John Joseph Wright

John Joseph Wright
July 18, 1909 – August 10, 1979

Birth: July 18, 1909, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America. Son of John Joseph Wright, a paper-factory clerk, and Harriet Louise Cokely.

Education: Boston College, Boston; Saint John's Seminary, Brighton; Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome.

Priesthood: Ordained, December 8, 1935, Rome, by Cardinal Francesco Marchetti Selvaggiani, vicar general of Rome. Further studies, 1935-1939. Faculty member of Saint John's Seminary, Brighton, 1939-1943. Secretary to the archbishop of Boston, November 8, 1944. Privy chamberlain of His Holiness, December 17, 1944.

Episcopate: Elected titular bishop of Egea and appointed auxiliary of Boston, May 10, 1947. Consecrated, June 30, 1947, cathedral of the Holy Cross, Boston, by Richard Cushing, archbishop of Boston, assisted by Ralph Leo Hayes, bishop of Davenport, and by James Louis Connelly, titular bishop of Milasa and coadjutor of Fall River. Transferred to the diocese of Worcester, January 28, 1950. Transferred to the diocese of Pittsburgh, January 23, 1959. Attended the Second Vatican Council, 1962-1965. Attended the First Ordinary Assembly of the World Synod of Bishops, Vatican City, September 29 to October 29, 1967. Prefect of the S.C. for Clergy, April 23, 1969.

Cardinalate: Created cardinal priest in the consistory of April 28, 1969; received the red biretta and the title of Gesù Divin Maestro alla Pineta Sacchetti, April 30, 1969. Attended the First Extraordinary Assembly of the World Synod of Bishops, Vatican City, October 11 to 28, 1969; the II Ordinary Assembly of the World Synod of Bishops, Vatican City, September 30 to November 6, 1971; president delegate, August 2, 1971. Attended the III Ordinary Assembly of the World Synod of Bishops, Vatican City, September 27 to October 26, 1974; the IV Ordinary Assembly of the World Synod of Bishops, Vatican City, September 30 to October 29, 1977. Did not participate in the conclave of August 25 to 26, 1978, which elected Pope John Paul I, because of illness. Participated in conclave of October 14 to 16, 1978, which elected Pope John Paul II. He was very knowledgeable about St. Joan of Arc.

Death: August 10, 1979, of polymyositis, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America. Buried in the family plot, in Holyhood Cemetery, Brookline.

Cletus Madsen

Cletus Madsen
December 1, 1905 - July 16, 2002

Music is so vital to our spiritual life that Saint Augustine wrote, “The one who sings, prays twice.” And while he is recognized for his contributions to liturgical music, Monsignor Cletus Madsen enriched Saint Ambrose University in so many other ways over nine decades—as an academy and college student, faculty member, chaplain, administrator, and board member.

Born December 1, 1905, in Burlington, Iowa, Cletus graduated from Saint Ambrose Academy in 1924 and from Saint Ambrose College in 1928. He received a licentiate in sacred theology from the North American College in Rome and was ordained to the priesthood in 1931.

In 1932, he began seven decades of nearly continuous service to Saint Ambrose University when he was appointed to the music faculty. “His influence in the liturgical movement and in building the status of Catholic music educators is etched in the history of those movements in this country,” says Father Ed Dunn, theology professor and former student and colleague of Msgr. Madsen.

Msgr. Madsen chaired both the music and fine arts departments until 1965, and served as chaplain of students from 1962 to 1965. In 1970 he was appointed a trustee of the college and to the board of directors in 1976.

After serving as pastor of Saint Wencelaus Parish, Iowa City, he returned to Saint Ambrose University at the age of 76 as assistant to the president in 1981 and remained in that position until 1998.

He received numerous accolades from Saint Ambrose, most notably an honorary doctorate in 1982, and in 1979 Madsen Hall in the Galvin Fine Arts Center was named in his honor.

Yet once a music teacher, always a music teacher. “Whenever we would put together an alumni band for homecoming,” says Bob Bosco '59, “Msgr. Madsen always loved conducting 'Ambrosian Oaks.'”

Msgr. Madsen died on July 16, 2002.

Tribute prepared by Saint Ambrose University and published in the Spring 2003 issue of Scene, a magazine of Saint Ambrose University.

Edward Schillebeeckx

Edward Cornelius Florentius Alfonsus Schillebeeckx
November 12, 1914 – December 23, 2009

For the past three decades, the leadership of the Catholic church has displayed a particular intolerance of theological dissent. Some of the otherwise loyal priest-teachers who have been targeted by the Vatican have reacted to their very public rebukes by courting the press and liberal Catholic opinion. Hans Küng and Leonardo Boff, for instance, have become prominent examples. By contrast, the Flemish Dominican Father Edward Schillebeeckx, who has died aged 95, responded to being hauled over the coals by the Vatican in 1984 with characteristic understatement. Though second to none as a theologian in 20th-century Catholicism, he lived out his remaining years away from the limelight out of his enduring loyalty to the church – despite the rough justice handed out to him.

At issue was Schillebeeckx's questioning, in dense but academically influential writings throughout the 1970s, of a too-literal reading of the New Testament. To the Vatican's evident irritation, he queried the relevance to the modern age of church teaching on the virgin birth and resurrection. So did many others, but Schillebeeckx (pronounced Schill-e-bex) had been one of the leading theological lights at the great reforming Second Vatican Council (1962-65). So his efforts in Jesus: An Experiment in Christology (1974) and Christ: The Christian Experience in the Modern World (1977) to build on the council's updating of Catholic thought by relating the gospel message to contemporary experience could not simply be overlooked. "I do not begrudge any believer the right to describe and live out his belief in accordance to old models of experience, culture and ideas," he once said, "but this attitude isolates the church's faith from any future and divests it of any real missionary power."

He was summoned to Rome in December 1979 to explain himself to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the office that had run the Inquisition. He likened the experience to being a naughty schoolboy sent to the headteacher's study, but still went. Küng, under scrutiny at the same time, refused a similar summons, saying that he would not submit to a medieval trial. As a result, while Küng had his church licence to teach theology in Catholic universities removed by the Vatican, Schillebeeckx survived to continue as professor of dogmatic and historical theology at the Catholic University of Nijmegen, in the Netherlands.

Rome had not, however, finished with him. A fresh dispute arose over his comments that, in extreme circumstances, lay people could take on the place usually reserved for the priest in consecrating the eucharist. He was again called to Rome, this time in July 1984, when he was supported in person by the head of his religious order, Damian Byrne, the master-general of the Dominicans. His inquisitor was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later to become Pope Benedict XVI. On condition that he drop the reference to lay ministry from any subsequent publications, Schillebeeckx again avoided official censure.

It was a remarkable escape, given the climate of the time, with Pope John Paul II determined to assert his authority over all theological discourse. Küng claimed that Schillebeeckx was spared only because nobody on Ratzinger's team could read his texts in the original Dutch. Yet Schillebeeckx had hardly hidden his distaste for the new appetite for Roman centralism. "Rome puts the accent on restoring 'the Sacred' and hierarchical structures," he wrote. "It seems to me that they want to return to the ancien regime of sacrality without passing through the French Revolution."

His final, very public, act of rebellion came in 1989 when he joined other leading Catholic theologians in signing the Cologne Declaration, prompted by the pope's appointment of an unpopular and extreme traditionalist as the Archbishop of Cologne, the second wealthiest diocese in world Catholicism. The declaration spoke of popes "overstepping and enforcing in an inadmissible way" their authority over doctrine. It highlighted in particular the papal ban on Catholics using artificial methods of birth control. Though much reported, and applauded by many Catholics, the declaration did not appear to have any effect on either the pope or his successor.

Schillebeeckx was born in Antwerp, Belgium, of Flemish parents, the sixth of 14 children. He went to mass every day with his devout father and was educated by Jesuits. He chose to enter the Dominican order of preachers, with its unique synthesis of academic, practical and spiritual endeavours. He served briefly in the Belgian army until the Germans overran his homeland in the second world war, returning to his studies and ordination in 1943.

His time in Paris, in the immediate postwar years, shaped his thinking. Schillebeeckx came under the influence of nouvelle théologie and its leading proponents, the Dominican theologians Marie-Dominique Chenu and Yves Congar. He carried their emphasis on engagement with the modern world into his academic work at Nijmegen and also into his role as a key adviser to the Dutch bishops. He was a key figure in drafting their pastoral letter in the run-up to the Second Vatican Council, rejecting the efforts of Vatican officials to restrict its remit and pushing the case for the far-reaching reform which eventually resulted. He attended the council as an adviser to the Dutch bishops and gave a series of influential briefings on the draft documents emerging from it.

