This web site is a memorial to those individuals who were passionate about the reform of the
Roman Catholic liturgy as set forth in Sacrosanctum Concilium (the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy)
and who now, in eternal life, worship the God whom they served in this life.

Regis Duffy, OFM

Regis Duffy, OFM
October 15, 1934 - January 4, 2006


ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y., Jan. 5, 2006 — The St. Bonaventure University community is mourning the death of Fr. Regis A. Duffy, O.F.M., S.T.D., Board of Trustees Professor and longtime member of the University community, who died Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2006.

A funeral Mass was celebrated at 10 a.m., Saturday, Jan. 7, in the University Chapel, Doyle Hall, with Fr. Dominic Monti, O.F.M., Vicar Provincial of the Province of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, as celebrant and Fr. Xavier J. Seubert, O.F.M., Guardian of the St. Bonaventure Friary, as homilist. Visitation began at 9 a.m. with the Friars' Office of the Dead.

Fr. Regis was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. on Oct. 15, 1934. He was professed a Franciscan friar in 1955 and ordained to the priesthood in 1961.

On May 11, 2002, during the Baccalaureate Mass during which Fr. Regis — a gifted speaker known for interweaving characters from the comic strip “Peanuts” into his homilies — had served as homilist, then-University President Dr. Robert J. Wickenheiser announced that Fr. Regis had been named a Board of Trustees Professor.

The University’s Board of Trustees established the designation in 1996 to recognize select professors who have “truly distinguished themselves in their teaching, devotion to students, professional publications and contributions, and service to the University throughout the years.”

“Fr. Regis is widely respected as a theologian and in particular as a liturgist, often viewed as the liturgist’s liturgist,” Wickenheiser said, recognizing the friar as “a scholar who never sacrificed being a teacher who cared about students; a scholar and a teacher who never sacrificed being a friar in service to others. He brought theology and Scripture alive in the written word, in the classroom, and in the homily; with scholarly sources, with anecdote, and with Lucy, Peanuts and Linus.”

Fr. Regis was the first Franciscan scholar-in-residence at The Franciscan Institute at St. Bonaventure, which serves the Franciscan family and scholarly world through its research, publications and teaching program.

For 20 years, he was the regular Sunday preacher at the Jesuit parish of Holy Trinity at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., while teaching for 18 years at the Washington Theological Union. He also taught for six years at the University of Notre Dame (Ind.)

He published five books, including "An American Emmaus: Faith and Sacrament in the American Church," which was honored by the Catholic Press Association in 1996, and "Liturgy in the Catechism: Celebrating God’s Wisdom and Love." He also wrote numerous scholarly articles and edited books and encyclopedias.

Since earning a bachelor’s degree from St. Bonaventure in 1957, he earned six additional academic degrees, including two from the Institut Superieure de Liturgie in Paris and a doctorate of sacred theology from the Institut Catholique de Paris. In 1997, he served as Commencement keynote speaker and received an honorary doctorate from Christ the King Seminary in East Aurora, N.Y., an interdiocesan graduate school of theology, divinity and pastoral ministry.

Tribute prepared by the North American Academy of Liturgy.