Obituary Archives

Nabeel Qureshi, who shared conversion from Islam to Christianity, dies at 34

Nabeel Qureshi was raised an Ahmadi Muslim by his parents, who immigrated to the United States from Pakistan. When he was an adult, a Christian friend challenged him to study Islam with a critical eye, the same way he had studied Christianity. After several years of investigation, and what he described as dreams and visions, he became a Christian.

Cardinal Carlo Caffara and the perennial genius of Catholicism

Obituary

September 7, 2017

Although some accounts have framed the Sept. 6 death of Italian Cardinal Carlo Caffarra almost entirely in terms of his final act as one of the “dubia cardinals” challenging Pope Francis’s document “Amoris Laetita,” he was a much bigger figure than that, and he illustrated Catholicism’s perennial genius for embracing strong and divergent views on important questions all at once.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor dies at the age of 85

Cormac Murphy-O’Connor was chosen as Archbishop of Westminster following the death of Cardinal Basil Hume in 1999, and made a cardinal in February 2001, along with Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires. Murphy-O’Connor had come to know Bergoglio well from cardinals’ gatherings in Rome, when they were usually seated together, along with three others, a group the English cardinal nicknamed La Squadra, or “the team.”

Pezzullo, former diplomat who was first layman to head CRS, dies at 91
- Catholic News Service, Obituary
- August 6, 2017
Lawrence A. Pezzullo, the first layman to head CRS, died at the end of July. Coming to CRS after a career in the U.S. Foreign Service, Pezzullo is credited with taking the agency “to a new level of professionalism and impact,” reads the tribute from CRS.
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Joaquin Navarro-Valls: Take him for all in all, I will not look upon his like again
- Obituary
- July 5, 2017
Joaquin Navarro Valls, the longtime spokesman for Pope John Paul who played a role under the Polish pope somewhat akin to a chief of staff, died Wednesday at the age of 80 from cancer. He wasn’t without his flaws, but he was nevertheless a giant of a man, and someone who took a deep personal as well as professional interest in the people around him. Whatever else can be said, it will be a long time before we see someone else like him.
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With cardinal’s death, church in India loses a ‘martyr for mission’
- Global Church, Obituary
- June 20, 2017
Cardinal Oswald Gracis of India says his fellow Indian Prince of the Church, Ivan Dias, who died in Rome on Monday at the age of 81, was a “martyr for mission,” driven by a relentless missionary zeal and willing to put up with illness and suffering as the result of his efforts.
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