Tribute Archives

With death of Jean Vanier, Catholicism loses a living saint

May 7, 2019

Jean Vanier, who was 90, died from cancer Tuesday morning in a facility in Paris run by the L’Arche community that he founded in 1964.

By John L. Allen Jr.

Church’s leading scholar on the East was, from beginning to end, his own man

Nov 4, 2018

Jesuit Father Robert Taft, who died Monday at 86, was one of those unforgettable characters who make Rome what it is.

By John L. Allen Jr.

Why Michael Novak was a true American gentleman

Feb 19, 2017

Giving of himself to others was Michael Novak’s great gift. And this great, genuinely Catholic mind, who died Saturday at the age of 83, will continue giving to us through his more than 50 books. Our best tribute to him is to carry on his work, to imitate his spirit.

By Andreas Widmer

Jesuits lose a former leader who was a ‘cheerful giver’

Nov 27, 2016

Father Peter Hans Kolvenbach was elected superior general of the Society of Jesus in 1983 on the first ballot. The Jesuits needed a leader endowed with his undemonstrative holiness and a practical wisdom honed by international and wartime experience.

By Father Gerald O'Collins

Elie Wiesel stirred the world with the necessity of madness

Jul 3, 2016

For Elie Wiesel, who died July 2 at 87 years old, madness was not insanity. It was rather the willingness, often in the face of incredible odds, to stand up for human dignity no matter what one’s national identity, racial heritage or sexual orientation might be.

By John Pawlikowski

Daniel Berrigan embodied the “cultural revolution” of Pope Francis

May 2, 2016

Among the many noteworthy additions to the Catholic magisterium within Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si’, was the introduction of the term “integral ecology.” In many ways, the term is meant to bring together the church’s longstanding teachings of “human ecology” and “environmental ecology.” In another way, however, what Pope

By Daniel Cosacchi