Francis Beckwith and Ralph McInerny confess (sort of)

Francis Beckwith recounts a story that is perfectly Ralph.

Thomas Hibbs on Ralph McInerny

Thomas Hibbs, a former-student of Ralph McInerny’s (and current Dean of the Honors College at Baylor University), wrote an appreciation of Ralph that appeared in First Things magazine (link).

Ralph M. McInerny (1929-2010)

Ralph McInerny died yesterday morning, January 29, 2010, at around 6:30 a.m. A towering figure in the study of Aquinas. More information will be posted as I’m able to obtain and shape it for publication.

Father Victor Brezik, CSB: 1913-2009

This is terribly, terribly late (since I received this death notice in June), but it should be noted (from Thomas Osborne and Ed Houser of University of St. Thomas in Houston):

University of St. Thomas Remembers Father Victor Brezik, CSB

Philosopher, theologian, visionary and cornerstone of the institution – the University of St. Thomas said goodbye to Rev. Victor Brezik, CSB. He died the morning of Tuesday, June 16, 2009 at the age of 96.

A Funeral Mass will be held at 10 a.m. Monday, June 22 at St. Anne’s Catholic Church, 2140 Westheimer Rd. A viewing is scheduled from 1:30-3:30 p.m. Thursday, June 18 in the Chapel of St. Basil on the UST campus, and a Wake Service will be held at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, June 21 on campus in the Chapel of St. Basil.

Fr. Brezik, who joined the UST faculty in 1954, was the University’s oldest living scholar. Adopting the personal motto, “Dare to do whatever you can,” from his favorite philosopher, St. Thomas Aquinas, Fr. Brezik’s philosophical attitude and vision stretched the imaginations and inspired generations of students and colleagues. In addition to his many contributions to the University, Fr. Brezik co-founded the University of St. Thomas’ Center for Thomistic Studies. In 1975 Fr. Brezik teamed up with Houston Philanthropist Hugh Roy Marshall, ‘74, to renew interest in the teachings of the medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas.

In creating the Center for Thomistic Studies, Fr. Brezik and Marshall, who earned a degree in philosophy, established the only doctoral program at the University and the only graduate philosophy program in the United States uniquely focused on the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas.

“The Center for Thomistic Studies, where the wisdom of Thomas Aquinas could be brought to bear on the problems of the contemporary world, was Fr. Brezik’s great dream and he never stopped working for it,” said Dr. Mary Catherine Sommers, Center for Thomistic Studies director. “He taught the Center’s first graduate students and, when he retired, continued to write on philosophical and theological issues into the last year of his life. He met each new class of graduate students and attended colloquia and departmental parties up until a few months before his death. Our last conversation, just days ago was not about him, his health or the pain he was suffering, but about the future of the Center and the work it does for the University and for the Church. He was ‘Texas tough,’ physically, mentally and spiritually.”

Born in Hallettsville, Texas on May 2, 1913, Fr. Brezik attended St. Thomas High School in Houston, and graduated in the class of 1931. He went on to join the Basilian order in 1932, and was ordained as a priest in 1940. He studied in Toronto and received his Licentiate in Mediaeval Studies in 1943 at the Pontifical Institute, center of the North American Renaissance in Thomistic philosophy, and his doctorate in 1944. Fr. Brezik returned to Houston in 1954 to join the faculty at the University of St. Thomas. He was named Basilian Superior in 1955.

At UST, he served as a professor of philosophy from 1954 to 1986, and his service to the University continued until his resignation from the board of directors in 2005. He served on the board of directors for a total of 24 years, from 1969-1979, and from 1992 to 2005. The University bestowed on Fr. Brezik an honorary doctorate at the 1989 Commencement Ceremony. Fr. Brezik and Marshall were honored with the Order of St. Thomas Award at the 2008 St. Thomas Aquinas Lecture, held on Jan. 31. The award is presented each year to persons who have testified to the value of the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas in their writings, teachings philanthropy and way of life.

The Reverend Victor Brezik, CSB, Endowed Scholarship for graduate students in philosophy at the Center for Thomistic Studies was established on March 26, 1999 by the Basilian Fathers of Toronto. The scholarship/fellowship is awarded to students at University of St. Thomas who are accepted for regular admission into the graduate program of the Center for Thomistic Studies and who meet all scholarship academic requirements.  Gifts in memory of Fr. Brezik can be made to the Center for Thomistic Studies at the University of St. Thomas. Checks can be mailed to University of St. Thomas, Institutional Advancement, 3800 Montrose Blvd., Houston, TX 77006.

