That evening he gave in and went to Cherryfield. Two days earlier he had summoned up enough energy to go to Dundrum and do his Christmas shopping. Many of the gifts have yet to be given out.

To serve the world, through the Jesuit Order. This was his enterprise, and he fulfilled it. It wasn’t easy. He loved the Society & the Province & the community, and he loved his family and friends. A loyal servant, he was ‘Ready for everything’ – It’s an Ignatian phrase, and he lived it. He did all that was asked of him, especially when made Assistant to the Provincial 6 yrs ago. Punctual, organised. He was out to work by 08.00, home for 6 p.m. day after day, not knowing what demands each day would bring.

In mid-Oct the doctors told him he could go home – ‘But no work!’ We were so amazed at his going back to work after hospital in mid-Oct that we thought he hadn’t understood that he was terminally ill. Only accidentally did I learn that on his discharge he had told the hospital chaplain that he ‘was going home to die.’

A Good Man is hard to find. Good people – ordinary good folk – change the world. This world of ours has been the better for John’s presence, for his carrying out his freely chosen enterprise.

As the second reading emphasised, our enterprises must be loving ones. Perhaps each of us is asked by God to reflect to the world a particular facet of the divine? So God asks one person to reflect energy, another justice, a third compassion, a fourth good administration and so on. I suggest John’s task was to reflect lovableness! That’s what I’ve heard most emphasised over these days. He loved his family and his friends and his Jesuit brethren, and in return he was well loved.

He was amazed at the outpouring of concern, care, prayer, compassion, love, for himself when sick. He couldn’t see why this should be. He was humble. He never knew over the last days that many of the Jesuits in Cherryfield had said that they would cheerfully have taken his place – they were retired and ill, whereas he had still so much potential. That’s a nice tribute, to find others willing to lay down their lives for you! Check it out!! Don’t get me wrong: his loving was of the unique Dunne brand! He could be gruff; he could get mad with you! But the squall passed and blue skies returned.

John was uniquely present to reality. If he was eating, that’s what he was engaged in. If he was sorting out a mess created by someone, that’s what he was doing. He got to appreciate Buddhism during his sabbatical in 2001. He had Buddhist qualities: that of being full present to reality. He could also, like Buddha, enjoy life to the full, whether it was TV, DVDS, recliners, holidays, good company....In Jewish folklore, the single question that God will ask as we approach the pearly gates is: Did you enjoy my creation? ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ must have been John’s answer the other morning! Most obviously at table: the feast of flowing wine etc... – And the pouring cream! John enjoyed it all. I sometimes fantasised, as he put on more weight and several chairs gave way, that perhaps he was becoming a reincarnation of the Buddha...
It was hard to stay mad with him for long. In our little community of four we divide time into BC – before the conflagration – and AD, after the disaster. Well, when we got into our new house after much work on John’s part, we found that there were two en-suite and two plain bedrooms. I proposed in best Ignatian fashion that we should do a discernment in order to choose who got what. ‘Fine’, said John as he ambled up the stairs, ‘I’ll take the en-suite on the left and you boys can discern about the other three!’ But the same man would give his time and ability endlessly to sort out my computer problems after a long day in the office.
It was because he was so massively present that his death creates a massive loss. Others of us are more peripherally present to what we do. For John, his Yes was Yes, and his No was No! He could be devastatingly honest. I felt he used to contradict me a lot, and I said one day: ‘There isn’t a single statement that one could make in this house that won’t be contradicted.’ Immediately John shot back: ‘That’s not true!’
It’s time to move on.

2. His Endurance
   Chardin wrote a book about the divinising of our activities and of our passivities. He divided life thus into two: what we do and what happens to us. For him, what happens to us is about 80% of our life experience, and his concern was how we respond.

We’re talking about the things that happen to us and how we respond. We’re talking about the sanctification of the ordinary, about the tradition in Christian spirituality that unavoidable suffering, patiently endured, is graced. We’re talking about the simple Morning Offering.

For John, as for all of us, there were the times he lived in: Post-war world. Dev’s Ireland. Economic development. Vatican 2. GC 31 – the Jesuit effort at genuine renewal. Subsequent turmoil in the Church and in the Society. Assassination of JFK and MLK. Communism and its fall. Northern Ireland Conflict. Rwanda. Palestine. Kosovo. Decline in vocations. The loss of many things cherished. The Celtic Tiger and its demise. Scandals and tribunals. Child Sexual Abuse.... The list continues. We can ignore it, get depressed at it, become cynical about it, or we can entrust our battered world to God and pray and do what we can about our troubled times. Ignatius speaks of ‘courage in difficult enterprises’ and John had that.

Moving along in this area of the things endured: Close to his heart was the death of his sister Margot. Last year there was the fire and the loss of everything. This year: His knee replacement; End of use of motorbike. It was hard for him but no complaining. Then his incipient deafness humbly acknowledged.

Then in October, his final illness. He was so massively practical about it: ‘The news is bad!’ ‘I’m going home to die!’ ‘This is how it is. We’ll see.’ He had in consequence to let go of his trip to the Holy Land in October, though he sneaked a trip to Fatima in early December!

You know the novel by P J Kavanagh: The Perfect Stranger? Well, over the past three months, John was the perfect patient. One morning at breakfast recently I said to him: ‘ You’re very patient.’ He replied: ‘What else can one do?’ ‘Well’ I said, ferreting around in my own feelings, ‘you could choose depression or rage or self-pity? ‘I’d hate that’ he said.’ Days before his death a visitor asked him how he was feeling? ‘Smashing!’ was the reply.

Sickness is no less a gift than health – so said Ignatius rather tersely. Perhaps I’m beginning to see the meaning of that. There’s so much to be learnt from him on how to face sickness. And I have been struck by all the good that has come out of this mess, this mess of sickness and of dying, which is not the way God intends things to be; I mean the love and care from others, in Cherryfield and right across the world. I think I believe more than before that God brings good out of evil, and that’s a blessing.

3. His Everlasting Joy
   So much for the outer side of his life. But as the fox said to the Little Prince, ‘The things that are essential are invisible to the eye.’ At the end of all his letters as Assistant to the Provincial, John had: Working for God on earth may not pay much, but the retirement plan is out of this world! It took some faith to write that!
   What’s the Retirement Plan? For those of us who see our pension schemes fall apart, it would be good to know that there is one that won’t fail! Another John Donne, 1572 – 1631, (died at 59) to help us catch the mystery of how it is with him now: it’s from the Holy Sonnets, since not all his sonnets were such!

Death, be not proud: though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so...
For those whom thou thinkst thou dost overthrow Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
And soonest our best men with thee do go...
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more: death, thou shalt die.

So what do we wake to? Firstly, there’s God, a God who is pleased with him and loves him. There’s the welcome and congratulations as he staggered over the line on the 27th, the feast, of course, of St John the Evangelist! The loveableness he was entrusted with is now perfected. The Lover gives all to the beloved! So says Ignatius at his mystic best... What is that like? Multiple overwhelmings... Later in this Mass we acknowledge: ‘We shall become like him, for we shall see him as he is.’

Next, I can imagine John looking around to see where the banquet is set! Then there’s the unalloyed joy of great companionship. Then agility of body. John’s body was worn out at the end: now Hopkins line comes into play: “This jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood/Immortal diamond/Is immortal diamond.” Then insights into the mysteries of God: his imagination caught.

Then a commissioning ceremony: asked by God to be caring still: to be a solid presence to the rest of us until we meet him again. ‘Placed over many things!’
John loved celebrations: he is now celebrating what we celebrate here: that Jesus Christ by dying destroys our death, and by rising restores our life. He is all Joy. This is how Jesus expresses it in St John’s gospel: ‘I will see you again and Your hearts will rejoice, And no one will take your joy from you’ (16:22).
May it be so for us all. Amen.

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/losing-john-dunne/

Losing John Dunne
In the consciousness of Irish Jesuits, the dominant mood this Epiphany is of loss. It is just a week since we buried John Dunne, who had been Socius (companion, secretary,
counsellor, support) to the last two Provincials, a cheerful, competent, selfless presence at the heart of the administration. Conscious of his terminal state with galloping cancer, he worked until he dropped, a good model of Winnicott’s prayer: ‘May I be alive when I die’. He had served Galway, Gonzaga, Eglinton Road and Sandford Road as superior; and the Institute of Guidance Counsellors as their president for many years. A crowd of friends, from all the chapters of his life, packed Gonzaga chapel to overflowing in a memorable funeral Mass, and responded warmly to Brian Grogan’s affectionate homily. It was a good send-off, one which John would relish. But the loss is heavy, most of all for his sister Anne.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 139 : Easter 2009

Obituary

Fr John A Dunne (1944-2008)

15th May 1944: Born in Dublin
Early education at Mercy Convent and CBS, Trim; Ring College, Dungarvan; Clongowes Wood College
7th September 1962: Entered the Society at Emo
8th September 1964: First Vows at Emo
1964 - 1967: Rathfarnham - Studied Arts
1967 - 1969: Studied Philosophy at Milltown Institute
1969 - 1971: Dooradoyle - Teacher at Crescent Comprehensive
1971 - 1974: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
21st June 1974: Ordained at Gonzaga College Chapel
1974 - 1975: John Austin House - Studied Guidance and Counselling at Mater Dei Institute, Dublin
1975 - 1981: Teacher, Guidance Counsellor
1977 - 1980: University of Limerick - Computer Studies
1977 - 1978: Tertianship at Tullabeg
31st May 1979: Final Vows at Crescent College Comprehensive, Dooradoyle
1981 - 1987: Galway - Rector; Teacher; Guidance Counsellor, Chair, Board of Management
1987 - 2001: Gonzaga -
1987 - 1993: Pastoral Care Co-ordinator; Teacher, Guidance Counsellor
1993 - 1998: Rector
1996 - 1998: Guidance Counsellor; Teacher
1998 - 2001: Information Technology Co-ordinator; College Librarian; Assistant Pastoral Counsellor; Teacher of Computer Studies
2000 - 2001: Minister; ECDL Course
2001 - 2002: Sabbatical
2002 - 2008: Loyola House - Socius, Superior; Province Consultor; Provincial's Admonitor; Provincial Team
27th December 2008: Died in Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Brian Grogan writes:

An Ordinary Man
John was born in Dublin, but the family lived in Summerhill, near Trim in Co. Meath, so he received his early education at the local Mercy Convent, and then at the CBS. His father was an army man, and he had two older sisters, Anne and Margot. He spent some time in Colaiste na Rinne, Dungarvan, and then went to Clongowes. He entered the Society at Emo in 1962, immediately after school, then studied arts, including archaeology, at UCD, 1964-1967. He studied philosophy at Milltown 1967-1969, when the Institute was just beginning. Following two years teaching at Crescent College Comprehensive, and three years of Theology again at Milltown, he was ordained on 21 June 1974, and spent the following year at Mater Dei, studying Guidance Counselling, which became a lifelong interest: he was later President of the Association of Guidance Counsellors in Ireland. He taught again in Limerick for the next six years, and took up a part-time course in Computer Studies in 1977: computers were to fascinate him for the remainder of his life. He was Rector in Galway from 1981-1987, and in Gonzaga 1993-1998 where he spent fourteen years in all: he was Superior in Loyola and Socius to the Provincial from 2002-2008.

All told, he taught for twenty-eight years and was a Superior for seventeen. He enjoyed a well-earned sabbatical in Berkeley, Thailand and Nepal in 2001-2002, where he developed an interest in Buddhism. He left behind several photos titled “The Buddha and I', and his gastronomic exploits made one wonder if he might become a reincarnation of the Buddha. His hobbies were photography and computers; he read no newspapers or serious novels, but was well informed on current affairs, and had a sharp mind and a good memory, as well as a sound knowledge of the Irish Province. He liked TV and DVDs, and his preferred mode of travel was the motorbike, which he relinquished only after a knee operation in May 2008.

After forty-six years of Jesuit service, he died at sixty-four, having been diagnosed with cancer in early October 2008. He spent a little over a week in Cherryfield, and was the first to die in the new building. He died, appropriately, on the Feast of St John the Evangelist, after whom he was named. He saw himself as an ordinary man: he was not an academic, and liked the quip: "You can tell an intellectual, but you can't tell him much!' But about fifty years ago he had made a decision: not to do his own thing, not to win public approval or to make lots of money. He chose a life of love and service: he would serve the world through the Jesuit Order. This was his enterprise, and he fulfilled it in the demanding times in which he lived.

A Good Man
There's a book of short stories by Flannery O'Connor: A Good man is Hard to Find. As the media make clear in giving us our daily dose of bad news, good people do seem hard to find, and God doesn't take them for granted. The gospel text for his requiem was: 'Well done, good and faithful servant!' People who spoke at the Vigil in Gonzaga Chapel the night before his funeral said over and over: He was a good man! Ordinary good people change the world, and many testified that their world was so much the better for John's presence, for his carrying out his freely chosen enterprise.

John came across as a good man because of his love. He loved family and friends, but especially he loved the Society and more concretely the members of the Irish Province. Being a Jesuit was a fulltime reality for him, and it came across. A loyal servant, he was “ready for everything” as Ignatius would have wished. He did all that was asked of him, especially when made Assistant to the Provincial six years ago. Punctual and organised, he was at his desk early and working his way through the myriad mundane tasks that fall to a Socius - fifty per day, according to a survey! When the curia moved to Sandyford after the fire, he prepared his lunch daily from the leftovers of the previous evening meal and set off before 8 am, and was a genial Office Manager, with an inimitable style. “Carry on the good work!” was his usual phrase to encourage the staff in their labours.

When his diagnosis was confirmed in mid-October the doctors told him he could go home - “But no work!” In the community we were so amazed at his going back to work immediately that we thought he hadn't understood that he was terminally ill. Only accidentally did we learn that on his discharge he had told the hospital chaplain that “he was going home to die”. But instead he went home to serve out the remaining weeks of his life to the full. “In all things to love and serve” is an Ignatian phrase which sounds fine, but he took it seriously year after plodding year, until December 2008 - to be exact. After the end-of-year office lunch in the IMI he went home to spruce up for a Christmas meal given by his sister Anne. That evening he gave in and went to Cherryfield. Two days earlier he had summoned up enough energy to go to Dundrum Shopping Centre to do his Christmas shopping. He never had the joy of distributing most of the gifts, which were found after his death. Many of us, I suggest, if we were told at his age that we had three months to live would leaf through A Thousand Places to See Before You Die and ask for an open credit card. Nothing wrong there, but John's loyalty and tenacity brought him in another direction.

