Tag: Biographies and Obituaries

“Funeral Homily: Father Roy McGinn”, January 9, 2009, La Salle Manor

 Father Roy McGinn

Funeral Homily at La Salle Manor Friday January 9, 2009

by Msgr. Vincent Foy

Your Excellency and dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

It was just on Sunday, Oct 5th of last year that we celebrated the priesthood and the seventy years of priesthood of Father Roy McGinn.

Now we more fittingly reflect on the priesthood and death, with special reference to Father McGinn, who died on the Feast of Blessed Brother Andre of Montreal, January 6th.  This was a most fitting day.  Father McGinn, like Brother Andre, had great devotion to St. Joseph and was ordained on the Feast of St. Joseph.

His dear cousin Bernice, with us today, told me that she prayed he would go on that day.

The Priest and Death

The priest is no stranger to death.  If he did not witness death first-hand before his ordination, he certainly witnessed it soon after.  He sees death in its myriad ways – the death of the very young and the very old; death by slow disease and its sudden visitation; death by natural causes and tragic accident; peaceful death and painful death; death of the poor and death of the rich; of those prepared and those not prepared; of those near and dear and total strangers; death accompanied by many tears and death without a single tear.  All obey the call of the Angel of Death.

Every time a priest witnesses death or celebrates a funeral or stands praying by a graveside he is reminded that before very long he also will be called to face God in judgement.  He knows, as do us all, that on that awesome day nothing, nothing matters except how we stand in the order of grace.

The Companions of Death

No one who has reached the age of reason goes before God alone.  He carries with him all his words and works, his faults and sins, his failings and virtues.  For these he must give an account to a merciful but just judge.

The priest is singularly blessed in the advocates of mercy he takes to judgement.  There are the many he has baptized and brought to grace. There are thousands who heard from him, speaking in Christ’s place and with His power, “I absolve you from your sins.”  St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that the absolution of a sinner is a greater miracle than the creation of the world.  There are the many facing death that he has anointed with the saving oil of chrism.  There are those whose marriages he witnessed with the blessing of the church.  There are his instructions, his counselings, his acts of charity, and his visits to the sick.  Above all there is the supreme act of the sacrifice of our salvation made present through the Mass.  What sublime companions to take to judgement!

Still we must not think that the priest does not need our prayers.  Like all the children of Adam and Eve, save our Blessed Mother, he has his sins for which he must make amends.  We ought to remember often the priests who have been the instruments of so much good in our spiritual lives.

The Priesthood of Fr. Roy McGinn

Today we celebrate the nearly seventy-one years of priesthood of Father Roy McGinn.

He was born on the Feast of Saints Cornnelius and Cyprian September 16, 1915 in St. Helen’s parish, Toronto.  He spent his High School years in Our Lady of Lourdes parish, when the pastor was the great priest-poet Msgr. Dollard.  He was never much at athletics because of poor sight but he was remembered for his brightness and cheerfulness.

In September of 1927, he entered De La Salle High School, Bond St., Toronto.  If you look at the High School magazine, the Delescope for the years of 1927-1931, you will see that he was at the top or near the top of his class.

From Bond St. De La Salle he went to De La Salle Moore Park and graduated in 1931.

In the fall of 1931, he joyfully entered St. Augustine’s Seminary, under Archbishop Neil McNeil.  There were then over one hundred and ninety seminarians.  Every room was occupied.  When he completed his six years of philosophy and theology he was only 22.  The age for ordination was 24.  He was assigned to live at St. Michael’s Cathedral rectory where he helped in the chancery office as notary in marriage cases.  His great day of ordination came on the Feast of St. Joseph, March 19th, 1938, when he was ordained a priest at St. Augustine’s Seminary, by Archbishop James Charles McGuigan.

Here are some of his appointments: St. Michael’s Cathedral, Blessed Sacrament parish, Toronto, St. Lawrence Church, Scarborough, St. Thomas Aquinas Church, Toronto, the Church of the Forty Martyrs of Japan at Bradford and St. Paul’s parish, Alliston.

