Fr. Andy Hogan, R.I.P. (News in Brief).

Halifax--The first Catholic priest to become a Member of Parliament passed away on April 10 this year at age 78, after a twelve-year illness that prevented him from speaking. The NDP paid tribute in the House of Commons to Fr. Andrew ("Andy") Hogan, remembering him as a champion of workers, especially of the coal miners and steelworkers in Cape Breton.

Fr. Hogan was involved with the Antigonish movement for economic and social justice of the 1920s, and organized People's Schools throughout Nova Scotia. Ordained June 12, 1949, he first taught religion, Latin, hockey, and football at St. Francis Xavier University.

Fr. Hogan served as MP for Cape Breton-East-Richmond from 1974 to 1980 when he was defeated. The only other Canadian Catholic priest-MP was Fr. Bob Ogle (died 1998) of Saskatoon, SK, who resigned from his political career in 1984 after Pope John Paul II insisted that partisan politics was not suited for priests.

What is particularly strange is that both priests joined the NDP. While claiming to be for the little guy, this Party's tradition also represents a socialist-secularist rejection of Catholic moral principles. Neither Hogan nor Ogle had the slightest success in mitigating them. Already in 1965, four years before the federal Liberals introduced it, Ontario's NDP leader Stephen Lewis sought abortion-on-demand and the overthrow of Catholic-Christian moral and family law. How did two Catholic priests seem oblivious of this aspect? Did the one-sided emphasis of Canada's Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) on political and economic justice after the 1968 debacle of Humanae vitae, and the CCCB's subsequent loss of interest in defending Catholic family moral discipline, help to mislead these men? May Father Hogan rest in peace.