Living to the Full
John enjoyed living. He was welcoming and hospitable, believing that enjoyment was to be shared. He engaged fully in whatever he was doing, whether it was a good meal, a sabbatical, a glass of brandy, an administrative issue, a DVD, a discussion, a computer problem, a rugby match on TV, a holiday with his sister Anne. It is said that part of Jewish belief is that eternal judgement will consist in a single question from God: 'Did you enjoy my creation?' To this John would have given a resounding Yes! This quality of complete engagement gave him a certain magnificent simplicity. His Yes was Yes, and his No was a definite No: he had little space for indecision, and would engage in robust discussion to bring things to conclusions. At his funeral Mass the Provincial, John Dardis, told of times when he himself would return enthusiastically from Rome with a bright idea on how to move Province affairs forward, If John didn't like it he'd bark out: “That's ridiculous! Won't work!” Yet he was open to persuasion and then embrace the project wholeheartedly.

Clearing his plate meant not only enjoying good food to the last bite: it also meant that he liked to delegate. When commissioned to get something done his strategy was to delegate rather than to do the job alone. So in early October last when Fr Jack Donovan died in London, John, who was in hospital at the time, was assigned to see to arrangements, and I got a call: “Will you take this over?” - after which John presumably moved on to the next task. He enjoyed this style of management, somewhat more, perhaps, than those at the receiving end of his phone calls! But it was hard to stay mad with him for long. When after the fire we got into our new house - due to much work on John's part, we found that there were two en-suite and two plain bedrooms. It was proposed in best Ignatian fashion that we should do a discernment to choose who got what. “Fine”, said John as he ambled up the stairs, “I'll take the en-suite on the left and you boys can discern about the other three!” But the same man would give his time and ability endlessly to sort out someone's computer problems after a long day in the office.

It was because he was so massively present to whatever he was doing, whether looking after others or discussing or relaxing, that his death creates such a massive sense of absence. Others of us are more peripherally present to what we do. Not for him the soft-footed approach: he could be devastatingly honest. I used feel that he used the contradictory mode perhaps a shade too much, and said one day:
“There's not a single statement that one could make in this house that won't be contradicted”. Immediately John shot back: “That's not true!” He could be gruff, “like an angry bear” as someone said “but a teddy-bear beneath it all”. He could get mad with “eejits” but the squall passed and blue skies returned. He travelled unencumbered by the baggage of resentment or self-pity.

Enduring to the End
John not only enjoyed the good things of life: he also endured its painful side patiently. For him there was the post-war Irish scene: firstly de Valera's Ireland, succeeded by economic development, then difficult times, then the Celtic Tiger and its demise. Add into the mix the Northern Ireland conflict, political and financial scandals and endless tribunals. In the religious dimension there was the hope and promise of Vatican Two, and in the Society and the Province the hard-won renewal set in motion by GCs31 and GC32; all of this to be followed by turmoil in the Church and in the Society, and in our relationship with the Vatican, leading to the resignation of Arrupe and its aftermath. Locally there was the spectre of Child Sexual Abuse. The list could continue endlessly. How did John respond to these situations which were not of his making, not part of the plan?

In the seventies a commentator on religious life observed that the contemporary religious would suffer the loss of many things cherished: colleagues, vocations, institutions, thriving apostolic works etc. So it has been, and John's stance was to face the difficulties and diminishments within the Province and the Church honestly, without growing cynical or indifferent. Ignatius speaks of “courage in difficult enterprises” and John had that. He worked energetically against the corporate depression which can accompany diminishing numbers and their consequences. Long before GC35 he promoted the renewal of the Province with a project titled “Sparks Light Fires” and no one who attended Province events over the past decade will have failed to notice John's recurring bidding prayer for an increase in vocations.

Closer to home was the untimely death of his sister Margot. Then on Good Friday 2007 there was the Loyola fire and the loss of everything, including for him eighteen treasured volumes of photos of family, friends, Irish Jesuits etc. (cf the interview he gave to Paul Andrews, shortly after the fire, but not published until one year later - Summer 2008, Interfuse #136) It was his mammoth task with Bill Toner, John Maguire and others, to deal with the curial aftermath of the fire, to find new premises for the community, and to help each member to find appropriate ways of coping. This he did by gathering us regularly for a Revision de vie, followed by a Eucharist and a meal, together with some sessions in post-traumatic stress. He dealt with all of this in a healthy matter-of-fact way, though he used to refer to the fire as the elephant in the corner - something he had not yet fully integrated, despite his dedicated efforts at (retail therapy' on that Good Friday afternoon.

The Perfect Patient
In May 2008 he had a knee replacement; this meant the end of motorcycling, hard for him but there were no complaints. In August his incipient deafness was noticed and humbly acknowledged. In October, out of the blue, began his final illness. He was massively practical about it: “The news is bad!” “I'm going home to die!” “This is how it is. We'll see”. He had to let go of a planned trip to the Holy Land, though he sneaked a “pilgrimage” with his sister to Fatima in early December, and regaled us afterward with tales of the delights of a Lisbon hotel.

John was the perfect patient. One morning at breakfast, weeks before he died, I said to him: “You're very patient”. He replied: “What else can one do?” “Well”, I said, ferreting around in my own feelings and drawing on my Kubler-Ross theories about stages of dying, “you could choose depression or rage or self-pity?” “I'd hate that”, he said. Days before his death, when his breathing had become difficult, a visitor asked him how he was feeling. “Smashing!” was the one-word reply.

Sickness is no less a gift than health: so said Ignatius rather tersely. Perhaps those who were close to him saw something of the meaning of that. “Let them give no less edification in sickness than in health” for there was much to be learnt from him on how to face sickness. And good things came out of this tragedy of his sickness and dying. He was amazed at the outpouring of concern, prayer and compassion for himself. he couldn't see why this should be. But people found him lovable, presumably because they experienced that he loved them. He never knew that in his last days many of the Jesuits in Cherryfield had said that they would cheerfully have taken his place – they were retired and ill, whereas he had still so much potential.

Joy
So much for the outer side of his life. What about the inside? At the end of all his letters as Assistant to the Provincial, John had the slogan: Working for God on earth may not pay much, but the retirement plan is out of this world! John never got to elaborate on the Retirement Plan, for he was not an eschatological speculator, but perhaps he would have agreed with the earlier John Donne, 1572 - 1631, who wrote:

Death, be not proud: though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so...
And soonest our best men with thee do go...
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more: death, thou shalt die.

So what did he wake to? To the welcome and congratulations of those gone before him, Jesuits and family and friends, as he staggered over the line on December 27th. Then the multiple overwhelming by God: “the Lover gives all to the beloved” as Ignatius says at his mystic and cryptic best. Next, one can imagine John sniffing the air for hints as to where the great banquet might be set! Then there's the unalloyed joy of great companionship, the excitement of the vastness of the world of God, agility of body and so on. Then a commissioning - placed over many things and asked by God to be a caring presence to the rest of us until we meet him again. John loved celebrations: he is now celebrating endlessly on the inside what we celebrate fitfully and in hope. He is all Joy.

Here is another farewell, different, spoken by Jim O'Higgins at John's Month's Mind, and copied as it was forwarded:

Fifty years ago the face of welcome
In his solid frame, from John the delegate
To call my name and he greeted me
To that large Kildare domain
The prefect later on, that John
sent out again to ease the tense
the taut and restrain the mini gangs

John the true disciple of Loyola
Guidance counselled young hope
from west to east and once again
he's called to mediate between
the grief of parents of the suicided child
Or the dumbfounded ire of the mother
of a manslaughtered son and the why
the what of that God of his
and his own priestly purpose
Or ask in whose image we are made
or where was The Virgin in the keep
at Lourdes on that drowning day

John, called to jollify and feast with
with friends, a Friar Tuck, called
Bonzo, Buster or, with bourgeois respectability, Fr. Bun
The love of Table talk in his so communitaire
of duties in an S.J. house or sitting
in a kitchen ,one leg on the bench
and, not quite a keg ,upon the table
Or in the deep affection of his
nieces and proud nephew in Dublin
six, fourteen, or four of Tullamore
And for the many pieces de resistance
He could rely on his beloved Anne to
see him well ensconced in some
exotic Resto or Hotel Excelsior
Or in sweet Silverdale
Or Long Island Sound

John gifted with the rooted gem
of insight in himself so he could discern
what he could do within
what was beyond his reach
he humbled hubris and defaced its mask
in a paradox of earthy tongue
relating us and our mere creaturehood
To Immanence and Who it was we served
Chuckling his falstaffian way
to his next set of minutes or report

John called to be the techie in I.T.
The Socius systems, Sounder out
The teller of the truth without the frills
And yet again being sent on far flung
Flights with postcards from the edge
in misspelt greetings from some land
remembering and reminding us
in that unsure hand of what we are to him
and we know now what he is to us

John who could be nothing but a goodly man
You leave us for a while on the day of your
own feast of John loved Disciple.

Another appreciation, different in style, from Michael Hurley:
The thoughtfulness of the following letter from John is deeply moving; the circumstances make it more so, and the strained light heartedness at the beginning and end makes it still more moving.

Dear Michael,
May we bury the hatchet for the moment in exchange for prayers for my tryst with the medicos, hopefully from tomorrow. Learnt this morning of liver trouble and bile duct blockage — yellow as a canary, I am. This is by way of communicating!
John A. Dunne, SJ (September 25, 2008 4.51 pm)

The bone of contention between John and myself was my continuing emphasis on communication in the Province, or, rather (as I experienced it), the lack of such communication: in particular between M and the rest of us. I had suggested a Curia Newsletter and sent him a draft of a letter about the matter - which I thought of sending to a Delegate - and later a draft of a few words I might possibly say at a Delegates Friday lunch. He didn't like my drafts, especially a suggestion that if we knew what was happening at IMI we might be less worried about whether our (sic) money was being used responsibly.

Preparations for the visit of the Assistant halted these discussions. What happened next was that Kevin O'Rourke, our Rector, sharing some of my concern, made arrangements for a visit here of three of the delegates; he did so independently but with the knowledge and encouragement of John. This turned out to be a very happy, successful, community event at which I took the liberty of broaching the idea of a Curia Newsletter.

John and I were not at daggers drawn, far from it, but his letter, so remarkably thoughtful, so magnanimous, did enable us, in the time he had left, to communicate not only amicably but affectionately. Which I trust will continue.

◆ The Gonzaga Record 2009

Obituary

John Dunne SJ

Fr. John Dunne died on the 27th of December 2008. His death drew condolences from near and far, not just within Ireland, but also from as far away as Zambia and Malawi. However, it will be his contribution to Gonzaga which will receive most attention here.

He came from Summerhill, Co. Meath, received his early education in Trim and then went to Clongowes. He entered the Jesuits in 1962, studied Arts in U.C.D., with a particular interest in archaeology. He was ordained in 1974, which was followed by a year at Mater Dei, studying Guidance Counselling, which became a lifelong interest.

He taught at the Crescent College Comprehensive for six years, during which he took up a course in Computer Studies. Computers fascinated him for the rest of his life.

He was superior in Colaiste Iognaid, Galway from 1981-1987, and in Gonzaga from 1993-1998, where he spent 14 years in all. From 2002-2008 he was superior in Loyola House, Eglinton Road, where he was Socius (assistant) to the Provincial. All told, he taught for 28 years and was superior for 17. After 46 years of Jesuit life, he died of cancer, aged 64.

He saw himself as an ordinary man. He was not an academic. He liked the quip “you can tell an intellectual, but you can't tell him much!” His Yes was Yes, and his No was a definite No. He could be devastatingly honest and gruff “like an angry bear” as someone said, “but a teddy-bear beneath it all”. He could get mad with “eejits” but the squall would pass and blue skies return. He travelled unencumbered by the baggage of resentment or self-pity.

It was in 1987 that he came to Gonzaga, remaining here for fourteen years. He was superior of the Jesuit community from 1993 to 1998. He made many contributions to the life of the school, but particularly in Career Guidance, Computer Studies, pastoral care and photography.

He was a very active member of the Career Guidance Association, being its president for many years. He transformed the place of such guidance in Gonzaga, and is remembered very genuinely and gratefully by many of the past pupils because of his professional services.

It was Fr. John who basically introduced Computer Studies to the school. He began with the staff, and many of his colleagues have expressed their indebtedness to him. The acquisition of equipment and its location provided many problems, but John's optimism overcame them all. That having been achieved he offered evening classes to interested parents.

In the field of pastoral care he involved himself in many areas. He brought groups of 6th year boys to London with the annual Dublin pilgrimage. He developed what was known as the “urban plunge”, where 6th years lived in the inner city. He organized retreats for the senior students and it was under Fr. John that the practice of having a "forum" for the parents of each year was initiated and which has proved such a blessing for both school and parents.

Throughout the school year he was always on the watch-out for the opportunity of a good photograph. Many a "Gonzaga Record” benefited from his enthusiasm. It was most unfortunate that most of his collection was lost in the fire at Loyola House, Eglinton Road on Good Friday 2007.

He had a sabbatical year 2001-2002 where he first studied at Berkeley, California, and then travelled to various Jesuit missions in Asia and Africa. Later in 2002 he was appointed Socius to Fr. Provincial and became superior of the community there. He made the Province much more email friendly, thereby improving its efficiency. In October 2008 he was diagnosed with cancer, but he continued working. On the 19th December he was admitted to Cherryfield Lodge Nursing Home, where he died on Saturday 27th December, the feast of St. John the Evangelist.

Good came out of his sickness and dying. He was amazed at the outpouring of concern, prayer and compassion for himself; he could not see why this should be. He never knew that in his last days many of the Jesuits in Cherryfield had said that they could cheerfully have taken his place - they were retired and ill, whereas he had still so much potential. Yet this brief account shows that John did indeed fulfil his potential in a most varied and generous way. He was truly a blessing for all in Gonzaga College SJ.

