Catholic Universe Bulletin

Obituaries

Ralph McInerny, retired Notre Dame professor, author, dies at age 80

Catholic News Service
SOUTH BEND, IND.-Ralph McInerny, a retired University of Notre Dame professor and prominent Catholic author, perhaps best known for writing the Father Dowling mystery series, died Jan. 29 of complications from esophageal cancer at Our Lady of Peace Hospital in Mishawaka. He was 80.
A funeral Mass was celebrated Feb. 1 at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Notre Dame followed by burial at Notre Dame's Cedar Grove Cemetery.
McInerny, a Notre Dame professor from 1955 until he retired last June, was the Michael P. Grace professor of medieval studies and a professor of philosophy. For many years, he directed Notre Dame's Medieval Institute and the university's Jacques Maritain Center.

McInerny, a Minneapolis native, held degrees from the St. Paul Seminary in Minnesota, the University of Minnesota and Laval University in Quebec.
An expert in the work of St. Thomas Aquinas and philosophers Maritain and Soren Kierkegaard, McInerny wrote and lectured extensively about ethics, philosophy of religion, and medieval philosophy.
In 1982, he co‑founded Crisis magazine with Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute. The publication, a journal of lay Catholic opinion, is now known as InsideCatholic.
In 2006, McInerny published his autobiography: "I Alone Have Escaped to Tell You: My Life and Pastimes."
McInerny also wrote more than 80 novels. His book "The Priest," published in 1973, became a best‑seller. His popular Father Dowling series included 29 books and aired as a television mystery series from 1987‑91, first on NBC and then ABC.
In the series "Father Dowling Mysteries," a Chicago priest played by Frank Bosley works with a nun to solve neighborhood crimes and murders.
In a 1978 interview with Catholic News Service, McInerny said his goal in writing was to "tell a story, to entertain people."
"If you don't tell a story, nothing else is going to come through. That's the sense of the French expression: 'Le style, c'est l'homme.' The style is the man. If you are someone, that's going to come through if you do the main thing: tell a story."
In addition to his written work, McInerny appeared on William F. Buckley's "Firing Line" and was a member of President George W. Bush's Committee on the Arts and Humanities.
Last year, McInerny wrote an essay for "The Catholic Thing," a forum for Catholic commentary, criticizing Notre Dame's decision to invite President Barack Obama to speak and receive an honorary doctor of laws degree at the 2009 commencement. He and other critics of the decision said Obama's support of legal abortion and embryonic stem‑cell research made him an inappropriate choice by a Catholic university.
An obituary on McInerny in the South Bend Tribune stated that his "devotion to his Catholic faith and the Catholic intellectual life was an inspiration to countless students, colleagues and faithful throughout the world. His legendary wit, his charm, and the joyful confidence with which he pursued every aspect of his multi‑faceted calling made him an extraordinary husband, father, teacher, writer and friend."
McInerny was "was an example of faith fully and joyfully lived," said U.S. Ambassador to Malta Doug Kmiec in a statement. "Despite remarkable erudition, he never acted with the pretense, haughtiness, or narrow‑mindedness too often found in higher education today."
He said it was "truly a delight" to be McInerney's colleague in the 1980s and ''90s, at Notre Dame, where Kmiec served for almost two decades as a professor of law and director of the Center on Law and Government at the university's law school.
"Ralph McInerny was a dear friend to thousands of Domers; his home on Portage Road in my day veritably spilled over with those in his constant, and constantly welcoming, conversation. The scholastic heavens are brighter tonight. Ralph's passing in the arc of the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas hardly seems coincidence. ... At last, he is home."
McInerny, a father of seven, is survived by six children and 17 grandchildren. His wife, Connie, died in 2002.

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Noel Goemanne, noted church musician and composer, dies at age 83

Catholic News Service
DALLAS-Noel Goemanne, a noted Catholic church musician and composer of many pieces of music and Masses performed by choirs and organists throughout the world, died Jan. 12 in Dallas from complications of colon cancer. He was 83.
A native of Belgium, Goemanne had lived in Dallas since 1972. He had directed the choir at Christ the King Church until this past summer.
A funeral Mass for him was to be celebrated Jan. 16 at Christ the King.
He is credited with creating more than 200 sacred compositions and about 15 Masses. He received the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice Cross from Pope Paul VI in 1977. He composed the processional for Pope John Paul II's visit to San Antonio during his 1987 multicity tour in the United States.
According to a Jan. 15 obituary in the Dallas Morning News, Goemanne was always an outspoken advocate of the importance of music, even as a youth. During World War II he was arrested for publicly playing the music of the Jewish composer Felix Mendelssohn during the Nazi occupation of Belgium, the paper said.
In 1952, he and his wife, Janine, came to the United States and settled in Victoria, Texas, where he was church organist at St. Mary's Church.
In response to the liturgical changes in the church brought about by the Second Vatican Council, he was quick to adapt his music, composing the first English Masses in the spirit of the council. During that same period he traveled to college campuses, giving workshops on sacred music. He established the sacred music program at St. Joseph College in Rensselaer, Ind.
Goemanne held organist and choirmaster positions at St. Rita Parish in Detroit and Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Parish in Beverly Hills, Mich. He also held those positions in Dallas, first at St. Monica's Parish and Holy Trinity Seminary, then Christ the King.
At the suggestion of a choir member, he arranged a version of Johann Pachelbel's "Canon in D" for singers; up to then the composition had been arranged for every instrument but voice. His arrangement was used in several scenes in the 1980 Oscar‑winning movie "Ordinary People."
Among his many honors were numerous awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers; an award from the Institute of Sacred Music in Manila, Philippines (1974); and honorary doctorates from St. Joseph College in Rensselaer (1980) and Madonna University in Livonia, Mich. (1999).
Born Dec. 10, 1926, in Poperinge, Belgium, was a graduate of the Lemmens Institute of Belgium. He pursued postgraduate study of organ and improvisation with the celebrated composer‑performer Flor Peeters and at the Royal Conservatory of Liege.
Professional recognition for Goemanne came when the Belgian National Radio Network signed him on as a regular piano recitalist. What followed were appearances as recitalist and guest conductor in North America, Europe and Asia.
Some of his most popular choral works include "I Have Touched the Face Of God," "Jubilate Deo," "Joyfully We Sing Your Praise," and "Lead Us Safely Home."
Goemanne was a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, the American Guild of Organists, the American Choral Directors Association and the National Association of Pastoral Musicians. He is mentioned in the International Who's Who in Music, "Organ Preludes" by Jean Slater Edson, "The History of Catholic Church Music" by Karl Gustav Fellerer, and Vlaanderen, a publication on art and culture in the Netherlands.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by a daughter, a son and three grandchildren.

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Sister Mary Daniel Turner, a former head of LCWR, dies at age 84

Catholic News Service
SILVER SPRINGS, MD.-A funeral Mass was celebrated Feb. 1 at St. Camillus Church in the Washington suburb of Silver Spring for Sister Mary Daniel Turner, a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur who was a former superior general of her order and former executive director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.
Sister Daniel, 84, died Jan. 27 in nearby Burtonsville of complications from cancer.
Born Margaret Turner in Baltimore in 1925, she entered religious life in 1943, earning degrees from what was then Trinity College and The Catholic University of America, both in Washington. She later earned a master's in theology from St. Michael's College in Toronto.
In 1992, Sister Daniel wrote "The Transformation of American Catholic Sisters," chronicling the journey of U.S. nuns in the years before and after the Second Vatican Council.
She was featured in the video message to an exhibition that opened in January at the Smithsonian Institution's Ripley Center called "Women in Spirit: Catholic Sisters in America."
Sister Daniel served as provincial superior for her order 1962‑69, and in 1972 began a six‑year term as executive director of LCWR, an umbrella organization for U.S. sisters that represents about 95 percent of all women religious.. Her tenure there was followed by six years as her order's superior general. Trinity College awarded her an honorary doctorate in 1984 for her service to the church.
In 1977, when she was executive director, LCWR issued a booklet on abortion called "Choose Life," which was criticized by Msgr. (later Bishop) James T. McHugh, then director of the bishops' Secretariat for Pro‑Life Activities.
The booklet argued against passage of any anti‑abortion laws, saying any such law would be inadequate until "life issues are seen as a continuum." It called for political action by nuns on other issues and said that "respect for life cannot be separated from concern for the quality of life."
Msgr. McHugh said it "undermines the policies and strategies" of the bishops' conference and never actually affirmed the church's teaching that abortion is morally wrong. A nine‑page response by Sister Daniel said the critique "violates principles of logic," "employs accusatory language," "adopts subjective and argumentative style and denies the obvious."
She said the critique's methodology "makes apparent its potential for dividing two national groups who are called to be, and who want to be, signs of unity and collaboration," she added.
In 1978, after the Vatican voiced its concern about religious not living with their communities, Sister Daniel said that was not a problem in the United States. She noted that one situation in which church law allowed a religious to live alone was when separation from one's community was required to engage in a particular apostolic work in accordance with the goals of one's order. "I'm sure that the vast majority of permissions that are given are in that context," she said.
Also that year, before she left LCWR to lead her order, Sister Daniel spoke at a seminar on ministering to women, telling participants to reject sexual stereotypes. "You're not called to be like men, not called to be like women," she said. "You're called to be like God."
In 1980, at the National Catholic Educational Association convention in New Orleans, Sister Daniel said the mission of Jesus is intended "to transform the history of the forgotten, the voiceless, the powerless into a story of remembering there is but one human family." It is a mission, she added, "of hearing those to whom we have closed our ears and of sharing our power with those who have none."
She gave both the 1981 and 1989 commencement speeches at Washington Theological Union. In the 1990s, she was the administrator for Joseph's House, a home for chronically ill homeless men. She retired from active ministry in 1994.
Five years ago, Sister Daniel received the LCWR's outstanding leadership award for her contributions to the conference, her work in the renewal of religious life since the 1960s and her ministry to the marginalized. When she accepted the award, she called the leaders of women religious to be "boldly responsive" to the demands of the times.
She was buried at her order's cemetery in Ilchester, Md.