His appointment to Bradford is typical of his priestly zeal and joy and dedication, though he was constantly afraid of going blind.  At Bradford in the forties and fifties of the last century he built a new church and rectory.  He also built a Catholic school and brought to Bradford a congregation of Sisters to teach there.  To them, he gave the old rectory, a fine large house with a little tower.

In the parish, over twenty languages were spoken and at Christmas and Easter, Fr. McGinn arranged for about seven priests to hear confessions, each speaking at least two languages. The rectory was always an open house to his fellow priests.  One could always be sure of a cheery welcome.

In his later years, he was pastor of St. Patrick’s Church, the Gore.  It was a centre for neighbouring priests who often met there Friday evenings.  I was among those who often gathered there for a social visit.

Finally, suffering from the ravages of age, he retired to St. Joseph’s Manor on Leslie St., Toronto,  Then he went to Providence Villa and after that to La Salle Manor about fourteen years ago.  Here, bearing the cross of near total paralysis for some years, he awaited God’s call, which came last Tuesday.  A deep debt of gratitude is owed to the Brothers, nurses and caregivers of La Salle Manor who gave him true dedicated care.  One caregiver told me Fr. McGinn was her favourite patient.

Thanks also to Jack and Bernice Theurer, who helped him over many years, and Deacon Sal Badali who assisted him in many ways.  Thanks also for the help of Marisa Rogucki, Director of Archdiocesan care for retired priests.

Soon Fr. McGinn’s mortal remains will join those of classmates and priest-friends at Mary Queen of the Clergy cemetery at St. Augustine’s Seminary.  His grave will be marked with a little stone giving his name, date of ordination and date of death.  His true monument is the countless souls whom he helped on their way to God.

May we benefit from his example and rejoice in his service to God and Church and souls.

Amen.

“Father Roy McGinn, Seventy Years a Priest”, Homily of Msgr. Foy, October 5, 2008

Father Roy McGinn, 70 Years a Priest

Homily of Msgr. Vincent Foy,  Sunday October 5, 2008

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Today we are celebrating the Priesthood and the seventy years of Priesthood of Father Roy McGinn.

The Priesthood is a vast subject.  Thousands of books have been written about it.  Thousands of sermons have been preached about it.  It is concisely treated in the Decree on the Life and Ministry of the Priest of Vatican II called Presbyterorum Ordinis of December 7, 1965.

It treats of: the Nature of the Priesthood, the Function of Priests as Ministers of God’s Word, as Ministers of the Sacraments and the Eucharist, of their Brotherly Bond and Co-operation among Priests, of the Relation of Priests with lay People, of the Priests Call to Holiness, especially Humility and Obedience, and much more.

We see how vast and deep is the subject of the Priesthood.

Now we take only a glancing look at the Priesthood.  Even that brief glance shows us how great and essential is the Priesthood in God’s plan of salvation.

The Chalice of Joy and Consolation

A common symbol of the Priesthood is the Chalice – the Chalice and the Priesthood are intimately intertwined.

First, the Chalice of Joy and Consolation.  Every priest drinks deeply of this chalice.

There is the joy of one’s vocation.  It is the realization of a dream, often going back to childhood.  There is the joy of caring for the sick and the dying, of bringing back to God prodigal sons and daughters, and of the fellowship of other priests and friends.

On the Sunday after my ordination in 1939, I visited the Lithuanian Church in Toronto at the pastor’s request.  Fasting even from water from midnight, I sung the 11 a.m. High Mass, preached the homily, gave Holy Communion to the First Holy Communion class, enrolled them in the Scapular and gave Benediction.  On the streetcar, coming home, still fasting, I was asked by a passenger: “Don’t you find it a hard task working for the Lord these days?” “Not really,” I replied.  In fact, I was filled with joy at my priestly experience.  All through the priesthood, one drinks of the chalice of joy and consolation.

The Chalice of Sorrow and Suffering

There is also the chalice of sorrow and suffering.

I think every priest has his own little Garden of Gethsemane, when he says, as did Christ “Father, if it be possible, let this Chalice pass from me.”  Some suffering is common to all, like sickness and infirmity and the weakness of age.  Some is more specific to the priesthood, like difficult appointments, difficulties with some priestly duties, or difficult parishioners and demands.

In all of these sufferings in his little Gethsemane, the priest is called to say “Thy Will be done.”  He knows that he must follow Christ to Calvary and he knows that every lesson worth learning can be learned at the foot of the cross.

The Chalice of Salvation

Besides the chalice of joy and the chalice of suffering and sorrow, the priest offers up the Chalice of Salvation.

The evening before He died, Christ changed bread and wine into His Body and Blood and said to the Apostles, “Do this in memory of me.”  Three days later, on the night of His resurrection, He said to the Apostles, “Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them, whose sins you shall retain they are retained.”

So the priesthood makes Christ present with all His salvific power throughout the world and every day.  At his recent Mass in Paris, Pope Benedict XVI said, “Raise the Cup of Salvation!”  The context of this talk was his plea for more vocations to the priesthood.

The power to consecrate the Body of Christ and the power to forgive sins are the greatest powers ever bestowed upon man.

St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that, because of his great dignity, the priest has a special obligation to be holy, even beyond that required for the religious state.

But always, in offering up the Chalice of Salvation, the priest remembers that he is a priest, not primarily for himself, but for others, to lead others to God and Eternal Life.

The Priesthood of Fr. Roy McGinn

Today we celebrate the seventy years of priesthood of our companion Fr. Roy McGinn.  In those seventy years, he drank deeply of the chalice of joy and suffering and salvation.  He was born on the Feast of Saints Cornelius and Cyprian, September 16, 1915, in St. Monica’s parish, Toronto.

He spent his High School years in Our Lady of Lourdes parish, when the pastor was the great priest-poet Msgr. Dollard.  He was never much at athletics because of poor sight but he was remembered for his brightness and cheerfulness.

In September of 1927, he entered De La Salle High School, Bond St., Toronto.  If you look at the High School magazine, the Delescope for the years of 1927-1931, you will see that he was at the top or near the top of the class.

From Bond St. De La Salle he went to De La Salle Moore Park and graduated in 1931.

In the fall of 1931, he joyfully entered St. Augustine’s Seminary, under Archbishop Neil McNeil.  There were then over one hundred and ninety seminarians.  Every room was occupied.  When he completed his six years of philosophy and theology he was only 22.  The age for ordination was 24.  He was assigned to live at St. Michael’s Cathedral rectory where he helped in the chancery office as notary in marriage cases.  His great day of ordination came on the Feast of St. Joseph, March 15th, 1938, when he was ordained a priest at St. Augustine’s Seminary, by Archbishop James Charles McGuigan.

Here are some of his appointments: St. Michael’s Cathedral, Blessed Sacrament parish, Toronto, St. Lawrence Church, Scarborough, St. Thomas Aquinas Church, Toronto, and the Church of the Forty Martyrs of Japan at Bradford.

His appointment to Bradford is typical of his priestly zeal and joy and dedication, though he was constantly afraid of going blind.  At Bradford in the forties and fifties of the last century he built a new church and rectory.  He also built a Catholic school and brought to Bradford a congregation of Sisters to teach there.  To them, he gave the old rectory, a fine large house with a little tower.

In the parish, over twenty languages were spoken and at Christmas and Easter, Fr. McGinn arranged for about seven priests to hear confessions, each speaking at least two languages. The rectory was always an open house to his fellow priests.  One could always be sure of a cheery welcome.

In his later years, he was pastor of St. Patrick’s Church, the Gore.  It was a centre for neighbouring priests who often met there Friday evenings.  I was among those who often gathered there for a social visit.