JAB SJ

Born: 17 March 1813, Kells, County Kilkenny
Entered: 29 August 1841, Florissant MO, USA - Missouri Province (MIS)
Final Vows:15 August 1858
Died: 25 October 1890, Florissant MO, USA - Missouri Province (MIS)

Born: 24 June 1826, Downpatrick, County Down
Entered: 05 September 1857, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Final vows: 02 February 1868
Died: 27 June 1902, Georgetown College , Washington DC, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 17 January 1839, London, England / Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 01 September 1857, Frederick MD, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)
Final Vows: 02 February 1869
Died: 04 December 1902, Woodstock College, Washington DC, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born London of Irish parents came to live in Dublin until emigration to USA two years later.

◆ Woodstock Letters SJ : Vol 32, Number 1

Obituary

“Brother Richard Dugan SJ” p132

Few of our coadjutor Brothers were better known through- out the Province than “Brother Dick”, as he was universally known, to distinguish him from his brother, Henry Dugan,
who died three years before him. In fact, he was well known by Ours in all parts of this country, for he was for eighteen years infirmarian at Woodstock at the time the scholasticate was the common house of studies for all Ours in the United States. Born in London of Irish parents, January 17, 1839, he was moved to Dublin the following year and when only two years old emigrated along with his parents to Boston. It was here he was received as a postulant, when only sixteen years old, by Father Stonestreet and sent to Philadelphia for his probation. Here he spent three years, a part of this time as a novice under the care and direction; of Father Ward. In 1858 he was sent to Frederick to complete his novitiate and it was here he began what was the chief duty of his life, the care of the sick. After taking his vows, in 1859, be was sent to Georgetown as assistant to Brother John Cunningham, better known as "Brother Johnnie," of whom an account will be found in The Letters vol xvii p 386. For ten years these two Brothers attended to the sick at the college and scholasticate, which was then at Georgetown, and Brother Dick formed a lasting friendship with Brother Johnnie, amounting on his part to almost veneration. When the scholasticate was opened at Woodstock, in 1869, Brother Johnnie was sent there as infirmarian and Brother Dick remained at Georgetown. In 1885, Brother Johnnie on account of his age and ill health, had to be removed from his office and Brother Dick the following year was sent from Georgetown to take his place. His first patient at the scholasticate was his old friend Brother Johnnie, whose nurse and companion he now became for four years. The remainder of his life Brother Dick passed at Woodstock and in the same charge till shortly before his death. There was nothing striking or wonderful in this life except the good Brother's devotedness to the sick and his energy in his work. He never seemed so happy as when he had the care of some old Father or Brother or when he had to battle with some dangerous disease. It was then he would shut himself up with his patient and devote all his time and energy to combat the malady. Many a Father and Brother in the Province owes his life to the constant and unwearied care of this good Brother. Of course he could not nurse all back to health; among his patients there were those, like his friend Brother Johnnie, whose course was run. It was thus that he assisted a good number to die. He kept faithfully an account of all these and he had the satisfaction in his last days of counting sixty-one whom he had helped to die a holy death. Besides his devotedness to the sick, the Brother was remarkable for his energy in his work. There were times when he would have no sick to attend and then he would not rest but worked energetically at his trade of painter; whitewashing, if he could find nothing else to do. To be idle, even when he was invalided, was a great cross to him. Keeping up the traditions of his great friend, Brother Johnnie, everything had to be dispatched with the greatest ardor he could put into it. During his convalescence, after his first stroke of apoplexy, he found a pile of several thousand old bricks lying in the cellar, and unasked, set to work to remove the old mortar and put them in the condition to be used. This is only a little instance of his untiring energy. He seems to have adopted the saying of his dear old Brother Johnnie, which he would enjoin on those who bade him good bye on departing for another house : “Never let the Devil or the Minister catch you idle”.
'
It was thus that Brother Dick passed his eighteen years at Woodstock in the care of the sick, and in energetic labor when not in the infirmary. He passed through much suffering and underwent several severe surgical operations, in one of which, six years before his death, his life was despaired of by the physicians. He recovered, however, and it was only a year before his death that he was rendered helpless by a stroke of apoplexy. He was then wheeled around and, nursed by his successor and spent his days in reciting his “rosary”. He was glad to die, for death seemed to have no terrors for him. It was thus after sinking gradually, day by day, that he met his end, on August 3, conscious almost to the last.

Born: 15 September 1799, County Cork
Entered: 04 May 1839, Florissant MO, USA
Final Vows: 25 March 1854
Died: 25 April 1856, St Louis College, St Louis, MO, USA

Born: 14 September 1936, Phibsboro, Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1954, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 10 July 1968, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 01 February 1974, Della Strada Community, Dooradoyle, Limerick
Died: 28 April 2017, St James’ Hospital, Dublin

Part of the St Ignatius, Lower Leeson Street, Dublin community at the time of death.

by 1970 at Auriesville NY, USA (NEB) making Tertianship
by 1971 at New York NY, USA (NEB) studying
by 1980 at Bronx NY, USA (NYK) studying
by 2004 at Bronx NY, USA (NYK) working
by 2011 at Seattle University ORE, USA (ORE) teaching

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/hugh-duffy-gentle-jesuit/

Hugh Duffy – ‘a gentle Jesuit’
Fr Hugh Duffy SJ died in St James’s Hospital on Friday 28 April 2017, aged 80 years old. Born and raised in Dublin, Hugh won a senior cup rugby medal with Belvedere College SJ and entered the Jesuits in 1954. He spent several years in Limerick as a teacher and lecturer. He did his Doctoral degree in English in the United States and he worked in parish ministry and as a visiting professor there. Brian Grogan SJ gave the homily at his funeral mass in Milltown Park Chapel on 3 May.

Fr Grogan said about his friend and classmate, “This man was more there than the average man. He was able to reveal gold to other people”. He fondly remembered when Hugh went on to do his doctoral training after four bachelor degrees during a time when the Church was struggling to adapt to the times. His PhD thesis explored a fresh following of faith in a God who infinitely loves.

Regarding his life as a teacher, “Hugh struggled to liberate his students from destructive images of God. He had a passion for the genuine liberation of the human heart. He wanted people to know that they are loved and appreciated beyond words”. And he taught thousands of pupils in thousands of classes over his lifetime. A friend once noted: “He was a pet; he had soft eyes”. Fr Grogan also thanked his family for sharing Hugh with his Jesuit companions.

Referring to the Jesuit’s decline in health where he moved from autonomy to dependency, Fr Grogan remarked that “He did not yield to dark moods. He was humble and patient, and he offered his suffering for the Church and the world”. The Gospel for the funeral mass depicted Jesus asking his disciple Peter if he loved him, then commanding him to look after his flock. Fr Grogan imagined Hugh answering wholeheartedly, “Yes, I love you, Lord”.

“And so, Hugh found that dying is safe because God is safe, and all restricting images melt away. In his transfigured body, he’s able to dance and sing, and sing and dance, without a stick. And I think that laughter and merriment will be a large part of his contribution to the cosmic party.”

Damien Burke, assistant archivist in the Province, was also at the funeral mass. Hugh helped Damien in his work, identifying Jesuits from earlier days whom Damien would not have known. The very night before his stroke, Hugh was working with Damien on a pamphlet from Belvedere College SJ. “We were discussing a flyer for a 1953 production of the Mikado in which Hugh had a part – he was in the chorus. He was his usual lovely self, a kind and gentle Jesuit, and I really enjoyed working with him.”

A large number of Hugh’s family were in attendance including nieces and nephews who returned from many different countries. His nephew Ian spoke movingly about him. He said he would have made a great father so it was all the more inspirational that he had dedicated his life to the Church. And he raised a laugh when he talked about Hugh’s love of America and how he drove right across the continent from one coast to another – adding, “probably very slowly, but he did it!”

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

Scoil Colmcille, Dublin; Belvedere College SJ

1956-1959 Rathfarnham - Studying Arts at UCD
1959-1962 Tullabeg - Studying Philosophy
1962-1965 Clongowes Wood College SJ - Regency : Teacher; Studying for CWC Cert in Education
1965-1969 Milltown Park - Studying Theology
1969-1970 Monroe, Auriesville, NY, USA - Tertianship at Our Lady of the Martyrs
1970-1971 Rice High School, NY, USA - Studying for MA and MEd at Columbia University
1971-1979 Crescent College Comprehensive SJ, Dooradoyle - Teacher; Transition Year Co-ordinator
1979-1980 All Hallows High School, Bronx, NY, USA - Doctoral studies in English at Columbia University
1981-1982 Fordham University, NY, USA - Doctoral studies in English
1983 Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish, San Francisco, CA, USA - Parish Work
1983-1985 Gonzaga College SJ - Teacher; 6th Form Master
1985-2002 Crescent College Comprehensive SJ, Dooradoyle - Head of & Lecturer in English Department, Mary Immaculate College
1994 Chair English Department & Lecturer in English at Mary Immaculate College (UL)
2002 Sabbatical
2003-2004 St Thomas the Apostle, Hepstead, New York, NY, USA - Parish Work
2004-2012 Seattle University, Seattle, WA, USA - Visiting Professor in English and Theology
2012-2017 Leeson St - Assistant Chaplain in Cherryfield Lodge

Born: 08 September 1848, Rahan, County Offaly
Entered: 06 September 1866, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died: 27 December 1872, New Orleans, LA, USA

Part of the St Joseph’s College, Springhill, AL, USA community at the time of death

by 1869 at Amiens France (CAMP) studying
by 1870 at Leuven Belgium (BELG) studying
by 1871 at Stonyhurst England (ANG) studying
by 1872 at Spring Hill College AL, USA (LUGD) teaching

◆ HIB Menologies SJ :
He had a brother who was a Priest and distinguished Preacher in the Meath diocese.

After First Vows he was sent to Amiens for Rhetoric, then Philosophy at Louvain and Stonyhurst.
1870/1 He was sent to New Orleans for Regency, and he died of a fever there 27 December 1872.
William Butler had been his companion in New Orleans Mission.

Born: 21 November 1916, Elmhurst, Queens NY, USA
Entered: 30 July 1934, St Andrew on Hudson NY - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)
Ordained: 22 June 1947
Final Vows: 15 August 1950
Died: 30 March 2000, Bronx NY, USA - Neo-Eboracensis Province (NEB)

by 1979 came to Milltown (HIB) working in CLC

Born: 07 May 1805, Ennis, County Clare
Entered: 07 September 1839, St Mary’s, Lebanon, KY, USA - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1844
Final Vows: 15 August 1850
Died: 04 March 1880, Fordham College, NY, USA - Neo-Eboracensis Province (NEB)

Born: 21 April 1942, Piltown, Co Kilkenny
Entered: 27 September 1977, Manresa House, Dollymount, Dublin
Ordained: 06 June 1965, St Mary’s Cathedral, Kilkenny (pre Entry)
Final vows: 22 April 1990, St Francis Xavier’s, Gardiner St, Dublin
Died: 19 April 2023, Cherryfield Lodge, Milltown Park, Dublin

Part of the Manresa Community at the time of death

Older brother of Bishop Martin Drennan

FSS

    Born :  21st April 1942     Piltown, Co Kilkenny
    Raised :    Piltown, Co Kilkenny
        Early Education at Kilkenny NS; CBS Carrick-on-Suir, Co Tipperary; St Kieran’s, Kilkenny; San Diego Diocese; Gregorian University, Rome, Italy

6th June 1965 Ordained at St Mary’s Cathedral, Kilkenny
27th September 1977 Entered Society at Manresa House, Dollymount, Dublin
27th September 1979 First Vows at Manresa House, Dollymount, Dublin
1978-1979 John Austin House - Second Year Noviciate; Vocational Counselling at John’s Lane; Assistant Retreat Director in Rathfarnham
1979-1988 Campion House - Vocational Counselling
1988-1989 Tertianship at St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg and Campion House, Osterley, London
1989-1993 Gardiner St - Superior; Vocational Counselling; Director of Works
22nd April 1990 Final Vows at St Francis Xavier’s, Gardiner St, Dublin
1993-2000 Manresa House - Director of Ignatian Centre and Retreat House; Directs Spiritual Exercises
1994 Rector; Bursar
1999 Spiritual Direction at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Co Kildare
2000-2003 Clongowes Wood College SJ- Spiritual Director at St Patrick’s College National Seminary & Pontifical University
2003-2010 Milltown Park - General Secretary CORI (to 2007)
2005 Vice-Rector
2007 Child Protection Delegate; Spirituality Delegate
2010-2012 Loyola House - Child Protection Delegate; Spirituality Delegate
2012-2023 Manresa House - Rector; Child Protection Delegate; Spirituality Delegate; Directs Spiritual Exercises
2021 Directs Spiritual Exercises; Building Programme; Healthcare

https://jesuit.ie/news/mike-drennan-sj-his-legacy-lives-on/

Mike Drennan SJ: His legacy lives on

Fr Mike Drennan SJ died peacefully, surrounded by his family, at Cherryfield Lodge nursing home, Milltown Park, Dublin on 19 April 2023.

Archbishop Dermot Farrell of Dublin, four other bishops, and many priests joined the Jesuits and people from all over Ireland for Fr Mike’s funeral Mass in St Francis Xavier’s Church, Gardiner Street, Dublin on 24 April, followed by burial at Glasnevin Cemetery. Fr Mike is predeceased by his brother Martin, former Bishop of Galway, who died only five months ago.

Fr Mike was born in 1942 and raised in Piltown, County Kilkenny. He was educated at Kilkenny NS, CBS Carrick-on-Suir in County Tipperary, and St Kieran’s secondary school in Kilkenny. He trained for the diocesan priesthood in St Kieran’s diocesan college, Kilkenny, and was ordained at St Mary’s Cathedral, Kilkenny in 1965. He ministered in San Diego Diocese, USA, and studied psychology at Gregorian University, Rome.

Fr Mike entered the Jesuits at Manresa House, Dollymount, Dublin in 1977, and worked in the field of vocational counselling for many years while living at John Austin House, Campion House, and Gardiner Street in Dublin.

After taking Final Vows he served in numerous roles, including as Director of Manresa Jesuit Centre of Spirituality, Dublin; Spiritual Director at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth; Secretary General of CORI (Conference of Religious in Ireland), and Child Protection Delegate for the Irish Jesuit Province. He was a skilled spiritual director and gave retreats all over Ireland for many years.

