Thank you and RIP to John Kavanaugh, SJ

I just found that Fr. John Kavanaugh, SJ., my PhD chosen author and philosophy professor at Saint Louis University, died this month in St. Louis. He was 71. He was a writer, theologian, philosopher and teacher of deep skill and pedagogical sensitivity. He will be deeply missed. He taught me well about man, life and embodiment and interconnections. Thank you Father! RIP.

"I have copied below Fr. Kavanaugh's obituary from the St. Louis city newspaper, the Post-Dispatch for those of you who knew or never met Fr.Kavanaugh.

Rev. John Kavanaugh dies at 71; acclaimed philosopher and eloquent preacher at St. Louis University. The Rev. John Kavanaugh spent part of his year of prayer as a young Jesuit priest working in Calcutta for Mother Teresa. She took him to the House of the Dying, a former temple she had converted to a home for women and men found dying on the streets. Father Kavanaugh washed and fed those patients, most of whom would never leave the facility alive. He recalled how he and others had tried but failed to help a man who was close to death. But when Mother Teresa took the man's face in her hands, his eyes opened and she was able to engage him. She had a powerful ability to connect with the poor.

It was a transforming experience for the young Jesuit, Father Kavanaugh recalled later. He went on to become an acclaimed philosophy professor at St. Louis University and an eloquent preacher who delivered powerful homilies. He gained attention for his opposition to the death penalty and the war in Iraq. The Rev. John Francis Kavanaugh died Monday (Nov. 5, 2012) at St. Louis University Hospital. He had been on medical leave from the university while doctors tried to determine the cause of a mysterious blood disease he had come down with earlier this year, his order said Tuesday. Father Kavanaugh specialized in the study of ethics. He taught a course in medical ethics and founded the Ethics Across the Curriculum program at the university to help faculty members incorporate ethics into their own studies and courses. He wrote an ethics column for the Jesuit publication "America Magazine." Earlier this year, his column described how both political parties had become rigid and "driven by the rhetoric of extremists." He had voted for "the hope" promised by Barack Obama four years ago, he wrote. He was disgusted, he said, with those who he said had slandered Obama with outright lies. But he went on to condemn the president for his use of drone missiles "and the horror they bring to innocent people." He compared it to torture and rewriting the principles of a just war. He concluded by suggesting that he couldn't vote for either the Democrat nor the Republican and planned to write in a third candidate.

Father Kavanaugh was reared in St. Louis and was ordained a priest in 1971. He earned a degree in philosophy at St. Louis University and a doctorate at Washington University in 1974. The next year, he went to India for a year of tertianship -- prayer, reflection and service. He returned in 1976 to St. Louis University, where he spent the next 36 years. He became the spiritual guiding force for generations of young Jesuits. He wrote books and syndicated columns on consumerism, advertising, faith and culture. His most famous book, "Following Christ in a Consumer Society," was first published in 1981 and was reissued twice. In 2001, he opposed the death penalty for Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh saying, "we will have become just a little more like him." Father Kavanaugh was a soccer player at St. Louis University High School and a handball fanatic. He played the guitar and performed traditional ballads with a half-dozen members of his family who traced their roots to the counties Galway, Kerry and Mayo in Ireland."

* More at http://www.americamagazine.org/content/column.cfm?id=25 ; http://www.slu.edu/x68221.xml.