John Muggeridge: death of a Christian gentleman.

John Muggeridge was the son of Malcolm and Kitty Muggeridge. He was born in England in 1933, studied at Cranbrook College, did two years of national service in Kenya, and then took a degree in history at Jesus College, Cambridge. Rather than remain in the shadow of his famous father, he left England and came to North America. While he was teaching public school in Cornerbrook, Newfoundland, family legend has it that a novice nun from the competing separate school system was sent to spy on him; and was so impressed with what she saw that she, Anne Roche, left her convent and married him. That was in 1960. John received an M.A. in history at the University of Toronto, taught at Ridley College in St. Catherines, at Earl Haig and other schools in Toronto, and eventually at Niagara College in Welland, where he taught both English and history.

Five years after he married Anne, he became a Catholic and remained an exemplary Catholic for the rest of his life. In the early 1970s, they joined McMaster University history professor James Daly and his wife Janet, and a very talented St. Joseph's nun, Sister Mary Alexander, in starting a group called the St. Athanasius Society, which took its name from the great fourth-century saint who defended Catholic orthodoxy against Arianism. With the premature death of James from leukemia, the Society suffered a blow from which it did not recover.

Anne was more militant about her faith than was John. In response to misunderstandings of the Second Vatican Council by the laity, and lack of leadership by the Catholic hierarchy, she wrote a provocative magazine article entitled "What do you do when your Church leaves you?" Subsequently she wrote two books dealing with the issues she had raised--The Gates of Hell in 1975 and The Desolate City in 1986. Like others of their generation, both Anne and John were preoccupied for years with endeavours to lessen the scourge of abortion in Canada. They also had a family of four boys and one girl to educate.

As time went on, John had three great blows to bear. A real tragedy occurred when Anne, a woman of such intellectual distinction, developed Alzheimer's disease; eventually she had to be placed in a nursing home. Second, John developed melanoma and had to have his cancerous tissue removed. By great good fortune, they could be replaced by his own stem cells, once these had been developed for this purpose; but the pain of replacing them was almost more than he could bear. Third, he developed the liver cancer which brought about his final illness and death--preceded, fortunately, by a visit from Father David Roche of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, Anne's cousin, who brought him the last rites of the Church.

John wrote no books, but numerous articles, and many book reviews. He could not dash off a review; he wrote slowly, but carefully and with a fine sense of style. Occasionally he could pillory the author of a book; he became heavily involved at one point in controversy with a nun who had written a book in which she seemed to say that an apostate priest named Tyrrell was a forerunner of the Second Vatican Council.

By special permission of Cardinal Ambrozic, John's Mass of Christian Burial, in the Tridentine Rite, was celebrated by Father Jonathan Robinson of the Oratory. Father Roche preached a homily of unquestioned brilliance, linking the story of Lazarus to meditations by St. Thomas More and St. Aloysius Gonzaga. When John's daughter-in-law Christine sang "In paradisum," many an eye in the congregation could not refrain from shedding a tear.

John Muggeridge was a contributing editor to Catholic Insight. The last article he wrote for us, in the issue of October 2004, was "Reagan: An American Christian." It made two main points: that for Reagan acceptance of divine authority was the key to social order, and that paradoxically, he ended the arms race by winning it.

His last book review on Terrence Fay's A History of Canadian Catholics, appeared in the January/February issue of 2003. Here, this mild-mannered and normally very gentle reviewer skewered this book's revisionist author with deadly irony, as when we learn that, for him, "sweat lodges are nearer to God than rosary crusades."

My wife was surely not alone in recalling that, whenever one saw John Muggeridge, he had a smile on his face. Not surprising. He was the very model of a Christian gentleman. (David Dooley)