He recently published a book on the ministry of spiritual direction entitled See God Act (Messenger Publications) ». He also completed a full liturgical year of gospel inspiration points for the Sacred Space book (2024) and online prayer website – a job normally done by at least 12 people, according to John McDermott, Director of Sacred Space, who greatly appreciated the work he did and the insights he shared. “His work will help the prayer of many thousands of people down the years to come,” says John; “His inspiration still goes on.” As Fr Tim Healy SJ said in his homily at the funeral Mass, “What Mike did he did with energy and creativity. During the pandemic, for example, with the help of Piaras Jackson at Manresa, he recorded hours of video and presided over hours of Zoom meetings in online retreats for diocesan priests.”

Regarding this new online presence, Piaras Jackson noted that “The pandemic seemed likely to narrow his scope and limit his ability to minister, but he mastered Zoom and was chuffed to find himself featuring on videos where he offered material for hope and meaning at a confused time. Casual YouTube surfers looking for snappy upbeat content may have quickly slid past his presentations, but those who knew and trusted him appreciated their thoughtful and rich content and welcomed how Mike was reaching out and relating rather than waiting it out or staying silent; for him, this was “keeping in contact as best we can” – communicating, not about himself, but opening new perspectives and meaning for others. And it’s important to say that all of Mike’s activity sprung from his own prayer; having invited us Jesuits in Manresa to commit to a time of daily prayer together during the lockdowns, I value the memory of how Mike was faithfully present day after day in our community chapel.”

As he lay in repose in Cherryfield on Sunday 23 April, a steady stream of people from all over the country came to say a final farewell and offer their condolences to his family, including brothers John, Paddy, and Jim. Many shared stories of how much Fr Mike had meant to them. It was clear that all through his lifetime he had encountered many people from a variety of backgrounds and all of them held one thing in common, namely the esteem and genuine affection they felt for him.

Mary Rickard, Health Delegate for the Jesuits, noted that it was fitting that he spent his last weeks in Cherryfield when in earlier times as a board member for over fifteen years he was centrally involved in setting up both the Milltown community building and Cherryfield Lodge nursing home as a centre of excellence for older or convalescing Jesuits from home and abroad.

At a meeting of the board just after his burial Mary Rickard, as Chair, read out the prayer attributed to St Ignatius which she felt summed up Fr Mike’s life of dedicated service to God: “Teach us, good Lord, to serve you as you deserve; to give, and not to count the cost, to fight, and not to heed the wounds, to toil, and not to seek for rest, to labor, and not to ask for reward, except that of knowing that we are doing your will.”

At the end of the Mass, Fr Mike’s nephew Karol spoke warmly of the man who was his uncle and summed up well the effect Mike’s short illness and premature death had on his fellow Jesuits. “It was like an earthquake,” he said. He will be sorely missed. But his videos are available on Manresa’s YouTube » and ‘Retreats @home’ ». They will surely remain valued by the many who were blessed by Mike’s generous life; the conclusion of his first video appearance is poignant as Mike offers an Easter blessing » before walking away.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

Born: 31 December 1811, County Kilkenny
Entered: 17 November 1851, St John’s, Fordham, NY, USA - Franciae Province (FRA)
Final Vows: 02 February 1862
Died: 05 April 1874 Xavier College, New York, NY, USA - Neo-Eboracensis-Canadensis Province (NEBCAN)

Born: 24 April 1922, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 01 October 1954, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1963, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 16 November 1974, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died: 14 September 2008, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Father Provincial of the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus: 09 September1975-1981

Part of the Milltown Park, Dublin community at the time of death.

by 1965 North American Martyrs, Auriesvile NY USA (BUF) making Tertianship

◆ Jesuits in Ireland : https://www.jesuit.ie/news/the-death-of-fr-paddy-doyle-sj/

The death of Fr Paddy Doyle SJ
Former Irish Jesuit Provincial Fr Paddy Doyle SJ died in Cherryfield in the early hours of Sunday morning. His body was in repose at Cherryfield on Tuesday Sept 16 at 2.30pm
followed by prayers at 4pm. His funeral mass will take place in Milltown Park chapel on Wed Sept 17th at 11am. As he had worked for peace on the frontiers, he crossed the final frontier peacefully. God be good to him. In sickness and in health Paddy was a man who meant a lot to the Irish Province. He was 31, a seasoned engineer, when he entered the noviceship, almost a grandfather figure for his peers. For the Jesuit students he cared for in Rathfarnham, he was a source of encouragement and affirmation, giving them a sense of warmth and freedom in their vocation. Succeeding Cecil McGarry as Provincial he showed a strongly contrasting style, but like Cecil contributed to the Province’s growth in a providential way. Paddy had negotiated first with Derry, then with Armagh, for access to the North, and he spent the rest of his active life as a brilliantly unobtrusive yet effective presence in Portadown. When he was gradually debilitated by strokes, his personality remained serene, humorous, accepting, deeply rooted in his faith. As he had worked for peace on the frontiers, he crossed the final frontier peacefully. God be good to him.

https://www.jesuit.ie/news/paddy-doyle-and-the-ise/

Paddy Doyle and the ISE
Many others besides Jesuits have felt the loss of Paddy Doyle SJ, former Irish Provincial, who passed away recently. Below is a piece from Robin Boyd, the second director of the
Irish School of Ecumenics, who offers an intriguing perspective on Paddy’s contribution to the school at a crucial stage of its development. “Slight in stature but strong in presence,” Boyd comments, “Paddy was a man of warmth and quiet friendliness, sometimes few in words, but the words were worth waiting for.”

Remembering Paddy Doyle SJ - By Robin Boyd
With the death on 14 September of Fr Patrick Doyle the Irish School of Ecumenics has lost a true friend and effective supporter. Born in Dublin in 1922, Paddy Doyle studied Physics at UCD, and became a research worker at ICI and the Research Institute; and it was not until he was thirty-two that he entered the Society of Jesus. He was ordained in 1963 and took his final vows at Milltown Park in 1974. He became Provincial of the Irish Jesuits in 1975, and was succeeded by Fr Joseph Dargan in 1980, the changeover happening at precisely the time when I entered on my term as Director of the ISE. So although he was no longer the Roman Catholic Patron of the School and President of the Academic Council by the time I assumed office, I knew that in those capacities he had played a vital part in the process whereby the School’s founder, Fr Michael Hurley, was succeeded by a Protestant, and not – as had been widely expected, not least by the Hierarchy – by a Catholic. The story is told by Michael in chapter 2 of The Irish School of Ecumenics (1970- 2007).
It was – for Paddy and Michael as well as for the School – a very tense and difficult period; but Paddy was tactful as well as fearless, and was able to pilot the School through stormy waters not only safely but successfully. For myself I am glad to relate that my relations with Archbishop Dermot Ryan were always cordial; Paddy had smoothed the way. And I think I can truly say that had it not been for Paddy Doyle I might never have come to the ISE; and that was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
Paddy was largely responsible for the establishment of Jesuit communities in the North of Ireland, first in Portadown (1980) and later in Belfast (1988). The Portadown experiment coincided with the development of the School’s Northern Ireland programme, when it first became affiliated with what was then the New University of Ulster. Paddy’s presence in Portadown was a great help and encouragement to Brian Lennon SJ and later Declan Deane SJ – who operated the Certificate programme from this base – as well as to me and other members of staff who were frequent visitors to “Iona”, the small but welcoming council house where Paddy lived.
Slight in stature but strong in presence, Paddy was a man of warmth and quiet friendliness, sometimes few in words, but the words were worth waiting for. He suffered a number of small strokes in 2002, and latterly lived at Cherryfield Lodge, where he continued to exercise a ministry of prayer. The last time I saw him, his powers of communication were sadly diminished, but his smile and the twinkle in his eye were still there. We give thanks to God for this good man.

◆ Interfuse

Interfuse No 138 : Christmas 2008

Obituary

Fr Patrick (Paddy) Doyle (1922-2008)

24th April 1922: Born in Dublin
Early education in CBS, Synge St, BSc (Phy) and MSc (Phy) at UCD.
He was employed in research work at ICI and the Research Institute before joining Society.
1st October 1954: Entered the Society at Emo
2nd October 1956: First Vows at Emo
1956 - 1959: Tullabeg - Studied Philosophy
1959 - 1960: Clongowes - Teacher (Regency)
1960 - 1964: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
31st July 1963: Ordained at Milltown Park
1964 - 1965: Tertianship at Auriesville, USA
1965 - 1967: Mungret College - Prefect of Studies
1967 - 1971: Rathfarnham- Rector, Minister of Juniors; Co-ordinator of Studies in the Province
16th November 1974: Final Vows at Milltown Park
1971 - 1974: Milltown Park - Rector, Co-ordinator of Studies in the Province; Provincial Consultor
1974 - 1980: Loyola House -
1974 - 1975: Vice-Provincial
1975 - 1980: Provincial
1980 - 1988: Portadown - Superior, Pastoral Ministry
1988 - 1994: Belfast - Superior; Directed Spiritual Exercises; Church Assistant, CLC
1992 - 1994: Tertian Director
1994 - 2002: Milltown Park - Directed Spiritual Exercises
2002 - 2008: Cherryfield Lodge - Prayed for Church and Society
14th September 2008: Died at Cherryfield

Brian Lennon Remembers taken from his Funeral Homily):
.....Paddy went to school in the Christian Brothers in Synge St, then to UCD, and then he worked in England for over 10 years as a physicist before finally joining the Society at the then ripe old age of 32. Eddie O'Donnell tells us in one of his books that Frank Browne, a famous Jesuit, was saying Mass in Beechwood Avenue Church - it is less than a mile from our chapel here in Milltown and during his sermon he said that he was now an old man and was looking for someone to take over from him as a Jesuit. So he asked any young - or not so young man who felt like responding to come and see him in the sacristy after Mass. Paddy Doyle turned up.

Paddy made an enormous contribution to the Irish Province. He spent 25 years in administration. He became Provincial in 1974-75 at the age of 52. Much of his work as Provincial was about planning, as we worked out how to respond to Vatican II. One of the ideas going the rounds was MBO (Management by Objectives). Someone came up with the idea of CFP (Concept of Forward Planning), but Paddy capped that with CRP (Concept of Retrospective Planning). That was the one that worked! It allowed Paddy to proclaim modestly “I always said that was the way things would turn out!”

Some people wondered where all the planning was going. In fact I suspect Paddy didn't know, any more than the rest of us. To me this was one of his most attractive qualities - he was an explorer, not somebody with all the answers, and he never pretended otherwise. So, I have memories of him at large meetings of Jesuits, drawing overlapping circles on the board to make some big point about organisations and I don't think he knew where it was all headed. But it didn't worry him. He trusted his instinct. And he was right. He made a real contribution to helping us to take on changes that were absolutely necessary,

He was great with younger Jesuits. I doubt very much if I myself would still be a Jesuit had it not been for the support, encouragement and challenge of Paddy. I know that is true of others who were with him when we were in Rathfarnham going to University. Before his time as superior, young Jesuits were meant never really to mix with other students in College. God knows what that could lead to. Paddy changed all that – he allowed us to do our own exploring, because he believed deeply that exploring was a large part of what human beings are about. He allowed us to grow as human beings, to test our vocations, to see where it was that God was really calling us. He opened up possibilities for us to explore. That mattered a lot.

In 1981 Paddy moved to Northern Ireland. He was the one who set up JINI (Jesuits in Northern Ireland) and during his time as Provincial he had made a major effort to open a house there. He succeeded when Cardinal O'Fiach gave us permission to open the community in Iona in Portadown. Ask any of the older people in the local estates in Portadown and they will remember “Wee Fr. Doyle”. Paddy had to deal with local Church people, with ecumenical encounters, with political difficulties and with local people, and he did all that - as far as I could see - without making enemies. I can think of the night that the police fired 135 plastic bullets into a local crowd, the night they put an Orange parade up the road having banned it a few hours beforehand, and decisions had to be made about how to respond to these and other events. On all these occasions Paddy was passionate about justice, but he was also wise. He was able to think things through, to look at the wider consequences, to recognise that no one side had all the right or all the wrong, that it was important to think about future relationships.

My biggest memory of him, though, was of him with local people. I remember going out one evening and seeing him with one man who was a great talker. Four hours later Paddy was still there, still listening, still involved, still caring.

One of the locals said to me: "You could learn from Paddy what it means to be a Christian”. They really felt his loss when he moved to start the new community in Belfast in 1988.

This was also was a difficult task for him because he had to work at getting the community accepted in the diocese and by the local clergy. There also he got involved with groups of local people, especially with CLC, which was something very dear to his heart. At the heart of community was coming together to work out what they were being called to do by the Lord.

The joint British-Irish Tertianship, which he started with Ron Darwen, was another important new venture. It helped the two Provinces to work together. It trained young Jesuits. And because there were three communities of young Jesuits, from many parts of the world, in different parts of Northern Ireland, it made an impact on local people, and helped young Jesuits to learn from them how to become Jesuits.

Paddy was always committed to ecumenical work and he was a strong supporter of the Irish School of Ecumenics.

In 1994 illness struck – a hard, harsh illness that impaired his memory, at times his ability to read, and at times his speech. It gradually got worse. Yet during that time, more than ever, he showed an extraordinary serenity. He was always able to smile at people, tell them that he hadn't a clue of their names – no change there - he had always been bad at names, and then start communicating deeply with them.

My more recent memory of Paddy was seeing him in Cherryfield where he would – with great difficulty – often end up saying something similar to what he had said many times before: “You are there, and I am here. And I am connected to you, and you are connected to me, and we are all connected with everyone in the whole world”. It didn't come out like that. The words came with groping effort, with hesitancy, but always with the serene smile. Then at the end he would say something like: “The whole thing is a mystery, a complete mystery. But it is going to be great, absolutely great - I am sure of that”.

