Remembering A “Great Life”

by David Scott

“Just remember, Mother Teresa was a tough old bird.”

It was three Octobers ago, and Capuchin Father Ronald Lawler and I were in the basement of St. Augustine Friary in Lawrenceville. We were sorting the books in his copious library into boxes since he had decided to donate them to a theological think-tank.

It was a strange chore, the kind the living usually perform after a loved one has died—the final gathering and disbursing of earthly belongings.

God had given Father Lawler the good grace and a spot of time to get his affairs in order. His doctors had told him that his time was short—a week, maybe a month or so, until the lung cancer diagnosed the year before would finally claim him.

We were talking about the book I was writing on Mother Teresa. Father Ronald seemed to want to make sure I got it right. He’d known her from his work in various international conferences on the family, and he wanted me to get across that she was no pious push-over, that she was as shrewd and tough as she was holy.

Father Ronald was always a teacher and a spiritual father.

Truth is, I never knew him as well as I wanted to. I was always intimidated and a bit tongue-tied around him.

I shouldn’t have been. He was gentle and funny, with a sharp mind and a sharp wit, and a serious sweet tooth. At his funeral, two of his “honorary grandchildren” could be overheard debating whether he would be the patron saint of licorice or chocolate.

However, he was also a legendary figure, and I knew a lot of the stories.

Like the time he accepted an invitation to appear on “The Phil Donahue Show.” It was a set-up for sure—the token priest to serve as fall guy for Phil’s attacks against Catholic teachings on birth control, celibacy, and women’s ordination. But Father Ronald’s reasoned and winsome defense of the faith won the audience over and yielded a rare TV moment—he’d rendered the outspoken talk-show host speechless.

Father Ronald was an unsung hero of those turbulent years after the Second Vatican Council and the release of Pope Paul VI’s birth-control encyclical, Humanae Vitae.

He was a brilliant philosopher and theologian who remained faithful at a time when many of his colleagues lapsed and lost their way. In 1982, Pope John Paul II paid him the highest compliment—appointing him for life to his elite corps of advisers, the Pontifical Roman Theological Academy. For most of the next 20 years, he was the only American member.

Twin Tributes: New Lecture and Book

This weekend, Father Ronald will be honored by the think-tank that he donated his more than 1,000-volume library to—the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology.

He was an early and proud supporter of the Steubenville-based center. In fact, in his last days, he literally wept with joy when he heard a progress report—that the center’s on-line Bible studies had attracted thousands of students from more than two dozen countries around the world.

On Saturday, October 28, the center will host its second annual Father Ronald Lawler, O.F.M. Cap. Memorial Lecture at St. Paul Seminary in Crafton (for details see www.SalvationHistory.com).

This year’s lecturer will be Capuchin Father Thomas Weinandy, the U.S. bishops’ top doctrinal official and one of Father Ronald’s many distinguished former students.

Father Weinandy also joins a star-studded cast of contributors to a recent book: The Great Life: Essays on Doctrine and Holiness in Honor of Father Ronald Lawler, O.F.M. Cap., edited by Mike Aquilina and Kenneth Ogorek (Emmaus Road Publishing, $15).

It’s a worthy tribute. The book includes essays by such former students as Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston and Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver.

Reading The Great Life reminded me how broad and vital Father Ronald’s concerns were in a career that spanned more than a half-century.

He thought and wrote about the things that really matter in these insecure times—human sexuality and the family; the obligations of Catholic politicians; catechesis and evangelization; the call to holiness.

He knew what the good life truly was. He knew that every human heart hungers for truth, beauty, and goodness—but that too many of us settle for the cheap imitations offered by our culture, making ourselves happy captives to the trivial and the material.

‘Great Work for the Republic’

“You’re doing great work for the Republic,” he used to tell me.

Not just me. He said that to everybody. It was his way of reminding us that God wants us to do great things with our lives, to live for Jesus and his “republic”—the kingdom of God.

The last time I saw Father Ronald was a few weeks after we’d sorted his books. He had been admitted to Vincentian Home, a few blocks from where I live in the North Hills.

When I entered the room, his old friend, Mike Aquilina, was by his bedside, reading psalms to him. Father Ronald was edgy, impatient. His grip was strong as he shook my hand, but you could tell from his eyes that he was already on his way out of this world.

He was ready to go, even if we weren’t ready to let him.

Originally published in The Pittsburgh Catholic (October 26, 2006)
© David Scott, 2006. All rights reserved.