Friend & mentor

In his remembrance of his colleagues at Commonweal, Wilfrid Sheed said that Bill Clancy was "our most spiritual" and that "his whiskey-jar chuckle won hearts right and left." It certainly won mine. I was a Benedictine seminarian in Kansas in the late 1950s, very much in tune with Commonweal and those like Clancy who were trying to bring a breath of fresh air to the church. Several years later, I learned that Clancy would be coming to the Oxford college where I would be studying. I was excited, if a bit nervous, to meet one of my old heroes. There was no reason to be anxious. No one could have been less pretentious, less interested in his own standing in the church. Over the next several years, Bill and I had a wonderful friendship. He had his demons, as we all have, but the memory of Bill Clancy is something I will cherish. He was a gentle friend and a sagacious mentor. The "whiskey-jar chuckle" was there, but there was also much more.

RICHARD PHAYER

Hackensack, N.J.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Commonweal Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning