Tim Unsworth RIP

[chicago]

Tim Unsworth, a longtime columnist for NCR known for his wit and keen observation of how ordinary Catholics lived their faith in the pews and the streets, died April 30 after a long illness. He was 78.

In 1982, soon after Joseph Bernardin was named archbishop of Chicago, Unsworth wrote a letter to Bernardin, advising him to eat his lunches in a deli and ride a bus or walk to work. “An archbishop on a Chicago Transit Authority bus would convert half the bus population,” Unsworth wrote.

ncrcafe.org/node/1776

Remembering Tim Unsworth by John Allen:

My first overseas trip as a reporter came in the 1990s, when the National Catholic Reporter dispatched me to Austria to cover a national assembly of the Catholic Church. While in Central Europe, I also went to Slovakia and Hungary to interview leading churchmen there. I was accompanied by Hubert Feichtlbauer, a veteran Austrian journalist and commentator on Catholic affairs, who has since become a good friend. I recall sitting in the train on the way to Budapest preparing for an interview with Cardinal László Paskai, while Hubert caught up on some back copies of NCR.

At one stage, Hubert – no slouch himself in terms of literary tradecraft – looked up from his reading and exclaimed: “My God, this Unsworth fellow can write!”

The reference, of course, was to the legendary Catholic writer Tim Unsworth, a longtime columnist for the National Catholic Reporter. As I was returning from Rome this week, the sad news reached me that Tim had died of heart failure at 78 after a long illness.

ncrcafe.org/node/1780

Writer Put Faith In Focus

Tim Unsworth frowned on the audacity of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and disagreed with what he considered archaic Catholic teachings. But he never lost his rapier wit, his way with words or his abiding love for the church.

A longtime columnist for the National Catholic Reporter, Mr. Unsworth, a former Christian Brother of Ireland, left the religious life to write about it. He wrote five books and hundreds of editorials for the nation’s leading Catholic newspaper, eventually becoming a major progressive voice in the church.

chicagotribune.com/news/custom/religion/chi-hed-unsworth-01-may01,0,2510199.story

 

[aimee]

my condolences to his family and friends

 

[joeybaggz]

Hay eternal light shine upon him and may he rest in peace. Amen
or
as Fr. Neuhaus (sp?) would say, “may the angels and saints receive him with joy on the far side of the Jordan.”