Finally, suffering from the ravages of age, he retired to St. Joseph’s Manor on Leslie St., Toronto, where I often visited him.  Then to Providence Villa and then to the good care of La Salle Manor about thirteen years ago, where, bearing the cross of near total paralysis, he awaits God’s Call.

We celebrate today the priesthood of a truly dedicated priest.  He drank deeply of the Chalice of the priesthood.  His monument is the countless souls whom he helped on their way to God.

May we benefit from his example and rejoice in his service to God and Church and souls. Amen.

Cardinal Edouard Gagnon 1918 – 2007

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Published November, 2007, Catholic Insight.

Cardinal Edouard Gagnon

1918-2007

By Monsignor Vincent Foy

“A faithful pastor who, with an evangelical spirit, consecrated his life in service to Christ and His Church” — Pope Benedict XVI.

In the death of Cardinal Gagnon, Canada has lost one of its most illustrious churchmen. He was a holy, learned and courageous teacher and defender of Life and the Faith.

 The Basic Statistics

Eduard Gagnon was born in the small Gaspe town of Port Daniel in 1918, the third of thirteen children. His mother was part Irish, his father French Canadian, a carpenter. The family moved to Montreal in his childhood. He went from altar boy to seminarian and was ordained a Sulpician priest in 1940. He remained at the seminary a year longer to obtain his doctorate in theology.

In 1941 he was sent to study Canon Law at Laval in Quebec City and in three years obtained his doctorate. On his return to Montreal he taught moral theology and canon law for ten years at the Grand Seminary.

From 1954 to 1960 he was Seminary President at St. Boniface, Manitoba. In 1961 he was named rector of a major seminary in Colombia, South America. He was there for three years before returning to Canada, when he was elected Provincial of the Sulpicians for Canada, Japan and South America.

During his time as Provincial he also acted as a peritus during the closing phase of Vatican Council II.

He was ordained bishop of Saint Paul in Alberta on March 25th, 1969, and was there until his resignation in May of 1972.

In 1972 he was named rector of the Canadian College in Rome.

In January of 1973 he was appointed Vice President of the newly formed Committee of the Family and President the following year.

In 1979 he resigned his position in Rome and for the next years travelled extensively in Canada, the U.S., Africa and South America promoting Family Life, and right catechesis. Everywhere he emphasised the need to uphold the encyclical “Humanae Vitae” and the Apostolic Exhortation “Familiaris Consortio”.

He was recalled to Rome by Pope John II in 1983, and on May 25thof that year named titular Archbishop and Pro-President of the new Pontifical Council for the Family.

In May of 1985 he was named Cardinal Deacon and President of the Council for the Family. He resigned that office in 1990.

In 1991 he was appointed President of the Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses. He also worked on some canonisation causes.

He was invested as an officer of the Order of Canada in 1993. In 1996 he was created a Cardinal priest. He returned to Canada upon his retirement in 2001 and resided at the Sulpician residence. When able he continued to lecture on Life issues, mostly in the U.S.

He died in Montreal late on Saturday August 25th, 2007, or early on August 26.

His funeral Mass was at Notre Dame Basilica in Montreal on Tuesday September 4th.

Special Missions

On a number of occasions Cardinal Gagnon represented the Holy See at international events. In 1973 he represented the Holy See at a meeting of Catholic Universities in Salamanca, Spain. In 1974 he headed the delegation of the Holy See at an International Conference on Population in Bucharest. There he spoke on the many evils following from contraception.

He wrote numerous articles on Life issues, interviewed countless delegations, arranged many audiences with the Holy Father and carried on an immense correspondence. He wrote to Catherine Bolger of Toronto thanking her for her articles in the Messenger of the Sacred Heart upholding the Church’s teaching on Life and family.  In all his work his fluency in English, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese were a considerable help.

Here I would like to single out three missions of importance to the Church. In each of these he acted as the delegate of the Holy Father.