For Schillebeeckx, the Second Vatican Council was the start of a reform process. The Dutch church largely shared this view and it began to experiment in the late 1960s with new structures that increased lay involvement and generated great enthusiasm in parishes. But such radicalism alarmed the incoming John Paul II when he was elected in 1978, and, as well as clamping down on theological dissent, he steadily replaced progressive Dutch bishops with men made in his own more traditional image.

Schillebeeckx bore in silence the pain of witnessing many of the reforms he had supported and promoted being undone. Yet his reputation throughout the Christian churches and beyond as a prophetic thinker could not be dented by papal disapproval. He greeted plaudits – including the Erasmus prize (1982) for his contribution to European culture, the first theologian so honoured – and admirers with humility and an old-fashioned courtesy.

He may just have allowed himself a wry smile when he looked back on a 1968 declaration, published in Concilium, the still flourishing progressive theological journal that he helped to set up, which insisted that the Pope "cannot and must not supersede, hamper and impede the teaching task of theologians as scholars". His own name was there among the signatories, as was that of the then Father Ratzinger.

Tribute prepared by Peter Stanford for The Guardian, UK, published February 24, 2010.

Austin Flannery, OP

Austin Flannery, OP
January 10, 1925 – October 21, 2008

Austin Flannery, OP, who died aged 83 on October 21, 2008, added distinguished achievements as an editor, publisher and campaigner to his life's work as a preacher and pastor.

The eldest of the seven children of William K Flannery and his wife Margaret (nee Butler), Liam Flannery was born in Rear Cross, Co Tipperary, on 10 January 1925. When he joined the Dominican Order in 1943 he was given the name Austin, by which he was known for the rest of his life.

After a year at St Flannan's College, Ennis, the rest of his secondary education was at Dominican College, Newbridge, Co Kildare. He would tell of how, on arrival, he was amazed to meet priest-teachers who were affable, approachable and encouraging, and who fostered independent thought. Victor Davis, his English teacher, and one of the few lay teachers then in the college, had a lasting influence in that he insisted that students use the exact word to express what was in their minds, however difficult or long the search. This remained the guiding principle in Fr Flannery's speaking, writing, translating and editing.

First profession as a Dominican, in September 1944, led to studies in theology at St Mary's Priory, Tallaght, and then at Blackfriars, Oxford, before he was ordained a priest in 1950. After further studies at the Angelicum in Rome, he was sent to teach theology at Glenstal Abbey, Co Limerick.

In August 1957, he began what was to prove his life's work when he was appointed editor of the monthly magazine Doctrine and Life. During the years of Vatican Council II (1962-1965) he focused on the council documents and how its decisions were to be implemented. Since then, the magazine retains an interest in the need for reform. Over the years, Fr Flannery founded three other magazines, Religious Life Review (1962), Scripture in Church (1970), and Spirituality (1994). His Vatican Council II: Constitutions, Decrees, Declarations is now the standard English-language version, often cited in footnotes simply as 'Flannery'.

Along with his sense of humour, his deep acceptance of others even if he did not share their outlook was at the heart of the success of the discussion-group he led. Often referred to as 'Flannery's Harriers', this group included Sean Mac Reamoinn, Jack Dowling, John Horgan, and Desmond Fennell among regular members, and would invite visiting writers or other experts to join their lively discussions.

A passion for justice led Fr Flannery to involvement with Kader Asmal, in founding the Irish Anti-apartheid Movement, and to a commitment throughout the Seventies and Eighties to campaigning to end apartheid in South Africa. His campaign on behalf of the Dublin Housing Action Committee led to his being dismissed in the Dail by the then Minister for Finance, Charles Haughey, as "a gullible cleric". This was in reaction to a late-night television programme, Outlook, in which he departed from the usual devotional format to involve Fr Michael Sweetman, and Michael O'Riordan, secretary of the Irish Communist Party, in discussing the housing crisis in late-Sixties Dublin. To the accusation of being a communist, he would retort that sitting down with Michael O'Riordan no more made him a communist than sitting down with Michael Sweetman made him a Jesuit.

Fr Flannery had a lifelong interest in modern religious art. In 1962 he organised a Dublin exhibition of contemporary German churches. He maintained friendships with the prominent artists of late 20th century Ireland, and in 1997 he introduced the work of the Korean Dominican artist, Kim En Jong, to Ireland and the English-speaking world.

All Fr Flannery's activities were born of his strong Christian belief and Gospel commitment, and he saw them as flowing from his vocation in the Order of Preachers.

This giant of compassion and of concern for truth and reform was laid to rest in the Dominican plot at Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, on Friday, October 24. Predeceased by his sister Breda and brother George, he is survived by his sisters Phyllis and Sadie and his brothers Paul and Jimmy.

Bernard Treacy, OP, editor Doctrine and Life

Tribute from The Independent.

Paul John Hallinan

Paul John Hallinan
April 8, 1911–March 27, 1968

As chairman of the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy, Archbishop Hallinan dedicated himself to renewing the rites of the Church so they would express the peace and comfort that Christ spoke of. Archbishop Hallinan, best known in the American church for his unending work for liturgical reform and his outspoken support of civil rights causes, died at his residence Wednesday, March 27, at 5 a.m. The cause of death was complications from hepatitis and liver failure. He had been seriously ill for several weeks.

Paul J. Hallinan was born in Painesville, Ohio, April 8, 1911, the son of Clarence C. and Jane Hallinan. His mother died in 1952 and his father in 1955. His father lived the last three years of his life with Father Hallinan while he was Newman chaplain at Cleveland’s Western Reserve University.

The future archbishop entered Cathedral Latin School in Cleveland in 1924 and served as editor of his high school yearbook. After graduation, he went to the University of Notre Dame and graduated with a degree in philosophy in 1932. While at Notre Dame, he edited the yearbook and a humor magazine. During summer vacation he worked for the Painesville Telegraph.

Always interested in journalism, particularly the Catholic press, he once wrote: “We need lay spokesmen on diocesan papers, but even more we need Catholics raising their voices, in accents that a secular society can appreciate, in every worthy channel of communication: learned journals and popular magazines, books and lectures, classrooms and laboratories, government and community programs, all the arts and all the sciences. They must speak not specifically as Catholics but as highly skilled and accessible persons.”

He wrote articles, particularly on the liturgy, for many Catholic publications. He always said he could never remember ever wanting to be anything but a priest.

The archbishop attended St. Mary’s Seminary in Cleveland after conferring with his pastor, Msgr. William J. Gallena of St. Mary’s Parish, Painesville. He said, “Msgr. Gallena has been everything to me. He heard my first confession, gave me my First Communion and has been a friend and adviser all my life.”

Father Hallinan was ordained Feb. 20, 1937 at St. John’s Cathedral, Cleveland. His first assignment was at St. Aloysius, Cleveland (1937-1942). During World War II, he was a chaplain (captain) and served in Australia, New Guinea and the Philippines with the 542nd Engineer Amphibian Regiment. In June, 1944, he received the Purple Heart at Biak, New Guinea.

After army service, Father Hallinan returned to Cleveland and served from 1945-47 at the cathedral. In 1947, he was named diocesan director of the Newman Clubs and worked in the apostolate until 1958. He served as national chaplain of the Newman Federation from 1952-57. He was named a monsignor during this time.

On Sept. 9, 1958, he was appointed bishop of Charleston, S.C., and was consecrated in Cleveland on Oct. 28, 1958, by then apostolic delegate to the United States, Archbishop Ameleto Cicognani. He was installed Nov. 25, 1958.

Msgr. Hallinan learned of his appointment as bishop while preparing a lecture for one of the religion courses he taught at Newman Hall in Cleveland. He was appointed by Pope Pius XII.

In 1961, while still bishop of Charleston, he issued a pastoral letter on racial justice. The letter dealt with the admission policy of parochial schools. It said that Catholic pupils, regardless of color, would be admitted to Catholic schools as soon as it could be done with safety, but not later than when public schools were opened to all pupils. A year later Bishop Hallinan issued a pastoral on Christian Unity which said in part, “Never has this longing for Christian unity been more evident...We are growing more conscious that the Holy Spirit of God, brooding over our distressed world and our divided Christendom, is stirring now the souls of men in many places, providing the light and strength without which reunion remains an empty dream.”

When the Diocese of Atlanta was elevated to the status of an archdiocese on Feb. 21, 1962, Bishop Hallinan was named its first archbishop, and bishop of the Province of Atlanta that includes five dioceses.

He was installed on March 29, 1962 by then apostolic delegate, Archbishop Egidio Vagnozzi, at the Cathedral of Christ the King, Atlanta.

