A Tribute to Dr. Bill May on his 80th Birthday
September 20th, 2008
I first met Bill May some 26 years ago when he was the same age as I am now – 54. I was a recently ordained and doctorate priest who was returning from four years of study in Rome and in the University of Navarre in Spain. He then lived in Kensington where he and Pat brought up his many children who grew in wisdom and grace and academic achievement and in the course of time have produced (hmmm, sorry Bill! Make that procreated!) and ever increasing brood of grand children. Bill managed to send his children through private high schools, and later prestigious universities by essentially teaching full time at Catholic University while simultaneously teaching also at St. Anselm Prep School. I guess Pat must have been a wizard accountant to balance that constant ledger of deficit spending. But here they are after fifty years of marriage. As I remember, he was then a professor at Catholic university, an institution of which I am deeply fond as my parents met there and I also graduated from high school in the then unfinished "Shrine" as we knew it. Only later did I learn that Bill's doctor is in philosophy, not theology. I do hope that his former employees at the John Paul Institute and now his associates at the Culture of life Foundation did not hire him out of ignorance lack o a theology degree. Some how I just assumed that he was from Washington D.C. and only found later that he is a man of the Midwest specifically St. Louis which may explain his essential goodness but also his propensity to tell some of the most outrageous jokes ever heard at academic conferences. I hope he will tell a few here. I do think he gradually took on some Eastern characteristics such as toughness in defending both his opinions and his beliefs as was so necessary in the Catholic academic and ecclesial environments the forty years in the desert – 1965-2005 which ended, I believe, with the election Pope Benedict XVI and in particular the Pope's recent address to Catholic Educators at CUA. It is no longer "a long way to Tipperary" as the future brightens for the Church in the United States.
One of the highlights in knowing Bill was to get his Christmas letters along with emails describing some of his most exotic travels throughout the world spreading the good news of holy and healthy morel theology oparticulary on the subjects of marriage and family. I often times got exhausted simply reading about the trips to places such as India where I don't believe I could survive ten minutes. In more recent years, I was amazed to hear about Bill's various health maladies of one sort or another that I was convinced were quite grave until I got an email awake or two later from him telling of his most recent trip to the Philippines or such where he was teaching in 110 degree weather or he was off with Pat to visit children in England, or in Rome where Pope Benedict and the Sacred Congregation of the Faith needed his expert advice on the International Theological Commission!
Well, I won't take up any more time other than to say that Bill supported my his lovely. And patient, spouse Pat is a major figure in the New Evangelization in the spirit of JP II and B XVI and of the authentic interpretation of the Second Vatican Council in the world. How many mutual friends we have who have passed on to eternal life. I wish Bill and Pat many more years here on this planer. We need him.
G. K. Chesterton, to whom Bill has a certain resemblance, not physically, of course, no three part suit or pince-nez, said something like "Catholicism is a big steak, a good cigar, and a large glass of stout." I think Bill May would heartily agree with him and not only in an analogical sense! One of my great privileges and few boasts in this life are to claim that I am his friend.
