Faith Matters | My friend, Father Joe, has died. But our story is not over

Father Joe Connolly died this week. Maybe you didn’t know. Maybe when you opened Wednesday’s newspaper his obituary was overshadowed by coverage of the inauguration. He would’ve been OK with that. He was never really out there seeking the world’s attention anyway.

But he had mine. I wrote about my friendship with Father Joe a few years back for this very column. It was an unlikely one: a female, Protestant pastor and a Catholic priest. He and I reflected on the article because we wanted to demonstrate how people who don’t necessarily agree on everything, or anything, can still find ways to live out Kingdom life, together, out of a mutual love for Jesus Christ.

As I watched our new president speak about unity and reconciliation Wednesday, my mind kept drifting back to Father Joe. While the president lifted up these ideals, Father Joe had lived them out on a day-to-day basis. Our last email exchange was one that I think every pastor of any denomination would resonate with — frustration over not being able to see the people that he was ordained to serve. Father Joe understood that we were made for community and relationship — relationship with God and relationship with each other.

One of the many things that I so appreciated about Father Joe was his ability to see beyond himself, as he had expressed so eloquently in that last email. Though he’d been in and out of the hospital throughout 2020, I’d always find an email from him with a word of encouragement for me or a handwritten letter in my office mailbox with an article that he thought would be of interest.

I was pretty excited to share with him a series that I’m currently preaching about what are known as the 5 Solas of the Reformation. In non-church speak that basically means what reformed Protestants believe. I think he would’ve been happy to engage that conversation and not dismiss it immediately just because the Reformation was in direct conflict with the Catholic Church. He and I both realized that so many people in so many pews truly don’t have any clue what the church they attend actually believes. That doesn’t mean that we would have agreed or even that he would have enthusiastically endorsed my preaching on this topic. But he would’ve been up for the conversation. Can you imagine? Knowingly engaging someone in a civil conversation where the end goal is not agreement but understanding.

Many pastors will confess that ministry can be very lonely. There are things that clergy carry that simply cannot be shared with the lay world. And it is a blessed thing indeed to be able to have colleagues to share both the joys and struggles of our calling. Father Joe was a fabulous colleague. His was a ministry of encouragement, of joy, of profound faith. My favorite “argument” with him was always over which one of us loved our congregations more. What a fabulous thing to be able to “argue” over!

Father Joe Connolly died this week. He died the day before I preached about Sola Fide – through faith alone. That particular sola deals directly with what happens to us when we die. Father Joe’s tradition and my tradition disagree on this issue. And that could be the end of the story. But Father Joe and I absolutely agreed on the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the hope of eternity. And because of that, the story does not end this week. It is simply paused until we are able to catch up with one another in Glory.

Thanks for your faithful ministry, Father Joe. You will be missed and we’ll do our best down here to be kind.

Faith Matters is written by members of the clerical community in the Bradenton area. Rev. Hope Italiano Lee is the lead pastor at Kirkwood Presbyterian Church in Bradenton, www.bigreenchurch.org.

This story was originally published January 22, 2021 at 5:00 AM.