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First American Indian prelate, Bishop Donald Pelotte, dies at age 64
Patricia Zapor
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON-Retired Bishop Donald E. Pelotte of Gallup, N.M., the first American Indian bishop in the United States, died January 7 at a Florida hospital. He was 64.
Bishop Pelotte had been head of the Gallup Diocese for 18 years before resigning because of health problems in 2008. In July 2007 the bishop was severely injured in an incident at his Gallup home, spending months afterward in neurological hospitals and rehabilitation centers in Arizona, Texas and Florida.

According to the Albuquerque Journal newspaper, Gallup diocesan spokesman Lee Lamb said Bishop Pelotte's death was not related to those injuries. He had been hospitalized since December 27 at Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, near where he had lived since retirement. No further details about his illness were released.
Bishop Pelotte was named coadjutor of Gallup in 1986 at the age of 40. His outdoor ordination ceremony at Red Rock State Park Arena was a joyous cultural celebration that included dancers and singers in native dress from American Indian tribes across the Southwest as well as representatives of his own Abenaki tribe from Maine.
He became head of the Gallup Diocese in 1990 upon the retirement of Bishop Jerome Hastrich. By that time, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, a member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Tribe, had been installed as head of the Denver Archdiocese, making him the first American Indian to head a diocese.
Bishop Pelotte was born April 13, 1945, in Waterville, Maine. His father, Norris Pelotte, was Abenaki and his mother, Margaret, was of French‑Canadian descent.
At his episcopal ordination Mass, Archbishop Robert F. Sanchez of Santa Fe., N.M., urged the new bishop to never forget that he came from a family that struggled to make ends meet, an experience that would serve him well in the poverty‑stricken Gallup Diocese. The diocese stretches across parts of Arizona and New Mexico, taking in much of the Navajo and Hopi reservations.
After graduating from Eymard Seminary high school in Hyde Park, N.Y., he went on to graduate from John Carroll University in Cleveland and receive a doctorate in theology from Fordham University. He was ordained as a priest of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament on September 2, 1972.
By the age of 33, then‑Father Pelotte had been named provincial of his religious community, at that time the youngest major superior of a men's religious order in the U.S. His twin brother is also a priest of the Blessed Sacrament congregation. Bishop Pelotte ordained Father Dana Pelotte in 1999. Father Pelotte is pastor of a Houston parish. Another brother, Roger Pelotte, also survives the bishop.
Especially in his early years as bishop, Bishop Pelotte frequently weighed in on the concerns of American Indians in the church and in society.
He advocated for the canonization of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, a Mohawk tribe member, encouraged American Indians to incorporate their culture into Catholicism and welcomed Pope John Paul II to a prayer service with American Indians in Phoenix. In 1991 he urged that the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' arrival in North America be a time for reconciliation with the continent's native peoples.
Bishop Pelotte had been a board member of the Tekakwitha Conference since 1981. He also belonged to the Catholic Theological Society of America and the American Catholic Historical Society.
His successor in Gallup, Bishop James S. Wall, said in a statement that the diocese was saddened by Bishop Pelotte's death.
He said his predecessor "had a great love for the Native American people‑‑and his spirit of service will continue to live on. Our hearts and prayers go out to all who mourn."
Santa Fe Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan held a memorial Mass January 7.
Celine Baca Radigan, director of communications for the archdiocese, said that before he left on a trip to Rome, Archbishop Sheehan expressed his condolences to Bishop Pelotte's family and to the people of Gallup. She said the archbishop talked about how Bishop Pelotte worked tirelessly on behalf of American Indians. He also noted that much of the groundwork on the repeal of New Mexico's death penalty last year was laid by Bishop Pelotte.
The extensive injuries that led to Bishop Pelotte's early retirement was something of a puzzle. He was found by a diocesan employee alone in his house, with the appearance of someone who had been severely beaten.
Gallup Police began to investigate the possibility of a crime. They closed the case a short time later, when Bishop Pelotte recovered sufficiently to tell them he had been injured in a fall down the stairs.
After months of recuperation, he returned briefly to the diocese, but found it too difficult to work and submitted his resignation in April 2008.

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