Fr. Patrick Braden, CSB, and Fr. Brezik both joined the UST faculty in 1954. Fr. Braden recalled many shared adventures including long cross-country drives in a restored Mercedes Benz to see Basilian Fathers in Toronto, and another road trip to visit East Coast Ivy League Universities and locations of historical interest. Braden also remembered Fr. Brezik as an avid sports fan. A former athlete on the St. Thomas High School football and baseball teams, Fr. Braden said that even late in life, Fr Brezik closely followed the St. Thomas high school baseball and football teams.

“Serving on the board of directors for many years, Fr. Brezik provided the University with wise counsel in a variety of areas,” Fr. Braden said. “His writings in philosophy and his sermons have been an inspiration to many of us.”

Read more of Fr. Brezik’s writings:

One Hundred Years of Thomism Aeterni Patris and Afterwards A Symposium

The Role of Faith in University Education

Remembering Ninety Five Years: A Partial Synopsis Is it Possible to Fulfill the Law of Charity

The Academic Mall and the University Academic Program

Virginia Brown of PIMS (1940-2009)

Generations of students at Toronto's Centre for Medieval Studies and the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies took a course in the editing of Medieval Latin texts, taught by Virginia Brown. Dr Brown died on July 4, 2009, after battling pancreatic cancer. Here is the e-mail message her husband circulated:

I'm sorry to write to you all collectively but I wanted you to know the sad news immediately. My wife Virginia passed away in her sleep yesterday, July 4, at around 4.30 from the complications of bilio-pancreatic cancer. She was 68. She had been suffering from abiliary blockages since the summer of 2007 and was diagnosed with cancer on April 30 of this year. At no point since her diagnosis did she experience any pain, and she kept her sweetness and bright spirit to the end. She will be buried with my family in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

I am grateful to so many of you who in these last few weeks sent notes, emails, cards, flowers and your thoughts and prayers. I am particularly grateful that she was able to enjoy the many honors she received in the last few years, the two conferences in her honor at Ohio State and UCLA, the Festschrift edited by Frank Coulson and Anna Grotans, the Medieval Academy teaching award, the honorary citizenship of Benevento and the ceremony in honor of her work on Beneventan script at the abbey of Montecassino last October. She was most grateful for the moving collection of reminisces and tributes from her PIMS students put together by Aden Kumler and Magda Hayton, which arrived a few weeks ago.

Ginny expressed to me her wish that, in lieu of flowers, contributions be sent to the Library of the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto (http://www.pims.ca) or to support the Virginia Brown Fellowship at the Center for Epigraphical and Paleographical Studies at the Ohio State University (http://epigraphy.osu.edu).

Jim Hankins

Though the subject of her famous "The Edition of Medieval Latin Texts" course was the Franciscan, Thomas of York's Sapientiale, her personal academic interest was especially the life and liturgy of Monte Cassino and its Beneventan script and texts. Please God may she be meeting up with the blessed monks of Monte Cassino now—as well as one of its former oblates.

Leonine Commission website posts article on Fr Bataillon

The people at the Leonine Commission’s website have posted a short article on the life of Fr Louis-Jacques Bataillon, OP, who passed away on February 13th. The article also features a piercing photo of Fr Bataillon in what appears to be the Leonine Commission’s library at Saint-Jacques.

Follow-up on the death of Père Bataillon

I’ve found some other online references to the death of Fr Louis-Jacques Bataillon, OP, about which I posted on February 14, 2009. In fact, there is a short video of Fr Bataillon presenting regarding biblical exemplum.

Other sites have notices, commentary, and bibliography:

• International Medieval Sermon Studies Society (link)
• Sermones.net: éditions électroniques de sermons latins médiévaux (link)
• Pecia : Le manuscrit médiéval ~ The medieval manuscript (link)

Louis-Jacques Bataillon, OP: RIP (February 13, 2009)

Just in from Adriano Oliva, OP, of the Leonine Commission in Paris. Father Louis-Jacques Bataillon, OP, died last evening, Friday, February 13, 2009, at 6:45 p.m. He was 94 years old. This is a terrible loss for the whole community of medievalists, especially those interested in medieval sermons, for whom Fr Batallion was doyen. But it is especially hard for lovers of the life and works of St. Thomas, as Fr Louis worked assiduously on the Leonine Commission for a half-century.

At the time of his death the Leonine Commission had been working away hard to finish up volume 44 of the Opera Omnia Sancti Thomae Aquinatis, which contains Thomas’s sermons (edited by Fr Bataillon); when I last met with Fr Oliva last October (at Notre Dame and then here in Milwaukee) he told me that the Commission was at that time reviewing the proofs for volume 44 for the fifth time, with the expectation that volume 44 would see the light of day this year, in 2009. There would be some consolation in knowing that volume 44 is published in the same year as Fr Bataillon’s death.