One of his first acts was to integrate the Catholic schools and hospitals within the archdiocese.

During his term as archbishop, several churches including Holy Cross, Holy Spirit, St. Thomas the Apostle, Smyrna, and missions at Cleveland, GA and Clarkesville, GA were opened. The new John Lancaster Spalding Catholic Center at the University of Georgia was finished and the old St. Joseph’s Boys Home at Washington, GA was transferred to Atlanta to new quarters and became the Village of St. Joseph for boys and girls. He also established The Georgia Bulletin, the weekly archdiocesan newspaper.

Archbishop Hallinan was also one of four Atlanta civic leaders who sponsored a banquet honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., after he received the Nobel Peace Prize. He said Dr. King was a “pioneer in a new dynamic of peace, expressed in the formula, ‘I will walk in liberty, O Lord, because I seek thy precepts.’”

But it was his work for the vernacular liturgy that brought Archbishop Hallinan the most praise and criticism.

In 1962, the archbishop was named to the Commission on the Sacred Liturgy by Pope John XXIII and worked untiringly for the Mass to be said in English or the native tongue of all countries.

In one of his last talks on the liturgy, the archbishop said, “Through the Sacred Constitution on the Liturgy, we are now emerging from a period of fixity and rigidity which was unnatural in the Church’s life.” In the talk, he again called for experimentation.

On the archbishop’s return from the second session of the Second Vatican Council he became ill in December 1963, with hepatitis and was hospitalized for almost seven months. He never fully regained his health.

However, he continued to serve on the postconciliar Commission on the Sacred Liturgy, as chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy, and on the International Committee for an English Liturgy.

In July, 1964, he wrote a pamphlet, “How to Understand Changes in the Liturgy,” and about 50,000 copies were distributed across the United States and abroad.

His column, “Archbishop’s Notebook,” was widely quoted in the Catholic press especially when he discussed the liturgy. But the archbishop also spoke on many other issues, the war in Vietnam, on the need for open housing in America, on aiding the poor and the Negro, against capital punishment and abortion. He was also known for his support of increasing the role of the laity in the Church and called what it is thought to be the first Lay Congress in the archdiocese. He once said, “This is the day of the laity. They work for the sanctification of the world from within, as a leaven.”

The archbishop received honorary degrees from Notre Dame, Holy Cross, Western Reserve University where he received a Ph.D. in history. Duquesne University and Belmont College, N.C. He also was awarded the Father Edward Sorin Award by Notre Dame.

Tribute from the Georgia Bulletin, the newspaper of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta.

Jane Klimisch, OSB

Jane Klimisch, OSB
August 22, 1920 - May 24, 2010

Jane Julia Klimisch was born August 22, 1920, a few minutes before her twin, Clara, to Anton and Martha (Block) Klimisch on the family farm in the Sigel community near Yankton. She attended Klimisch School (District #48), Lesterville High School and then Mount Marty Academy where she graduated in 1938.

Jane entered Sacred Heart Monastery on August 28, 1938, was invested as a novice the following June, and received her baptismal name as her religious name. She made her first monastic profession in June of 1940 and final profession in June of 1943. She earned a BA degree from Saint Mary of the Woods, Indiana; a Master’s in Music Education from the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago; and a Ph.D. in musicology from Washington University in Saint Louis.

Music and education were major ministries for Sr. Jane. She taught at Mount Marty College for over forty years, retiring with the rank of professor emeritus. She also served the college as academic dean and college archivist and established the Sacred Music Resource Center to collect and preserve important publications of Gregorian Chant.

Sr. Jane was a gifted musician who composed hundreds of pieces of liturgical music and served as monastery organist and choir director for 31 years. She continued as an organist until a few weeks before her death. She authored The One Bride, a book on the nature of religious life, and Women Gathering, the history of the Federation of Saint Gertrude. She also co-authored Travelers on the Way of Peace (volumes I and II) for the 75th and 100th anniversary of the monastery.

Sr. Jane was active in the Benedictine Musicians of America, the American Benedictine Academy, the American Musicological Society, the American Guild of Organists, and Delta Kappa Gamma.

Sr. Jane was a gentle woman of wisdom who loved her prairie roots, who never lost her child-like awe of the beauties of creation, and who was friend, mentor and spiritual companion to many.

Tribute prepared by the Benedictine Sisters of Yankton, Sacred Heart Monastery, Yankton, SD.