I never realized it.
My Li’l bro Thom wrote asking me if I’d know Snow was a Catholic. I hadn’t, and wondered if Thom had his info right, and he sent along this Tribute to a Catholic Journalist at Catholic Online.
Indeed, it seems Snow’s funeral will be a mass at the National Shrine of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception (Snow made his wonderful commencement address to Catholic University of America students from the steps of the Shrine in 2007 - the university’s statement on his passing is here), so there you go.
I’m sure it will be a very beautiful liturgy. We had occasion last year to attend the noon mass at the Basilica and it was all the smells, bells and Latin choir you could want - quite heavenly, really, reverent and solemn. It will have to be, to counteract this vileness by this awful crew, who make a habit of haunting and harassing people who are grieving.
It just occurred to me that my four favorite journalists have died in the past few years, Snow, Tim Russert, Michael Kelly and David Bloom, and it turns out there were all practicing Catholics, which doesn’t mean anything at all - although it may explain why none of them fit comfortably into easy labels and categories - it’s just something I notice with sadness. Have we seen a writer to equal Michael Kelly come down the pike? I still miss him!
Savkobabe has more thoughts on Snow
A little aside: If you ever have a chance to visit the Nation’s capital, and you weary of all the Federal architecture, The Basilica - which has a Byzantine flavor to it and is the largest church in the US - is a refreshing stop, although you can exhaust yourself trying to see all of the chapels of the upper and lower church. The bells are real, the grounds are gorgeous (there is a lovely sitting park with fountain in the back, adjacent to the University and across from its Rome School of Music). Another beautiful stop is the Franciscan Monastery, which is nearby and has glorious gardens and recreations of Holy Land sites.
July 14th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Thanks for the funeral information. I believe I am going to try to slip out of work for it if at all possible. With Metro all things are possible!
I believe one of the people being interviewed over the weekend said that Tony Snow had converted to Catholicism in the past 10 years or so. However, there was quite a flurry of bum information out there for a while - and since I didn’t hear it on Fox, I would perhaps doubt it.
Regardless, what a good, decent man he was and what an example to us all.
[The funeral schedule is here, although I doubt it will be easy access. Perhaps FOX news will cover it live. - admin]
July 14th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
July 14th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Another one of the good guys, gone. It’s sad. He fought bravely. He will be missed. We are much worse off without him. God please bless his family, and may they be comforted by the fact he was a treasure of a man. We see it, but they KNOW.
I did not know he was a Catholic. I’m not surprised at all!
The National Basilica is not to be missed. It’s everyone’s cathedral! The chapels are wonderful, though many in number. I LOVE the way the Blessed Mother takes on a different personification in all these numerous areas of the world. There were some places listed I had never heard of, I’m sorry to say. Give yourself a couple of hours, plus time to go to Mass. And, give the bookstore an hour at least! I got the MOST WONDERFUL Rosary there, which I cherish. The old chapel is great, too, and is where, fittingly, B16 held Mass. Perfect. Take time to notice the materials used in the church’s construction. They imported marble from ALL OVER the WORLD for the construction of this cathedral. It will make you very proud.
July 14th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
I am happy to see that you are pointing out Tony’s Catholic faith! It seems that so many were unaware of it. I was not sure myself until recently, but am really happy to know that he was a Catholic. Let’s pray for more journalists with the same kind of integrity and goodness! God bless!
July 15th, 2008 at 10:31 am
From this linked White House press briefing ( http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070122-1.html),
I found the following exchange between Tony Snow and a member of the WH press corps named “Les”:
Q Thank you. With regard to today’s March for Life, does the President believe that the positions of Catholic Senators Kennedy, Collins, Dodd, Biden, Kerry, Mikulski and Leahy and Speaker Pelosi on this issue, and their not being ex-communicated, means that Catholic Church opposition to all but partial-birth abortion is now as absent as the one-time voluble church opposition to contraception? (Laughter.) Do you want me to repeat it?
MR. SNOW: No. The President is not going to sit around and engage in the chin-pulling exercise of trying to determine how people may, in fact, interpret Catholic dogma. His belief on the sanctity of life is well known.
Q Does he think that the senators, though — I mean, all of these Catholic senators have refused to support this right-to-life thing.
MR. SNOW: Les, I will permit you to stand in judgment of their Catholicism. The President has already made his views known.
July 15th, 2008 at 10:41 am
He was helped on his journey by Fr. C. John McCloskey who used to be at the Catholic Information Center in DC and was instrumental in the conversions of Judge Bork and Robert Novak to name but two. He is mentioned (without details) in Fr. McCloskey’s (with Russell Shaw) book “Good News, Bad News: Evangelization, Conversion and the Crisis of Faith”. Fr. McCloskey is stationed in Chicago now, I believe - I wonder if he will come back to DC for the funeral. I wish I could be there.
July 15th, 2008 at 10:56 am
[...] I learned that Tony Snow had died Saturday morning I was out of town at a baseball tournament so couldn’t immediately [...]