The Pontifical Lateran University

In the late nineteen seventies, Pope Paul VI entrusted to Bishop Gagnon an investigation of the teaching at the Pontifical Lateran University. There had been a public scandal when the Roman newspaper Si Si NoNo reported that some professors at the Lateran were Modernists, teaching the errors of Hans Kung and others. This I knew to be true. When I was living at the Canadian College in 1977 a Canadian student priest came to me greatly disturbed when a teacher at the Lateran told him he could not get his doctorate unless his thesis took into account the teaching of Hans Kung.

After numerous interviews at the Lateran and elsewhere, Bishop Gagnon presented a report with recommendations to Pope Paul VI. I do not know what happened to this report.

The Roman Curia

About 1977 the Pope asked Bishop Gagnon to conduct an investigation of the whole Roman Curia. There were widespread rumors of corruption and infiltration by enemies of the Church. These led to the often-repeated saying of the pope that the smoke of Satan had entered the Church. This was an immense task, which took many months of intense work and many interviews.

Dr. Alice von Hildebrand, in an interview with Latin Mass magazine, reprinted in Christian Order this year, gives this account, based on a conversation of Bishop Gagnon with an Italian priest Don Luigi Villa of the diocese of Brescia. Bishop Gagnon “ compiled a long dossier, rich in worrisome details. He requested an audience with Pope Paul in order to deliver personally the manuscript to the Pontiff. This request for a meeting was denied. The Pope sent word that the document should be placed in the offices of the Congregation for the Clergy, specifically in a safe with a double lock. This was done, but by the very next day the safety box was broken and the manuscript mysteriously disappeared. This theft was reported even in L’Osservatore Romano (perhaps under pressure because it had been reported in the secular press). Cardinal Gagnon, of course, had a copy, and once again asked the Pope for a private audience. Once again his request was denied. He then decided to leave Rome and return to his homeland in Canada. Later he was called back to Rome by Pope John Paul II and made a cardinal.”The implication was that it was because of the refusal of Pope Paul VI to see him that Bishop Gagnon returned to Canada. Perhaps it was because of his poor health that the Holy Father did not want to face up to the problems in the Curia at that time. Bishop Gagnon told me that the Pope was under heavy medication and that explained why his speech was sometimes slurred. Actually it was because Pope John Paul II did not implement any of the recommendations of the report that Bishop Gagnon decided to leave Rome.

Bishop Gagnon wrote me on June 10th, 1979, about ten months after the election of Pope John Paul II. He said, in part, “He (the Pope) must feel that if he started changing or contradicting the VIPs around him he would be engaged in a constant battle and would not be left enough time or strength  to preach and write– –all you can do for the Church is to pray and fast. We should not judge him—but I am waiting for his settling down after Poland to tell him that I am sorry for him and cannot continue working in the present set-up. I wish I were holier and could go and spend my life in a monastery, just praying. My situation will be of uneasiness. Without naming you I had communicated to the Pope’s personal secretary the new facts contained in your letter, so he knows how I feel on that too.”

In a letter dated October 20, 1979, from Montreal, Bishop Gagnon informed me that he had returned from Rome. He said:  “ I am here since the 5th. It is probable I will not go back. I have brought along my belongings and unless the Holy Father calls me back and promises to take into account the important facts I have exposed, I’ll remain here for a good period of rest and spiritual retreat and then I’ll go back to teaching and preaching.”

That is what he did as we have already seen. He was called back to Rome by the Holy Father in mid 1983.

The Society of St. Pius X

As a delegate of Pope John Paul II, in 1987 the now Cardinal Gagnon tried to end the rift between Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and Rome. To this purpose he conducted interviews with the Archbishop and others and visited institutions belonging to the new Society. At first things seemed to be progressing favorably. Unfortunately, swayed by his advisors, the Archbishop refused the condition that he ordain only one bishop for the Society. So the mission ended in failure. Archbishop Lefebvre was excommunicated in 1988 after consecrating four bishops without permission from the Holy See.

