Eulogy For Jim Loughran, S.J.

Reverend James N. Loughran, S.J.

Funeral Mass of Christian Burial
December 30, 2006
Eulogy delivered by James R. Kelly, Brother-in-Law of Father Loughran

We best honor Jim Loughran by following his winning ways. At his many dozens of baptisms and weddings of his nephews and nieces and friends and former students and his several hundreds of homilies and speeches his usual first sentence was that his homily or talk would be no longer than 6 minutes. He thought that the Gettysburg address was at least a sentence or two too long. He would also at the outset tell his congregation or audience that he had 3 things to say. So I will follow Jim and take just 6 minutes to share some of his too brief 66 years with you, his Ignatian brothers, his family Sean, Leslie, and Alyson and James, his beloved friends Lulu and Brian and the innumerable McCue family, Bill and Sue, Vinny and Pat, Eleanor, Marty and Melanie Walsh, Chris and Bonnie and his countless other friends, his College and University colleagues, his former students. And dignitaries, and placing them here after students very much accords with Jim’s own spirit. I will make 3 points: (1) His no-more-than-six-minutes homily/speech rule capture the essence of the attractive character and deep spirit of Jim Loughran, son of Jack and Ethel. (2) Jesuits are all alike, but in their different ways. (3) Like all stories of faithfulness, Jim Loughran’s ending was present in his beginnings.

First point. His no-more-than-6-minute rule. This greatly accords with the sense of Jim that all will recognized, both from a lifetime of friendship and even after meeting him the first time. He died with no inconvenience to anyone; and only after the fall semester was over. He ended the year; he finished his job. Jim Loughran was unfailingly: direct; straightforward; a man of no excuses; of no pomp; of no excess; a man who left no messes but was trusted to clean up other messes, perhaps best shown by his appointment as interim presidents of Mount St. Mary‘s and of Brooklyn College. I think of all the fond remembrances that will be paid to him by educational leaders, the one he will appreciate most appeared in the obituary by Christopher M. Kimmich, the present president of Brooklyn College. He notes that when Jim took up the post of acting president he “fulfilled the duties of his office with his usual grace and humor until a permanent replacement could be installed. He was a good and lasting friend to all of us at Brooklyn College.”

Family members and friends will immediately connect these characteristics of inner strength with his father, our Grandpa Loughran. Jack Loughran was a man who could only speak the truth. His basic and not easily bestowed compliment was keep up the good work. Jack Loughran’s emphasis was not on a past achievement to linger over, but to the present and future duties that required attention. There was a Grandpa Loughran straightforwardness that on less virtuous lips would border on bluntness. There’s a story that Jim used to delight in telling about jack. The first of Jim’s four college presidencies was Loyola-Marymount in LA. Three or so months before Jim’s scheduled inauguration Joe O’Hare’s was held at Fordham. A Loyola-Marymount official came to Joe O’Hare’s Fordham inaugural to get some planning suggestions for Jim‘s in California. When Jim introduced the Loyola official to his father, the official, with hand eagerly thrust forward, asked, Well Mr. Loughran, tell me what you think about LA? Jack answered, To tell you the truth I’ve never given LA a thought.

There was much of Jack Loughran in Jim. But there was also much of Ethel Loughran in Jim: His immediate friendliness, that his laughter was longer than his sentences, that he seemed to be bubbling over at parties. Where Jim was, there was laughter and light. Good cheer. An immediate inclusiveness. Most unusual for an Irishman, no one ever caught him in a melancholy. He was, as St Paul instructed, at home with men and women from every station and status. He remembered the names not only of the bishops and politicians and donors he met but of student workers. Joanne who hosted his Guarini dinner parties never hesitated to instruct the President about how he could improve his manners . On Tuesday when I called the President’s Office for funeral details, a student worker answered. At that time she had no details, but she had the main point of the planned memorial. She said she would miss Father Loughran. He always called her by her name. I’ve forgotten it. President Loughran would never have.