Noel Barber Remembers (the Novice 1954-1956):
On October 194 1954 I was the first novice into the refectory after evening meditation. There was one person there at the end of the Novices' long table: a small elderly man - he turned out to be all of 32 years. It was the new novice we had been told about who had an MA in Physics and had worked in industry in England. Br. Doyle, as we got to know him, was quite unlike most of us, who had entered straight from school. However, we did have other older novices, among them Neil O'Driscoll, an army officer, but they were younger than Paddy by several years. I remember Paddy Gallagher engaging him in detailed discussions about Physics and his experience in England; another novice, long left us, questioning him endlessly on the possibility of England's conversion back to the true Faith. Paddy was affable, unassuming, gentle, with an unforced superiority that was not sought but readily conceded and taken for granted by all. Never did he show the slightest irritation at the pettiness of the novitiate regime though he must have felt it. Fortunately we had Donal O'Sullivan as Master of Novices, whose magnanimity mitigated that pettiness and would have been particularly helpful for the 'older' novices, Paddy acted from time to time as Donal's driver and this entailed days in Dublin and afternoons on the loose in the big city while the great man went about his business.

I wonder how adolescent we appeared to him and what he made of our almost unnatural seriousness. Whatever he thought, he never gave the slightest indication that he was out of sympathy with anything in the Novitiate, not even the unpredictable interventions of the Socius, Arthur Clarke. His adjustment to the boarding school regime of Emo seemed perfect. Given his subsequent history, I suspect, however, that he smiled inwardly and took some of what was on offer with a pinch of salt.

Senan Timoney Remembers (the Mungret Prefect 1965-1967):
To follow directly in another's footsteps is to get a first hand impression of so much of one's predecessor's activities. Three times in life I followed Paddy - first in 1967, after he had been Prefect of Studies in Mungret for two years, and later in Portadown in 1988 after he had pioneered the return of the Jesuits to the North, and, finally, in 1994 when he set up our house in Belfast in 1988.
Looking back I can see how much he was an agent of change. In Mungret he set about the provision of Science Laboratories and a different regime of study for senior students in their final year. In Portadown he managed to insert the Jesuit ethos in a non-threatening way among the people of all sides who didn't know what to expect; and in Belfast his task was to direct a Jesuit way of proceeding in response to a situation which combined welcome with restriction.

Paddy's gentle nature might suggest contemplation rather than activity but that was not the case. As I read the documents of GC 35 I realise how much Paddy in his relatively short Jesuit life anticipated much of their spirit – especially Decree 3 - Sent to the Frontiers.

Gerry O'Hanlon Remembers (Rathfarnham Rector 1967-1971)
I first met Paddy in 1967 when I arrived as a Junior in Rathfarnham Castle just as he took over as Rector. He was a breath of fresh air: opening all kinds of then closed doors to us in our Jesuit lives as College students (I was given permission to play rugby at UCD), but always with the kind of wisdom and prudence which avoided a populist, overly-permissive approach (I was told I could play matches on Saturdays but not go to mid week practice sessions, in case my studies suffered; a glorious period of a year playing for UCD 3rd B's followed!).

That same wisdom was available to me when I went through a long period, during my time at Rathfarnham, of wondering should I really be a Jesuit at all. About once a month, for well over a year, Paddy listened patiently, completely unfazed, suggesting various strategies for arriving at a decision. I always remember that, in the end, he suggested Easter Sunday as a deadline for decision. I duly trooped up to his office on that Easter Sunday, my heart in my boots, to tell him that I still could not make up my mind. I was afraid he would be annoyed, fed-up at my indecision and what seemed to me like the waste of all his time. Not a bit of it: he was calm, said that while deadlines can be helpful they didn't always work, better not to force, it will come...and it did, about 3 months later, when I wasn't thinking consciously about the matter at all, like an apple falling from a tree. He was such a good father-figure.

He had great intellectual curiosity and ability, without at all being an academic. His musings about Jesus Christ as Everyman, the way we are all, everywhere and from every age, linked to him, so that ultimately to know Christ is to know every man and every woman – these were not the common currency of Christology in those pre-anthropological, pre-interfaith dialogue days. Some of these musings were, if I remember correctly, written up with the help of Des O'Grady as an article for an Irish theological journal.

There was something a little unconventional, even anti establishment characteristic of Paddy's deep humanity which I found very attractive. He was a loyal Catholic and a happy Jesuit: but his obedience was always thoughtful and his belonging was never exclusive of wider interests and loyalties. A great man, a great Jesuit.

I found it touching and inspiring to meet the Paddy Doyle of Cherryfield years. Forgetful and struggling for words, he still radiated that lively curiosity and trustful serenity characteristic of the whole of his life and expressive of his deep faith.

Kennedy O'Brien Remembers (the Provincial 1975-1980):
Paddy Doyle was Provincial when I joined the Society in 1975. I met him first during the interview process. This focussed entirely on my interests, my sporting career at Coláiste Iognáid, my enjoyment of English at school, and my love of nature (including some discussion of fishing Lough Bofin, a small lake just outside Oughterard; I was delighted that Paddy could be as enthusiastic as myself about this little lake).

After the interview Paddy walked to Milltown Park with me, and having shown me to my room, handed me his key to the front door. He asked me to take particular care of this key; he had already lost one, and thought it unlikely he would be given another.

After supper at Eglinton Road later that evening, recognizing that I was no expert on the geography of south Dublin, Paddy got into his little Toyota and led the way to Kenilworth Square where I was due to have a psychological assessment. I was, needless to say, astonished by the level of personal care taken of me by the Provincial; I felt deeply respected despite my schoolboy status.

Another memory that comes to mind was Paddy's arrival at Manresa the evening that Conall O Cuinn and I took vows. It was my father who commented afterwards how impressive it was to see how Paddy, as Provincial, moved about among the other Jesuits without fuss, almost unnoticed, and very obviously a “first among equals” rather than someone who expected to be afforded special treatment in recognition of the dignity of his office.

Declan Deane Remembers (Portadown Superior 1980-1988):
I soldiered with Paddy Doyle for 7 years in Iona, Portadown. Whenever I come across Kipling's line - “(If) you can walk with kings, nor lose the common touch”, I think of Paddy Doyle. Not that we had kings crossing our threshold at Iona, but there was a constant stream of learned people from many disciplines who came to pitch their tent on the notorious Garvaghy Road. Paddy could hold his own, with a considerable degree of dogmatism, on virtually every topic from history to nuclear physics to politics to philosophy to theology. But we knew that his real delight was to sit down before the fire in our neighbours' houses, debating whether the new fireplaces were superior to the older ones or whether the “Wheaten rounds” on sale up the town were the equal of those dispensed by Jerry in the Spar. Basically, everyone in Paddy's life was treated like royalty.

Paddy had an instinctual knowledge of human nature. He knew what made people tick. Example: shortly after I arrived in Iona, a delegation of the local women showed up, presumably to vet me. I offered them tea, but they declined. I tried again and got the same response. Soon Paddy arrived and rounded on me saying, “Why did you not offer them tea?” I replied, “I did, twice”. With a twinkle in his eye he scolded me, “Did you not know you must offer three times?” Whereupon tea was served all round, and a lesson learned.

It was Paddy's extraordinary hopefulness that I now remember most. When things seemed at their bleakest in Northern Ireland, he refused to be downcast. “They'll soon have to sit down and talk, it could happen any day now”, he'd say. To me it seemed the Troubles could go on for five hundred more years. Thank God he was right, and I was wrong.

More on his hopefulness: it extended to the weather. This was a touchy point with me, who am an acute sufferer from SAD (seasonal affective disorder). But for the Irish climate, I would still be living happily in the bosom of Prov. Hib. So there was many a morning when I would greet Paddy gloomily with some comment on the frightfulness of the day. He would “Tsk, tsk” reproachfully, pull aside the curtains, draw on his cigarette and point to the sky: “I'm certain I can see a little patch of blue”. In later years when he was prostrated by his stroke, I often thought of that remark as I joined the many pilgrims to his little room in Milltown and later in Cherryfield. His good humour was indestructible, his hopefulness intact. Alone among us all, he could discern that little patch of blue and knew it would win the day. Lux eterna luceat ei.

Brian Mac Cuarta remembers (Belfast Superior 1988-1992):
It was an evening in February 1988. The scholastics were on a mid-term visit to Belfast. The house had recently opened. We were all gathered in the large lounge of the Jesuit house, overlooking the street and the waterworks, enjoying a buffet meal. Suddenly the cry went up “Some is trying to break into one of the cars!” Without a moment's hesitation, Paddy, then aged 66, rose from his chair, and moved like lightning down the stairs, and onto the street. His presence scared the culprits, and he gave chase, before returning to the gathering.

Ron Darwen Remembers (Tertian Director 1992-194):
My memories of Paddy Doyle are of a very warm and deeply spiritual human being When I think of him my mind always goes back to the community room in Brookvale where, late at night, he would be sitting chatting with Herbert Dargan, cigarette in hand pontificating on the state of play in a snooker match.

He was a man who made friends easily. I was always impressed by the many different kinds of people who came to see him and treasured his friendship. It is true that you always had to give him the leeway to take off on one of his latest scientific theories but he always came down to earth, and was willing to get stuck into the nitty-gritty of life.

I count my days in Northern Ireland among the happiest I have spent in the Society. It was Paddy who set the tone of the house, and made it feel like a home. He did not fuss. The atmosphere he helped to create was warm and friendly yet deeply spiritual. He was insistent that we met regularly for prayer and sharing every Thursday morning. We listened to one another. He always made sure that we were heard. I count it a great privilege to have worked with him as a co-tertian instructor

It was always an inspiration in his later days to visit him in Cherryfield. He would never remember my name but the smile on his face when the penny dropped made the visit worth while. Paddy Doyle, like his great friend Herbert Dargan, was a great man and an inspiring Jesuit.

Colm Lavelle remembers:
I find it fascinating looking at Paddy's curriculum vitae. Most of the tasks he was given in the Society were things for which, in spite of his years of study, he had little preparation, and into which he entered exceedingly well. His vision was not burdened by preconceptions, but carried by the spirit and respect for those around him. He was always accessible. To enter into discussion with him was always a pleasure, whether or not you agreed with him before or after. He was always an alert listener.

In spite of being by nature a philosopher, he was a great lover of people. Was he driven primarily by his love and interest in people or by his love of ideas, or by vision? Was it a capacity to see in the dark, to recognise and work for the possible, or into the future to recognise the Lord's call into the unknown? He was not afraid of uncertainty.

My memory of him in his later years in Milltown during his ill health was that there was always a quiet serenity and humour - even after his move to Cherryfield, that he was glad to be back with old familiar faces and places in Milltown. He was always a grateful patient. Just occasionally in the last weeks, he was frustrated by the feeling that he did not know where he was or what was going on - however this would not last with the help of those caring so well for him.

It was my experience that in his last months or year the old love for discussion and exploring things was as alive as ever, but that you had to fish around for a while to find what roads were still open to traffic and those that were blocked by landslides caused by his stroke or other troubles. In many ways it was a question of trying to show him the patience and respect for his current thought processes which he had always shown to others.

For those friends from Ulster and elsewhere who could not often visit him, it must have been very painful to find him so helpless. But they readily recognised that he was happy to be with them, as they were with him, and that he knew them, whether or not he could name them. He was certainly showing us all how to be ready, and how to walk forward with confidence to the Kingdom prepared for us.

Tom Layden Remembers:
I first met Paddy Doyle just before Easter 1975 in Clongowes during his visitation as provincial. I was a sixth-year student seriously thinking about entering the Society. His low key, self-effacing approach immediately put me at my ease. Though aware that I was in the company of a man who was wise and had broad life experience, I felt treated as if I was an equal.

My next meeting with him came three years later when I was trying to come to a decision about when I should actually enter the novitiate. Some friends were saying to me that I should decide to either join straight away or else give up on the idea of vocation. I did not feel comfortable in either of these options. I have a clear memory of meeting with Paddy in his office in Eglinton Road. In the course of a conversation that helped me to adopt a more relaxed approach to my situation, he made a comment about the mystery of vocation. He said to me “you never know with a vocation. It could all become clear in a year's time. Or it might take ten years”. In my case it would become clear in a year's time. But his words had the effect of giving me a sense of freedom to be led in the Lord's time. There was no pressure to decide straight away. This was enormously liberating for me at the time. And Paddy was the Provincial who admitted me to the Society when I joined in 1979.

My last sustained contact with Paddy was in the summer of 2006. The Belfast house was undergoing refurbishment and I spent most of the summer in my sister's house in Carrickmines. I got into the pattern of attending the Cherryfield Mass on a regular basis. Paddy's benign presence at the Mass and at the subsequent cup of coffee is one of the cherished memories I have from that time. There was that characteristic gentleness, lack of fuss and absence of self-preoccupation which I found refreshing. That freedom of spirit in Paddy I had first encountered in Clongowes over thirty years earlier was still there and I was greatly edified by the way in which he was able to surrender and let go of the past and simply be present to the people in Cherryfield.

Oliver Rafferty Remembers:
Over the years I spent a couple of summers at Portadown and became a member of JINI. Paddy was a considerate chairman of JINI and despite my status as a lowly scholastic he always encouraged me to have my say at meetings. I did not, however, really get to know him until I went to live in Belfast in 1988 when the house there was first opened. Paddy subsequently told me that the Irish Province had asked for me to be loaned to the Belfast house for its first years. The Irish province had produced three 'heavy weights for those early years, Paddy himself, Herbert Dargan and Finbarr Lynch and then there was me.

It was an exciting time and Paddy steered the community through those early days with a mixture of patience, latitudinarianism and steely determination. Herbert Dargan once told me that when he was tertian instructor not one of the tertians had a bad word to say about Paddy as provincial. I think he was at his best when dealing at that macro level. In day-to day decision- making, in a small house with different and competing personalities, his grasp on details was not always comprehensive. There could be flashes of temper but these quickly subsided and so far as I could tell he never held grudges and was the most tolerant and forgiving of individuals. Paddy was a kindly and compassionate man with an immense capacity to listen and was unbendingly supportive to those who had difficulties or problems of any kind.

Paddy was very much a man of faith. The search for God came naturally to him and he had an unaffected piety. He was also something of an iconoclast, in a gentle way, and attributed this to a sceptical disposition he inherited from his father. He sat lightly to what he considered the more overweening demands of ecclesiastical authority. He was, however, no rebel, either religiously or politically.

Although in no way an academic or indeed not even especially widely read, he had a genuine philosophical turn of mind. He thought deeply about people and situations and was as interested in ideas as he was in individuals. It was a sorry sight to see him in his declining years when a once vigorous mind was reduced merely to periodic recollections of personalities, situations and events.