On a personal note, Fr Bataillon was only ever kind and receptive of my inquiries. Last March, when I spent a week in Paris at the Couvent St. Jacques to work at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Fr Bataillon was able to give me an hour—no small chore—to discuss some manuscript questions I had. His giant spirit and knowledge overcame his laboring body, and his eyes twinkled as he sat in a recliner-chair, viewing my binder of manuscript images: “Now this manuscript was probably written in Le Marche, before mid-century (i.e., before the 1250’s).” Wow.

Having worked so hard for so many years Fr Bataillon’s death at 94 cannot have been a surprise, and he has earned his reward. Still, this one really hurts.

The people over at the Dominican History website already have a short article up about Fr Bataillon’s passing. More will follow.

Update

on 2009-02-14 13:22 by Mark Johnson

Already a follow-up. I wrote the above after having gotten a Skype message from Fr Oliva, but before checking my e-mail. Fr Oliva had already sent out the following e-mail:

Hier, 13 février, à 18h45, le P. Bataillon s’est endormi dans la paix.

Hospitalisé le 12 après-midi aux urgences de la Salpêtrière, il avait été transporté hier dans une clinique chirurgicale à Saint-Cloud, où peu de temps après son arrivée, il est décédé paisiblement.

La messe des funérailles sera concélébrée à l’église du Couvent Saint-Jacques, 20 rue des Tanneries, Paris XIIIe, mardi 17 février à 14h30.

Il sera inhumé au cimetière du Montparnasse.

Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ, dies on December 12, 2008

This has been reported widely, but it is important to note it at least here, since Cardinal Dulles was a champion of serious theology, and he was a serious reader of St. Thomas. See the following:

• A Newsweek magazine appreciation by George Weigel
• The Fordham University page for Cardinal Dulles
• From the Times in London
• The article about him on Wikipedia

He was scheduled to speak a few years back at the Ave Maria conference on the sacraments, but his ill health prevented him from coming—so he read his paper as he was video-recorded, which in turn was played to the conference on a DVD! One comment in the paper—”…what God is willing to accept from us…”—stays with me to this day.

W. Norris Clarke, SJ (1915-2008)

Scraped from a number of places, some information on the passing of W. Norris Clarke, SJ, long of Fordham University in New York City:

We regret to inform you of the death of Father W. Norris Clarke, S.J., Fordham University Professor Emeritus, who died on Tuesday, June 10, 2008, at St. Barnabas Hospital, Bronx, New York.  Father Clarke was born on June 1, 1915. He joined Fordham's Philosophy Department in 1955 and became Professor Emeritus in 1985.  See more biographical information at:

http://www.fordham.edu/philosophy/faculty/clarke.htm

WAKE:
Sunday, June 15, 2008
3:00-5:00 & 7:00-9:00 PM
Loyola Hall Chapel
Fordham University
Bronx, NY 10458

MASS OF CHRISTIAN BURIAL:
Monday, June 16, 2008
10:30 AM
Fordham University Church
Bronx, NY 10458

BURIAL: Jesuit Cemetery, Auriesville , NY

Other links that I have found are:

• Link to his faculty page at Fordham's website.
• Notice about his funeral services from Fordham.
• Notice on the First Things website, and one on the America website.

Another follow-up on Mieczysław Albert Krąpiec, OP

Thanks now to Weronika Hansen for her update:

From KUL website:

Born 25 May 1921 in Berezowica Mała in Podole. Fell asleep in the Lord while correcting the article "Christianity" 8 May 2008 in Lublin.

The coffin with the body of Fr Krąpiec will be laid in the basilica of the Dominican fathers on Thursday, 15 May at 3 pm, when the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy will be recited. A book of condolence will be set out at the same time.

The funeral ceremonies will take place 16 May 2007, beginning with a Funeral Mass at 10 am in the Basilica of the Dominican Fathers (ul. Złota 9).

We will then process solemnly to the University Church, where the Final Commendation will be made.

The body of Fr Krąpiec will be buried in the cemetery on ul. Lipowa.

(link)

[an extract, excuse the limping English, done in a hurry]

Hardly "limping English"! Thanks, Weronika.

An obituary in German on the death of Mieczysław Albert Krąpiec

Thanks to Rauhut Robert for sending along the following, regarding the death of Mieczysław Albert Krąpiec, OP:

For all those interested in Father Krapiec I refer to the obituary I wrote in German and which was published this week in the Germany daily "Die Tagespost" (link). One year ago I visited Father Krapiec and did one of the last interviews with him. The Portrait which I did out of this material is also available online (link).

Viele Grüße