(2) All Jesuits are alike, but in their different ways. We expect Jesuits to be smart, well educated, committed to a faith that, in prayer and the promise of grace, does not fear the always uncertain future. We expect them to be men of faith and men of the world and that the one would never diminish the other. Jim Loughran was above all, in struggle and in aspiration, a Jesuit Priest. This partially explains the common experience - though it is a paradox - why on meeting him for the first time our general impression remains as the core of our last impressions. And why it seems like we have always known him. Even those who did not know the phrase almost immediately perceived that he was a man for others. Jim never showed any hint that he ever considered himself - ever wanted to be - anything other than, in Ignatius’ metaphor, an instrument of God’s hope and the Ignatian call to find God in all things and in all persons. Only the spiritually rich know that the term “instrument” in this Ignatian sense signifies liberation and not abasement. In his efforts to be a man for others Jim was always conscious of the distinction between lifting up and placing burdens. At his ordination mass his brother Jack did one of the readings. I thought it a superb choice and I said to Jim, “that just the reading I would have expected from his brother Jack“, as Jack was gifted with the Loughran-Brooklyn gift of distinguishing the glitter from the gold, the talk from the walk, the fake and the real. Then Jim told me that he himself had selected the readings. It was, Mt 23:”Jesus then addressed the people and his disciples in these words: ‘The doctors of the law and the Pharisees sit in the chair of Moses; therefore do what they tell you; pay attention to their words. But do not follow their practice; for they say one thing and do another. They make up heavy packs and pile them on men’s shoulders, but will not raise a finger to lift the load themselves. ” I’m nearing my 6 minutes, so, I’ll cut short the scriptures. But Matthew’s warning against going about with phylacteries and large tassels on our robes and wanting to be called Rabbi or Teacher brings me to my third point.

(3) He ended where he began.  Almost. Jim’s family lived at 194 Sullivan Place, just several blocks from Ebbetts Fields. Another of his favorite stories - and one that fittingly charmed the initially suspicious faculty of Brooklyn College when the Chancellor Anne Reynolds, who had known him from his Los Angeles days, asked him to become the interim president of Brooklyn College - was about how he sneaked into Ebbet's Fields - Brother Jack had showed him the hole in the fence - and then how he went about getting all of the Brooklyn Dodger autographs. He got them all - Robinson, Erskine, Hodges, Reese - all but one - Billy Cox’s. Cox was steadfastly adamant in his refusal of Jim‘s last gasp entreaty that he thought Cox the very best third baseman ever to play the game. Jim said he never minded and indeed admired Cox, the journeyman among journeymen on the team, for seeing through his boyish scheming. The ball was a prized possession and he carried it with him to all his many different spots in his Jesuit journey. As a teacher and a dean he always lived in the student dorms. One day a student admired the ball and asked if he could have it. Jim gave it to him, telling him the Billy Cox story and how hard it is to achieve perfection. Just two months age we discussed the Mary Lou Kelly scholarship fund. He said, of all his several college experiences Mary Lou always liked St. Peter’s best and thought that’s where he most belonged: At St. Peter’s College in Jersey City where, like Brooklyn, people’s dreams defied their reality, where ambition never outraced family and friendship, where need and justice prompted one’s scholarship, where scholarship was rooted in cura personalis, where intellect was challenged by faith, where the American dream was subordinate to the far larger and deeper dream that in Him whom we believe There is no such thing as Jew and Greek, slave and freeman, male and female“.

Many people have written or called me to tell me how much Jim Loughran meant to them and how sorry they could not be here with us at the liturgy. It is fitting to represent them all with part of an e-mail from Carolyn Farrah, a former student and a life-long friend:

Please know that if it were at all possible, I would be there. It breaks my heart that I won't.
I often think back to one of those dinners he hosted when I was in town -- it must have been a year when I was particularly feeling my Irish during my trip to New York. He was sitting at one end of the dining table and I was at the other end, and I can't remember what I said but I must have really been pushing the Donegal lilt. "Farrar," he said, "I'm not going to answer that until you say it again and sound like you're from Queens." He never let me get away with anything, but only in the best way and only with great affection. I am so going to miss that. I am a better person for having known him.

I’ve failed the Loughran 6 minute rule. That shows how hard it will be to replace Jim Loughran and how much we will miss him. Our last words must surely be the unsentimental but affectionate blessing of his father:  Thank you, Jim, for keeping up the good work.