Kennedy O'Brien Remembers:
I was privileged to experience the British-Irish Tertianship, in Belfast, under Paddy and Ron Darwen. The image comes to mind of Paddy, relaxing with his post dinner whiskey one evening, discussing the simple beauty of “chaos theory”. For him “finding God in all things” was not a lofty ideal; it was the everyday experience he shared enthusiastically with anyone who would take the time to listen.

Born: 13 May 1813, Bally Mac Quaid (Ballymacward), County Galway
Entered: 23 September 1841, Frederick, MD, USA - Mayrlandiae Province (MAR)
Final Vows: 08 September 1852
Died: 30 June 1883, Baltimore, MD, USA - Mayrlandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEN)

Part of the Georgetown College, Washington DC, USA community at the time of death

Born: 26 December 1817, Ballyragget, County Kilkenny
Entered: 07 September 1857, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Final Vows: 02 February 1868
Died: 16 May 1891, St Joseph's College, Philadelphia, PA, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 14 August 1827, Cumber Upper, Claudy, County Derry
Entered: 21 August 1852, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Final Vows: 02 February 1863
Died: 27 September 1891, Georgetown College, Washington DC, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 15 August 1791, Longfield, Omagh, County Tyrone
Entered: 30 November 1819, White Marsh, MD - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Ordained: 1825
Final Vows: 02 February 1841
Died 27 August 1863, Conewago, PA, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)

Born: 16 September 1809, Stralongford, County Donegal
Entered: 16 July 1843, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Died: 14 April 1855, St Louis College, MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Born: 31 December 1826, Cloonmore, Tuam, County Galway
Entered: 17 November 1851, St John’s, Fordham, NY, USA - Franciae Province (FRA)
Professed: 02 February 1862
Died: 02 September 1914, St Francis Hospital, New York NY, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

part of the Fordham College, New York, NY, USA community at the time of death

Born: 10 January 1822, Paulstown, County Kilkenny
Entered: 17 August 1850, St John’s, Fordham, NY, USA - Franciae Province (FRA)
Final vows: 15 August 1860
Died: 16 December 1896, Fordham College, NY, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 29 September 1815, Tuam, County Galway
Entered: 08 February 1845, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Final Vows: 15 August 1855
Died: 23 February 1896, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 25 December 1830, Strokestown, County Roscommon
Entered: 28 September 1859, Frederick, MD, USA - Marylandiae Province (MAR)
Final Vows:15 August 1870
Died: 04 September 1908, Woodstock College, MD, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)

Born: 25 December 1813, Carrickmacross, County Monaghan
Entered: 31 July 1841, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Final Vows: 25 March 1854
Died: 07 June 1866, St Mary’s, Pottowatomie, KS, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Born: 15 July 1805, Drumnakilly, County Tyrone
Entered: 09 September 1837, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Final Vows: 02 February 1848
Died: 19 December 1882, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Born: 02 May 1815, Thurles, County Tipperary
Entered: 13 February 1844, Florissant MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)
Final Vows: 15 August 1857
Died: 31 March 1883, St Louis College, St Louis, MO, USA - Missouriana Province (MIS)

Born: County Wexford
Entered: United States of America Province (USA)
Died: 04 April 1828, St Inigo’s, Maryland, USA

Born: 11 February 1930, Dublin City, County Dublin
Entered: 07 September 1948, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 31 July 1961, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1981, Milltown Park, Dublin
Died: 26 May 2006, Cherryfield Lodge, Dublin

Part of the Milltown Park, Dublin community at the time of death.

by 1978 at San Francisco CA, USA (CAL) sabbatical
by 1992 at Northridge CA, USA (CAL) working

◆ Interfuse
Interfuse No 133 : Special Issue September 2007

Obituary

Fr Andrew (Billy) Diviney (1930-2006)

February 1930: Born in Dublin
Early education at CBS, Synge Street
7th September 1948: Entered the Society at Emo
8th September 1950: First Vows at Emo
1950 - 1952: Rathfarnham - Studied Science at UCD
1952 - 1955: Tullabeg - Studied Philosophy
1955 - 1958: Clongowes - Teacher; Third Line Prefect
1958 - 1962: Milltown Park - Studied Theology
31st July 1961: Ordained at Milltown Park
1962 - 1963: Tertianship at Rathfarnham
1963 - 1977: Clongowes -
1963 - 1966: Lower Line Prefect
1966 - 1969: Minister
1969 - 1977: Teacher
1977 - 1979: San Francisco - Parish Ministry and Sabbatical
1979 - 1980: Loyola - Exec Officer of Marriage & Family Apostolate
1980 -1982: Milltown Park - Assistant to President and Treasurer
2nd February 1981: Final Vows at Milltown Park
1982 - 1983: Gonzaga - Minister; Director, Adult Education Registrar and Treasurer at Milltown Institute
1983 - 1991: Crescent College Comprehensive; Dooradoyle - Teacher
1991 - 2004: California - Our Lady of Lourdes, Northridge, Pastoral Assistant
2004 - 2006: Milltown Park - Praying for Church and Society
26th May 2006: Died in Cherryfield, Dublin

Liam O'Connell writes:
Andrew Diviney was born the third child of six, Michael, Angie, Billy, Margo, Ted and David. Nobody is exactly sure why Andrew ended up being called Billy, but as a young person that name stuck with him in his family and among his friends.

A picture of his parents was always prominent in Billy's room. His family were very important to him, and his strong affection for them extended to his nieces and nephews. He in turn was important to his family, and they loved the attentive, joyful and personal way he celebrated their weddings and religious profession and baptisms. When Billy's niece, Helen, entered religious life, Billy gave her a copy of the Imitation of Christ, with a passage from Philippians inscribed on the front page. This passage was chosen for his funeral Mass and is a reminder of what was important to him in religious life.

Billy went to school in Synge Street, where he was in the scholarship class. He was twice the Leinster Schools 100 yards champion, and won the Lord Mayor trophy for athletics. He enjoyed school and always spoke of his Christian Brother teachers with admiration and great affection. He used to say that they were Great Men.

When Billy joined the Society in 1948 in Emo, he was a member of a large year of 22 other novices. His contemporaries include Joe Brennan, Joe Cleary, Tom Morrissey, Conla O Dulaine and Frank O'Neill. Two others, Jimmy McPolin and Joe Shields died recently. Billy was a gentle and popular member of the group, and an outstanding soccer player. His contemporaries noted his lifelong gift for enjoying good company and appreciating other people.

In Mark's Gospel, when Jesus is baptised, we hear the Father taking delight in Him as He says, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased”. Delight and enjoyment and love are at the heart of God. Billy had this divine gift, the ability to delight in other people, and to enjoy and relish what others might have been too hurried to appreciate.

After studies at Rathfarnham and Tullabeg, Billy went to work for three years in Clongowes, and for two of these years he was the Third Line Prefect, in charge of the first and second year students. He still has good friends from these years. Billy then resumed his studies in Milltown, and, after ordination and tertianship, he returned to Clongowes in 1963, first as Lower Line Prefect and Minister, and then as a teacher of Mathematics and Religion. In religion class he taught the Papal social encyclicals, because he. believed that they were revolutionary and liberating, and his teaching method was based on the asking of questions and the querying of the students' assumptions. These classes often produced heat as well as light.

Life in large communities produced its own tensions, and Billy was one of those who oiled the wheels of community life at Clongowes. He turned the annual holiday, the community villa, from being an ordeal into a pleasure for his colleagues. A close Jesuit friend from these years says that Billy regularly took on difficult and unpleasant work, and this friend admired him for his lifelong faithfulness and integrity.

Many people only learn to identify the “good old days” years later and while looking backwards. They end up saying. Those were the good old days, 20 or 30 years ago, and we did not realise it. But this was not so for Billy. He had a great capacity to enjoy small things and his enjoyment was infectious. He took delight in people, and he knew at the time, that these were the good old days. Past students from Clongowes and Crescent remember these qualities of delight and enjoyment and encouragement. While in Clongowes, Billy would go on Saturday afternoons to the races with his elderly father, and this was important to both of them.

Billy was concerned for people who put themselves under undue pressure. I can remember him in Clongowes calming people down who were upset and overwrought, with an extended hand and the word Easy said in a soothing tone. He worried about those whom he described as Driven. He admired people with balance in their lives, and a word of great praise from him was when he described someone as Poised.

During a sabbatical year in San Francisco, Billy studied psychology, which he found personally enriching. On his return to Ireland he worked for a time with marriage counsellors and those involved in parenting courses. He organised a significant Irish visit by the well-known author and counsellor Jack Dominian. At this time he also taught religious knowledge to seniors at Belvedere.

Next he worked for a period as Registrar in the Milltown Institute. In 1983, when he was 53, he returned to teaching, at Crescent College Comprehensive in Limerick. Today people think of retiring from teaching at this stage of their lives, but Billy enjoyed his return to the classroom and was great company in the staff room, where he made many strong and lasting friendships, and these friends still quote his sayings.

During summer holidays Billy had ministered in parishes in the Los Angeles diocese, and when he retired from teaching he worked for 13 years in Our Lady of Lourdes parish in Northridge, California. These were great years, or as he would say himself 'marvellous years'. He treasured his priesthood, and he enjoyed the reading and work he put into preparing his homilies. He was happy to release his fellow priests by saying the Sunday evening Mass. Billy was loved and appreciated and the parishioners were able to express their gratitude to him in 2001 when Fr. Peter Moran and the parishioners celebrated in style the 40th anniversary of his ordination

In his 60's, Billy took up golf and played with Roddy Guerrini in a four-ball every Tuesday at Elkins Ranch, north of Los Angeles. It should not have been a surprise that the athletics champion developed an effective swing and a tidy golf game. But in golf, too, he never became a fanatic. Just as he never needed to be told that these were “the good old days”, Billy did not need to be told as a golfer to smell the flowers. At golf he enjoyed all of the small things, and he delighted in the company of his friends.

When Billy returned to Milltown fourteen months before his death, he faced serious health problems. The support of his own family was important to him at this time. In the last four years, Billy and his family had to cope with the death of four of his own brothers and sisters, and David is the sole surviving family member. Billy did not speak often about the things that were most important to him, but those who lived with him knew that he was strong and serene and happy as he prepared for the final journey, on Slí na Firine.

Billy died close to the feast of the Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, when heaven and earth are brought close together. We trust that the delight that Billy took in living, the delight that he took in his friends, and the delight he took in simple pleasures, will increase and flourish. We trust the God of Surprises to surprise him when Andrew Billy Diviney learns the length and breath and depth and height of the delight that God takes in his beloved son.

◆ The Clongownian, 2007
Obituary
Father Andrew (Billy) Diviney SJ

Andrew Diviney was born in Dublin on the 11th February 1930; he was the third child of six. Nobody is exactly sure why Andrew ended up being called Billy, but as a young person that name stuck with him in his family and among his friends. A picture of his parents was always prominent in Billy's room. His family were very important to him, and his strong affection for them extended to his nieces and nephews. He in Turn was important to his family, and they loved the attentive, joyful and personal way he celebrated their weddings and religious profession and baptisms. When Billy's niece, Helen, entered religious life. Billy gave her a copy of the Imitation of Christ, with a passage from Philippians inscribed on the front page. This passage was chosen for his funeral Mass and is a reminder of what was important to him in religious life.

Billy went to school in Synge Street CBS, where he was in the scholarship class. He was twice the Leinster Schools 100 yards champion, and won the Lord Mayor trophy for athletics. He enjoyed school and always spoke of his Christian Brother teachers with admiration and great affection. When Billy joined the Society in 1948 in Emo, he was a member of a large year of 22 other novices. His contemporaries include Joe Brennan, Joe Cleary, Tom Morrissey, Conla Ó Dúlaine and Frank O'Neill. Two others. Jimmy McPolin and Joe Shiels died recently. Billy was a gentle and popular member of the group, and an outstanding soccer player. His contemporaries noted his lifelong gift for enjoying good company and appreciating other people. In Mark's Gospel, when Jesus is baptised, we hear the Father taking delight in Him as He says, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased”. Delight and enjoyment and love are at the heart of God. Billy had this divine gift, the ability to delight in other people, and to enjoy and relish what others might have been too hurried to appreciate.

After studies at Rathfarnham and Tullabeg, Billy went to work for three years in Clongowes, and for two of these years he was the Third Line Prefect in charge of the first and second year students. He still has good friends from these years. Billy then resumed his studies in Milltown and, after ordination and tertianship, he returned to Clongowes in 1963 first as Lower Line Prefect and Minister, and then as a teacher of Mathematics and Religion. In religion class he taught the Papal social encyclicals because he believed that they were revolutionary and liberating, and his teaching method was based on the asking of questions and the querying of the students' assumptions. These classes often produced heat as well as light. Life in large communities produced its own tensions, and Billy was one of those who oiled the wheels of community life at Clongowes. He turned the annual holiday, the community villa from being an ordeal into a pleasure for his colleagues. A close Jesuit friend from these years says that Billy regularly took on difficult and unpleasant work, and this friend admired him for his lifelong faithfulness and integrity.

Many people only learn to identify the 'good old days' years later and while looking backwards. They end up saying those were the good old days, 20 or 30 years ago, and we did not realise it. But this was not so for Billy. He had a great capacity to enjoy small things and his enjoyment was infectious. He took delight in people, and he knew at the time that these were the good old days. Past students from Clongowes and Crescent remember these qualities of delight and enjoyment and encouragement. While in Clongowes. Billy would go on Saturday afternoons to the races with his elderly father, and this was important to both of them. Billy was concerned for people who put themselves under undue pressure. I can remember him in Clongowes calming people down who were upset and overwrought, with an extended hand and the word 'easy said in a soothing tone. He worried about those whom he described as “driven”. He admired people with balance in their lives, and a word of great praise from him was when he described someone as “poised”.

During a sabbatical year in San Francisco, Billy studied psychology, which he found personally enriching. On his return to Ireland he worked for a time with marriage counsellors and those involved in parenting courses. He organised a significant Irish visit by the well-known author and counsellor Jack Dominian. At this time he also caught religious knowledge to seniors at Belvedere. Next he worked for a period as Registrar in the Milltown Institute. In 1983, when he was 53, he returned to teaching, at Crescent College Comprehensive in Limerick. Today people think of retiring from teaching at this stage of their lives, but Billy enjoyed his return to the classroom and was great company in the staff room, where he made many strong and lasting friendships, and these friends still quote his sayings.

