Thomas Quigley
Thomas Quigley died Dec. 11, 2021, at age 91. Photo courtesy of the Gerlach family
The four-decade staffer at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, mostly in its foreign policy office, was considered one of the leading experts on the Catholic Church in Latin America.
Quigley died Dec. 11 at 91.
Hired in 1962, Quigley was the longest-serving staffer — at 45 years — when he accepted a buyout during restructuring of the bishops’ conference in 2007, Catholic News Service reported.
Early in his career there he oversaw a program similar to the Peace Corps called Papal Volunteers.
He met St. Oscar Romero in 1977 for the first time and was last with him on the day before the Salvadoran archbishop was killed while celebrating Mass on March 24, 1980, CNS reported. Quigley authored the introduction to the English translation of Romero’s diaries of his life as San Salvador archbishop.
Later in Quigley’s career, he was an adviser on East Asian affairs, concentrating on human rights and religious freedom.
Retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu
The man who became synonymous with South Africa’s nonviolent struggle against apartheid earned the Nobel Peace Prize for railing against the racially oppressive regime that stifled his country.
Tutu died Sunday (Dec. 26) at 90.
The spiritual leader of millions of Black and white South Africans headed his country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and withstood critics who rejected his determination to protest racial segregation and to seek nonviolent solutions.
Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Pretoria, South Africa, March 21, 2003. Tutu, South Africa’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist for racial justice and LGBT rights and retired Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, has died at the age of 90, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe, File)
His honors included the Presidential Medal of Freedom from then-President Barack Obama in 2009 and the Templeton Prize, a top award in the field of religion and spirituality, in 2013.
Later in life, the first Black Anglican bishop of Johannesburg continued to preach about the need for forgiveness and reconciliation, extending his message about justice to advocate for poor people, support Palestinians, and speak out for gay rights.
“All, all are God’s children and none, none is ever to be dismissed as rubbish,” he once told a “God and Us” class he taught as a visiting professor at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. “And that’s why you have to be so passionate in your opposition to injustice of any kind.”
This article originally appeared here.