Personal Memories

Although we were two years apart at the Faculty of Canon Law at Laval University in Quebec City during World War II, Father Eduard Gagnon and I took many courses together and became good friends. That friendship was shown in much kindness to me over the years.

Father Gagnon was one of four periti or experts present when the Canadian bishops met at Winnipeg in September of 1968 to discuss the encyclical Humanae Vitae. Unfortunately he could only remain about two days. Bishop Francis Allen, Auxillary Bishop of Toronto, told me that, although he considered the Winnipeg meeting a disgrace, a bright light near the beginning of the week was a talk by Fr.Gagnon asking for fidelity to the Church’s teaching.

On several occasions I was a guest of Bishop Gagnon when he was Rector of the Canadian College in Rome. When I was on a mission to Rome in 1977-78, he gave me the ample quarters of the former Vice Rector. He referred me to many key churchmen pertinent to my mission. Once when I was called to the Vatican byArchbishop Caprio, the Substitute Secretary of State, to thank me for an article I wrote on the tenth anniversary of Humanae Vitae, Bishop Gagnon asked me to present to the Secretary reasons why a certain churchman should not be the Vatican’s representative at the United Nations. His appointment was imminent. I believe that it because of that interview that another bishop was named to the UN.

After the Canadian College was closed in the summer of 1977, to be relocated in the Fall to smaller quarters, Bishop Gagnon arranged for me to be relocated in a suite in the Casa Internazionale del Clero, where most of the priests there worked at the Vatican. Many visiting bishops and priests stayed there during their visit to Rome. The “Casa” was an excellent listening post for events at the Vatican.

Bishop, later Cardinal, Gagnon and I corresponded over many years, mostly on Life issues. He was a great support to me in my failed efforts to have the Winnipeg Statement recalled. Here is an example from a letter dated October 13, 1988: “Thank you most cordially for your letter of Sept.13 and the transparent article on Humanae Vitae. It will help me for a meeting of bishops which the Holy Father has convoked for November on the actuality of the Encyclical.”

Epilogue

In my personal opinion, Cardinal Gagnon was perhaps Canada’s greatest churchman. I never met anyone so completely dedicated to the Church and Family issues. For many years he suffered from ill health, which he bore heroically, though he regretted that it sometimes impeded his work. He wrote to me from Pamplona, Spain on October 20th, 1990: “I write this from this city where I have come for seven weeks therapy, for something they discovered during an operation I had here in September at the Opus Dei University Clinic. Pray that Our Lord help me to accept even deep suffering.” In the same letter, concerning another matter, he wrote: “Obedience to the Church remains the surest means of an efficacious apostolate”

Cardinal Gagnon constantly spoke and wrote on the need to uphold Humanae Vitae. He wrote: “Humanae Vitae is one of the most important documents in the history of the Church. The opposition to Humanae Vitae came mostly from ‘theologians’ who advanced the pretext that it was difficult for couples to observe the rules of morality in the present circumstances. But it is no more difficult than it was. We were thirteen in my home. We were born in two or three small rooms.. Most of our families had more difficulties than anyone has now. Parents had more children and they were happy with the children they had.”

Cardinal Gagnon looked upon the Winnipeg Statement of the Canadian bishops as a true tragedy. He considered those bishops who upheld it to be in schism.

If some of Cardinal Gagnon’s missions apparently ended in failure they were failures only in the sense that martyrs are failures. Now it is up to more bishops, priests, religious and laity to hold up the torch to Truth about Life, which Cardinal Gagnon held up so bravely and for so long.

On Tuesday September 4th, 2007, the mortal remains of Cardinal Gagnon were interred in the crypt of the Grand Seminary in Montreal. This is the Institution where his Mission began.. In the words of Pope Benedict: “ May the Lord receive him in peace and in the light of His kingdom.”

Msgr. Vincent Foy