During summer holidays Billy had ministered in parishes in the Los Angeles diocese, and when he retired from teaching he worked for 13 years in Our Lady of Lourdes parish in Northridge, California. These were great years, or as he would say himself ‘marvellous years'. He treasured his priesthood, and he enjoyed the reading and work he put into preparing his homilies. He was happy to release his fellow priests by saying the Sunday evening Mass. Billy was loved and appreciated and the parishioners were able to express their gratitude to him in 2001 when Fr Peter Moran and the parishioners celebrated in style the 40th anniversary of his ordination. In his 60's, Billy took up golf and played with Roddy Guerrini in a four ball every Tuesday at Elkins Ranch, north of Los Angeles. It should not have been a surprise that the athletics champion developed an effective swing and a tidy golf game. But in golf, too, he never became a fanatic. Just as he never needed to be told that these were “the good old days”, Billy did not need to be told as a golfer to smell the flowers. At golf he enjoyed all of the small things, and he delighted in the company of his friends.

When Billy returned to Milltown fourteen months before his death, he faced serious health problems. The support of his own family was important to him at this time. In the last four years, Billy and his family had to cope with the death of four of his own brothers and sisters, and David is the sole surviving family member. Billy did not speak often about the things that were most important to him, but those who lived with him knew that he was strong and serene and happy as he prepared for the final journey, on Slí na Firine. Billy died close to the feast of the Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, when heaven and earth are brought close together. We trust that the delight that Billy took in living, the delight that he took in his friends,

Born: 03 February 1878, Mullingar, County Westmeath
Entered: 14 August 1895, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 28 July 1912, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 02 February 1913, Clongowes Wood College SJ
Died: 02 February 1955, Coláiste Iognáid, Galway

Early education at Clongowes Wood College SJ

by 1900 at St Aloysius, Jersey Channel Islands (FRA) studying
by 1912 at St Andrew on Hudson, Hyde Park NY, USA (NEB) making Tertianship

◆ Irish Province News 30th Year No 2 1955 & ◆ The Clongownian, 1955

Obituary :
Father Robert Dillon Kelly
When Fr. Dillon Kelly died early in the morning of February 2nd, a long and faithful life came quietly to a close. He had just completed his seventy seventh year. The eldest of a family of four brothers, he was born on February 3rd, 1878 in Mullingar, where his father, Dr. Joseph Dillon Kelly, had an extensive practice. He was at school in Belvedere when still quite young, and later went to Clongowes. On August 14th, 1895 he entered the noviceship and had as companions Fr. Finucane and Fr. Barragry, who this year will celebrate their Diamond Jubilee.
When in Belvedere he was taught for some time by Fr. Richard Campbell, and on one occasion missed the memory lesson. Fr. Campbell : “Robert what happens to the little bird that can sing and won't sing?". Robert : “I don't know, Sir”. Fr. Campbell : “It must be made sing!” However, the lesson may have been impressed on him, and most of us can guess, there is little doubt that Robert learned it then once and for all. During all his life as a Jesuit, anything that he was given to do he did faithfully and well. One who was his friend from the noviceship days writes : “We were in the Noviceship together. He found it hard, more than most novices, but bravely went through, It was the same in the Juniorate. He found the studies hard, but kept on doggedly”. So it was through life. Whatever the work, he gave himself to it wholeheartedly and demanded a high standard of achievement both from himself and from others. Affectionate by nature, loyal and sincere, he made many friends and those who needed a helping hand knew the value of his friendship, for he spared no trouble to assist them in their difficulties. In Limerick, where he spent twenty-nine years of his life as a priest, to the many generations who passed through his hands in the School, the Choir, and the Dramatic Societies, he was always and everywhere “D.K.” It was a simple and spontaneous expression of their affection for him. When he would rise to speak at the Ignatian Dinner, his welcome was tumultuous.
Through the long years he spent in the Crescent he filled many duties. He was games-master when he came first in 1914; then and for many years afterwards teacher in the School; later a wise and selfless confessor in the Church. In all he was the same, keen, alert, devoted to his job. But I think he will be best remembered there for his work with the Choir and the Dramatic Societies. From 1914 till he left for Galway in 1943 he was in charge of the Choir, and none will dispute the excellence of his achievement. Perfection was the only standard he accepted, and he did not rest till he obtained it. Early in 1916 lie produced his first play, The Pope in Killybuck, with the boys of the School ; and those who took part in it learned then and, I should say, have never forgotten what good acting and good production mean. A born actor himself, he knew what he wanted from each one, and no detail of gesture or movement or tone of voice was too small to be insisted on. A friend of his writes : “I have seen plays produced by many, but none with the perfection of his”. Year after year, from then on, he produced many plays, both with the boys and with the Dramatic Societies attached to the Crescent. David Garrick and Little Lord Fauntleroy stand out in memory, but perhaps his greatest triumph was The Greek Slave. A new organ was badly needed in the Church but there was no money to pay for it. Fr. Dillon Kelly got permission to do what he could to raise funds. He produced The Greek Slave. It was played to packed houses for a fortnight in the Theatre Royal, and when it was finished he had the money for the new organ, In his last years he would still talk lovingly about that organ. He knew every pipe and stop and piece of timber that went into it.
In 1943 Fr. Dillon Kelly left Limerick for Galway. He was sixty-five, but his health was already beginning to fail. The story of his years in Galway is one of slow but steady decline, with many long spells of serious illness. To one who had always been busy and active the tedium of those years must have been trying indeed. Yet he did not complain. Quietly he adapted himself to his growing weakness. As the years went on he came to live more and more in the past, and loved to dwell on memories of early holidays in Galway as a boy, of Villas with the giants of the past, and of the many happy fishing days in Waterville. With the approach of Summer, memory often became too strong for him, and he would be stirred into making plans for yet one more excursion with rod and line in the old familiar haunts. The spirit was eager, but the tired body was unable to respond. He could but cast his line over the quiet waters of his dreams.
And so slowly, very slowly, came the end. St. James says “patience has a perfect work”, and I think it was in the patient, uncomplaining acceptance of his weakness that the true quality of Fr. Dillon Kelly was revealed. Quick tempered and often superficially impatient of minor annoyances, there was in him a dignity and a nobility of character that shone bright in his declining years. His touching, almost childlike, gratitude for some little act or word of kindness showed a delicacy and depth of feeling unsuspected by many who did not know him well. Of someone it has been said that nothing in his life became him like the leaving of it. I venture to say that nothing in the long life of Fr. Dillon Kelly became him more nobly than his patience in the years when he was failing He had been hoping that Our Lady would come for him on her Feast Day, and she did not disappoint him. May he rest with her in peace.

◆ James B Stephenson SJ Menologies 1973

Father Robert Dillon-Kelly SJ 1878-1955
It is the lot of some Jesuits, rare indeed, to be associated with one house or activity for most if their lives. Fr Dillon-Kelly was one of these. He spent 29 years in the Crescent and, to this day, his name is remembered and his memory affectionately recalled as “DK”.

Born in Mullingar in 1878, he was educated at Belvedere and Clongowes. 1914-193 in the Crescent he was in turn, Prefect of games, teacher and operarius. But his main work was with the choir and Dramatic Society. As a producer, it is no exaggeration to say that he would rank with the leading producers in the world. His greatest triumph was “The Greek Slave” which ran to packed houses, and earned enough money to pay for the new organ in the Church. His declining years were painful in their inactivity and illness were spent in Galway, 1943-1955.

He was a great character. Quick-tempered and superficially impatient of petty annoyances, there was in him a dignity and quality of character which shone bright in his latter years. His greatness of heart which went into all his activities, and not least into his personal religious life. He loved Our Lady and she took him as she wished, on her own Feast Day, February 2nd 1955.

◆ The Belvederian, Dublin, 1955

Obituary

Father Robert Dillon-Kelly SJ

Father Robert Dillon-Kelly SJ, whose death at St Ignatius' College, Galway, is announced, was son of the late Dr Joseph Dillon-Kelly. Bom at Mullingar in 1878, he was educated at Belvedere and Clongowes Wood Colleges and entered the Society of Jesus at St Stanislaus' College, Tullamore, in 1895.

He studied Philosophy at Jersey, Channel Isles, for three years and taught for six years at Mungret and Belvedere Colleges before going to Milltown Park, Dublin, for his theological course.

He was ordained priest in 1912 by the Most Rev Dr Donnelly, Bishop of Canea and Auxiliary of Dublin, and completed his training at St Andrew's on-Hudson, Poughskeepie, USA.

In 1914 Father Dillon-Kelly began his long and notable association with the Sacred Heart Church and College, Limerick. Himself a talented musician, he brought the church choir to a high pitch of perfection and was also most successful in dramatic productions both by the boys of the college and by amateur societies in the city,

In 1943 he was transferred to St Ignatius, Galway, where he worked in the church as long as failing health permitted.

◆ The Crescent : Limerick Jesuit Centenary Record 1859-1959

Bonum Certamen ... A Biographical Index of Former Members of the Limerick Jesuit Commnnity

Father Robert Dillon-Kelly (1878-1955)

Of an old Mullingar family, had received his early education at Belvedere and Clongowes when he entered the Society in 1895. He pursued his higher studies at the French scholasticate-in-exile at Jersey and Milltown Park where he was ordained in 1911. He made his tertianship in the USA, and on his return to Ireland was appointed prefect at Clongowes. After two years there, he entered on his long association with Sacred Heart College in 1914 and remained in Limerick for the ensuing twenty-nine years. His first contact with Limerick, however, had been much earlier, when he spent the first year of his regency at Mungret College, 1902-03. Throughout his long years at the Crescent, Father Dillon Kelly gave splendid service to Limerick and the Society. As a master of English or French, he imparted enthusiasm for the subject to his pupils. He helped his pupils to realise the impor tance of correct diction and clarity of expression, and did much to illustrate and implement his teaching on these matters in the debating societies and dramatics. His other notable work for the Crescent was his mastership of the church choir. He gave unsparingly of his time to voice training and the results of his labour soon became evident in the beauty and solemnity of the music of the Benediction services and of the Solemn Masses at Sacred Heart Church.

By the early 1940's, Father Dillon Kelly's health was visibly failing, His physique had never been robust and he was no longer able for the strenuous work attaching to his duties. So, he was transferred to St Ignatius', Galway where his work was less onerous but carried out with the same loyalty and fidelity as in former days.

Born: 13 November 1918, Cleveland OH, USA
Entered: 01 September 1938, Milford OH, USA - Chicagensis Province (CHG)
Ordained: 13 June 1951
Final vows: 02 February 1956
Died: 14 May 2000, Clarkston MI, USA - Detroitensis Province (DET)

by 1971 came to Leeson St (HIB) working

Born: 22 May 1891, Bailieborough, County Cavan / Birr County Offaly
Entered: 15 October 1910, St Stanislaus College, Tullabeg, County Offaly
Ordained: 30 June 1924, Montreal, Canada
Final vows: 02 February 1928
Died: 19 June 1966, Spring Hill College, Mobile, AL, USA - Neo-Aurelianensis Province (NOR)

Transcribed HIB to NOR : 1911

◆ The Mungret Annual, 1967

Obituary

Father John Deignan SJ

Very Rev John V Deignan died in June, 1966, at Springhill College, Mobile, Alabama. He was aged 75.

Fr Deignan was a native of Birr, Co. Offaly. Educated at the Presentation Brothers' School, Birr, and at Mungret College Limerick, he entered the Society of Jesus at Tullabeg, Offaly, in 1911; and the following year he joined the American Province of the Order. He was ordained in 1924.

Fr Deignan was for some years on mission work in St Joseph's Church, Bronx, New York, and on retreat ministry at Newark, New Jersey, but he spent most of his life at Springhill College, Mobile, Alabama.

He established the faculty of Science at Springhill College, and was Dean of the Faculty for many years. He was a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the American Chemical Society and of the Association of Chemical Education.

Fr. Deignan celebrated his Golden Jubilee as a Jesuit în 1961. His last visit to Ireland was in that year.

He was brother of the late Rev Francis Deignan, Pastor of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, USA, of Sister Mary Imelda, Convent of Mercy, Swinford, Co Mayo, and of Mrs Lillian Mary Buckley. To all his surviving relatives we extend our sympathy. May he rest in peace.

Born: 14 May 1942, Bunnacurry, Achill, County Mayo
Entered: 07 September 1959, St Mary's, Emo, County Laois
Ordained: 23 June 1972, Milltown Park, Dublin
Final Vows: 25 April 1985, Iona, Portadown, County Down
Died: 12 December, 2010, Christ the King Church in Pleasant Hill, CA, USA (Oakland Diocese)

Left Society of Jesus: 1999

Educated at Mungret College SJ

by 1965 at Chantilly France (GAL S) studying
by 1974 at Cambridge MA, USA (NEB) working
by 1975 at Berkeley CA, USA (CAL) studying
by 1981 at Oakland CA, USA (CAL) making Tertianship
by 1993 at San Ramon CA, USA (CAL) working
by 1996 at Fremont CA, USA (CAL) working
by 1996 at Moraga CA, USA (CAL) working

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/teacher-of-ecumenics-and-pastoral-worker-in-north-1.588845

Teacher of ecumenics and pastoral worker in North

FR DECLAN Deane, who has died aged 68, was best known in Ireland for his work as a teacher at the Irish Schol of Ecumenics

FR DECLAN DEANE:FR DECLAN Deane, who has died aged 68, was best known in Ireland for his work as a teacher at the Irish School of Ecumenics and his pastoral work with the Jesuit community in Portadown, near the Garvaghy Road.

Director of the school’s Northern Ireland programme, he believed that as far as a church followed the example of Jesus, it was a distinctly Christian church. It was Christian when it refused to acquiesce in the boundaries imposed by a politically segregated society but took a lead in breaking through them.

In 1983, he urged Catholic clergy and people to take the lead in crossing the boundaries as they had greater freedom to do so.

A strong critic of paramilitary violence and its apologists, he nevertheless signed a letter of protest against strip-searching in Northern Ireland’s prisons. Likewise, he was, in 1988, a signatory to a letter deploring the British government’s decision to conceal the findings of a report into the killings of six unarmed men in 1982.

His talents were multiple and often unexpected – a national champion at Scrabble, a passionate observer of horse racing and a prodigious memory for cards – so much so that he was banned from some tables in Las Vagas.

Declan Deane was born in Dublin in 1942 but grew up on Achill Island and was educated at Mungret College, Limerick. He began his two-year novitiate in 1959. He then went to UCD after which he studied philosophy at Chantilly near Paris and theology at Milltown Park, Dubin, where he was ordained in 1972.

After ordination he became one of the first students at the recently-established School of Ecumenics, and graduated in 1973 with the Hull University postgraduate degree of B.Phil. He pursued doctoral studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Berkeley, California.

During this time he developed a special interest in the ecumenical theology of the French Jesuit theologian, Henri de Lubac (later to be made a cardinal), with particular reference to his understanding of Buddhism.

In 1980 he was appointed lecturer in continuing education at the School of Ecumenics and for most of the 1980s taught in the school’s certificate course of the then New University of Ulster.

He lived as a member of the Jesuit community in the Garvaghy estate in Portadown. Very popular as a teacher and as a priest, he enjoyed the friendship of Catholics and Protestants, nationalists and unionists.

In 1989 he moved to Dublin where he did youth retreat work.However, in search of more theological freedom than he felt in Ireland (he was always a strong advocate of women priests), he moved to California in 1992. Later he formally left the Jesuits to become a diocesan priest in the diocese of Oakland, California.

He enjoyed pastoral work and was popular with all his parishioners. He is remembered for his dry sense of humour, thought-provoking homilies and easy-going manner. He was most recently attached to Christ the King Church, Pleasant Hill, California.

https://gladysganiel.com/irish-catholic-church/in-memory-of-fr-declan-deane/

In Memory of Fr Declan Deane

Fr Declan Deane, a former lecturer and student at the Irish School of Ecumenics, passed away this week of cancer. Fr Deane was serving at Christ the King Church in Pleasant Hill, California.

A native of Dublin, he grew up on Achill Island and was ordained a Jesuit in 1972. He was one of the first students to enrol on the Irish School of Ecumenics’ programme in Dublin. During the 1980s he lived as a Jesuit in Portadown and taught on the Irish School of Ecumenics’ Adult Education course in Northern Ireland.

Fr Deane immigrated to the US in 1992 and worked in five parishes before his death. A memorial on the Christ the King webpage describes him this way:

Despite his struggle with esophageal cancer, despite his being first on chemo and then a seven month hospice patient, Declan steadily did more and more rather than less and less. He continued to take his turn at weekly confessions; he returned to weekday masses especially with our school children, including the classroom preparation that went with that. Just a few short days before his death, he preached at all six weekend masses, concelebrated three and was outside greeting and visiting with parishioners for all the masses. To that he added the Monday morning mass and two days with visits to school and classrooms. To those who advised him to slow down and do less, his response was , “that is the way I want to be remembered” and “when I promise I’m going to do something and be somewhere, I always do it”.

I never met Fr Deane. But I can appreciate the energy and dedication that he must have exhibited in helping to get the ISE’s Northern Irish work off the ground. He is remembered fondly by many colleagues and former students.

https://jesuit.ie/news/parting-from-declan-2/ December 21, 2010

Parting from Declan

Declan Deane, who died in California on 12 December, had been an Irish Jesuit for over thirty years, before joining the diocese of Oakland. He is remembered with deep affection and regard by many friends, especially in N.Ireland, where he worked with the Irish School of Ecumenics. His talents were multiple, often unexpected: a national champion at Scrabble, a passionate observer of horses, a prodigious memory for cards at the gaming tables of Las Vegas, such that the bankers had him banned. But above all he was a priest, who during his struggle with esophageal cancer took on more and more ministry. A few days before his death he preached at all six weekend Masses, concelebrated three, heard confessions and greeted the parishioners at the door. His funeral was a huge and emotional occasion, as Donal Godfrey SJ reports:

Last Thursday I represented the Society at the Mass of Christian burial for Declan Deane. The Church of Christ the King in Pleasant Hill, where Declan had most recently served, was packed with two bishops, priests, and so many friends from the parishes where Declan had served. The homilist, Fr. Gerrry Moran in the Oakland Diocese and like Declan from Achill island, spoke of the life of Declan in very moving terms. We heard how at first Declan had objected to working with Gerry as pastor but eventually they became close friends. The homily was interrupted with applause on a number of occasions. The Bishop Emeritus, John Cummins, spoke of the wonderful Jesuit formation Declan had received, quoted Pedro Arrupe in connecting Declan’s strong social conscience and his gift of bringing contemporary theology alive to a wider audience. Declan’s brother John came from Ireland and told us how he had sent a card to Declan with a Christmas poem written especially for him that he discovered unopened in his room. John ended his words with the poem. Afterwards the parish held a wonderful reception and then we went to the Holy Angels Cemetery where Declan had told the pastor that he was very happy to be buried next to Frank Houdek, SJ, the man who had “saved him” when he went into recovery as an alchololic. On another note -we have been having wave after wave of rain storms, however for Declan’s funeral it was a sunny mild day. Declan must have arranged that for us as he always loved the sun! Ar dheis De go rabh a ainm dhilis.

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/eastbaytimes/name/declan-deane-obituary?id=32867038 Published by Inside Bay Area on Dec. 15, 2010.

Declan Deane Obituary

Father Declan A. Deane May 14, 1942 ~ Dec. 12, 2010 Pleasant Hill, CA Declan was born in Dublin, Ireland and grew up on Achill Island on the west coast of Ireland. He was ordained as a priest into the Jesuit Order in Dublin in 1972. In his early years of priesthood he devoted his time to issues of faith and justice, including working for peace with Protestants and Catholics during the troubles in Northern Ireland. He also ministered to those in prisons and to those with AIDS. Called to parish ministry, he immigrated to the US and settled in the Diocese of Oakland. His first assignment began in 1992. He served as Associate Pastor in five parishes; St. Joan of Arc, Holy Spirit, St. Monica, All Saints, and most recently Christ the King. He quickly endeared himself to his parishioners and became a much loved, admired and respected priest in every community. People enjoyed his dry sense of humor, the thought-pro-voking depth of his homilies and his easygoing approachable manner. Being a good friend and inclusive to all was important to Declan. When not engaged in ministry Declan made sure to enjoy life. He was a scrabble champ in Ireland, Northern Ireland and England, an avid sports fan and very fond of the horses. He took one day at a time. He is survived by his sister Patricia; brothers John (Ursula) and Raymond (Renate); and nieces and cousins. There will be a parish Mass on Wednesday, December 15 at 11:00am followed by viewing and visitation from 12:00 noon to 7:30pm; Vigil Service at 7:30pm. The Funeral Mass will be at 10:30am on Thursday, December 16, with interment at Queen of Heaven Cemetery at 1:30pm. All services will be at Christ the King Catholic Church, 199 Brandon Road, Pleasant Hill. CA.

Interfuse No 144 : Spring 2011

Obituary

Declan Deane (1942-2010) : former Jesuit

Declan Deane, who has died in California, had been an Irish Jesuit for over thirty years before joining the diocese of Oakland. He is remembered with deep affection and regard by many friends. One measure of this affection; during his final sickness he received 28,000 emails and other messages of support from those who had known and loved him. His talents were multiple, often unexpected: a national champion at Scrabble, a passionate observer of horses, a prodigious memory for cards at the gaming tables of Las Vegas, such that the bankers had him banned. But above all he was a priest, who during his struggle with oesophageal cancer took on more and more ministry. A few days before his death he preached at all six weekend Masses, concelebrated three, heard confessions and greeted the parishioners at the door.

Born in Achill and schooled in Mungret College, where he was elected Head of School in his final year, Declan Deane entered the Jesuits in 1959. He earned a BA in UCD studied philosophy at Chantilly near Paris, and theology at Milltown Park, Dublin where he was ordained priest in 1972. After ordination he did a B.Phil. at the Irish School of Ecumenics (ISE) and doctoral studies in Cambridge, USA, and in Berkeley, California. In these years he developed a special interest in the ecumenical theology of the French Jesuit theologian, Henri de Lubac with particular reference to his understanding of Buddhism. Sadly he never finished his doctoral dissertation, largely because of the disease of alcoholism with which he eventually came to terms.

In Ireland at least Declan was probably best known for his teaching work in the Irish School of Ecumenics (ISE) and his pastoral work in the Jesuit community in Portadown, near the controversial Garvaghy Road. He lived there for most of the 80's, longer than anywhere else, and greatly endeared himself to his students and to the local people, Protestant and Catholic, Nationalist and Unionist. The troubles were then far from over. Despite the troubles, perhaps because of them, he became popular as a teacher and as a priest.

Hoping however for more theological freedom than he felt he enjoyed in Ireland (he was always a strong advocate of women priests) he moved in 1992 to California for parish work. Later in the decade he formally left the Jesuits to join the diocese of Oakland, California. Happily however he always remained in the best of relations with his former Jesuit colleagues and with his lay friends, some of whom flew over to say goodbye to him before he died. We now deeply mourn his early, but sadly not unexpected, death from cancer on 12 December 2010.

His funeral was a huge and emotional occasion, as Donal Godfrey reports: “Last Thursday I represented the Society at the Mass of Christian burial for Declan Deane. The Church of Christ the King in Pleasant Hill, where Declan had most recently served, was packed with two bishops, priests, and so many friends from the parishes where Declan had served. The homilist, Fr. Gerry Moran in the Oakland Diocese and like Declan from Achill island, spoke of the life of Declan in very moving terms. We heard how at first Declan had objected to working with Gerry as pastor but eventually they became close friends. The homily was interrupted with applause on a number of occasions. The Bishop Emeritus, John Cummins, spoke of the wonderful Jesuit formation Declan had received, and quoted Pedro Arrupe in connecting Declan's strong social conscience and his gift of bringing contemporary theology alive to a wider audience. Declan's brother John came from Ireland and told us how he had sent a card to Declan with a Christmas poem written especially for him that he discovered unopened in his room. John ended his words with the poem. Afterwards the parish held a wonderful reception and then we went to the Holy Angels Cemetery where Declan had told the pastor that he was very happy to be buried next to Frank Houdek, SJ, the man who had ‘saved him’ when he went into recovery as an alchololic. On another note - we have been having wave after wave of rain storms, however for Declan's funeral it was a sunny mild day. Declan must have arranged that for us as he always loved the sun! Ár dheis De go rabh a ainm dhilis”.

Robin Boyd of the ISE wrote about Declan:
Declan Deane was a remarkable man, and a dear colleague and friend. He and I shared a birthday – he was exactly twenty years younger than me - and on one memorable occasion we were able to celebrate it together, at an ecumenical clergy conference at Corrymeeala when we shared - and even cut together - a specially made birthday cake.

He took up his duties in charge of the ISE's Northern Ireland programme in 1981, and it was mainly in the North that we saw each other. It was always a delight to visit that small Jesuit community at Iona, a council house in Portadown, with its memories of Paddy Doyle, Brian Lennon, and a host of unexpected visiting trail-blazers from all the Irish Church traditions. For Declan had friends everywhere. I remember one occasion when he came with me to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. And as we milled around in the clergy-crowded corridor there were delighted and unexpected meetings with Declan's friends among the thronging ministers and elders: I remember especially his happy reunion with Ruth Patterson (the first woman to be ordained as a minister of Word and sacrament in the Irish Presbyterian Church), and Bert Tosh (now senior producer of religious programmes in the BBC, Northern Ireland). Warm, modest to the point of shyness, amusing, and devastatingly honest, he firmly established the ISE's Northern programme in its three main bases of Belfast, Derry and Benburb, making friends wherever he went.

We had many adventures together. One dark night, driving North through Omagh and Strabane, Declan said, “There's a convent I know near here. Let's call on the sisters”. Despite my protest that it was too late, we arrived at the convent and rang the bell. We rang again, and there was no reply. I said, “You see what I mean!” and we drove on. Next day, at our conference, we met one of the sisters, and apologized for ringing their door bell so late. “Och, we were all watching the football” was the answer; Declan knew them better than I did.

On one occasion we did a fund-raising tour in Germany together, staying with German friends of mine in Remscheid, where he quickly made himself at home. The “Tour de France” happened to be going on, and we discovered that Declan was a devotee of the “maillot jaune”. He was also, as befitted a member of a distinguished literary family, a devotee of letters - and numbers. This devotion took a peculiar form: he was fascinated by German car numbers, and quickly worked out their literary and numerical basis, so that before long he could identify the place of origin of every car in the land. “Why?" I asked. “Well, I look forward to the day when I'm at home in Achill, and I see a German car with the family sitting having a picnic, and I'll go up to them and say, “How is everybody in Remscheid today?” We enjoyed that game, and I still do. But I knew better than ever to challenge Declan to a game of Scrabble. His skill there was legendary. In the interests of the ISE we travelled from bishop to bishop, from praese to praeses, from Seminary to Theologische Hochschule, and had a happy reunion in Frankfurt with Fr Gerry O'Hanlon SJ, who was then working on his thesis on Karl Barth. I don't recollect how successful that journey was financially: but it certainly was a trip to remember with great pleasure.

Memorable too were the one or two occasions when my wife Frances and I stayed with Declan in the Jesuit flat normally occupied by Fr Henry Grant in the Newtownbreda area of Belfast. It was full of Henry's tapes of classical music, which delighted Frances. And it was also full of good talk. Declan shared with us his problems: the alcoholism which he had so steadfastly battled and overcome; theology - for he was no stranger to the doubt which is the only real basis of faith; celibacy, women's ministry, relations between the churches. Those were evenings to recall with joy. For Declan was a man who brought warmth and joy to those he met. It was a privilege to have him as a friend, and now to know that he has entered into the joy of his Lord.

Born: 07 April 1827, Rathkeale, County Limerick
Entered: 31 October 1846, St John’s, Fordham, NY, USA - Franciae Province (FRA)
Ordained: 1861
Final Vows: 15 August 1865
Died: 23 December 1891, Fordham College, New York, NY, USA - Marylandiae Neo-Eboracensis Province (MARNEB)