Len Duggan
Leonard
My old friend and classmate Len Duggan died a few days ago, so I’m swimming in that Irish Catholic netherworld again, musing about the meaning of it all. For me, all those Semnet discussions about the resurrection distill out to a single vague, agnostic hope that somehow consciousness persists, that somehow I won’t have to say a final goodbye to an old friend like Len. The seminary’s pressure cooker environment created an adolescent Iliad in which we all became archtypes to each other; the loss of a classmate leaves a big hole in that primitive soul space.
I entered St. Joe’s in third high, fall of 1957, and was immediately very aware of my status as a “non-orig.” There was whole world around me that my classmates knew and I didn’t. Len was one of the first to take me under his wing. He recruited me to help him in his new house-job as junior librarian. Two or three nights a week, we would go up to the library after dinner and shelve all the returned books. These were well-worn tomes, bearing not just the imprimaturor nihil obstatof a bishop, but also the personal approval of the Reverend Librarian, Bucky O’Conner.
Working with Len was like listening to the evening news. He knew all the seminary gossip and reveled in the intrigue of church politics. Coming from Marin, I had no idea of the dramatic soap opera that swirled around the San Francisco chancery office. Len had knowledge of, and opinions about, every pastor and assistant in the diocese. Gradually I came to realize that the source of his information was a widespread and well-cultivated network of nuns who shared his hunger for ecclesiastical trivia.
Len took great joy in initiating me into the esoteric secrets of the seminary - the rules, the sports system, the academic pecking order, the faculty nicknames and foibles. In the library we had to organize the books according to their Dewey decimal numbers and check to be sure each of their pockets had its corresponding library card. Len used the cards as teaching aids, reading off the names of everyone who had ever checked out that book and extrapolating psychological profiles based on their reading habits. Just about everyone had read David Copperfieldand Quo Vadis, but if a guy’s name turned up in The Seven Story Mountainit might indicate a dangerous tendency toward intellectual pride or communism. That’s how I first got to know most of you, through Len’s running commentaries in the library. (Later, of course, many of these first impressions had to be recalibrated on Pat Browne’s jock-to-egghead scale.)
I’d never met anyone so quintessentially clerical as Len. He was feisty and opinionated, like a prematurely-reincarnated monsignor from the Council of Trent. Later, during the culture wars of the early sixties, he would become a faithful disciple of Lyman Fenn, casting caustic aspersions at “the movers” and “the joy boys of the resurrection.” By then I would be an ecclesiastical anarchist, so our friendship often devolved into sarcastic banter. However, no matter how violently we disagreed about church politics, we always retained that earliest bond, based on an elemental trust and shared sense of humor. Here we are in the bellicose days of 1966, posing with batman and pretending to embrace each other’s philosophical positions.
I left in the fall of ’66 and a year later I went to Len’s ordination, feeling very out of place as I joined about eighty nuns in line for his first blessing. By then I was living in the Haight Ashbury and walking the picket line at San Francisco State, and as I stood there, I wondered if our friendship could withstand the different lifestyles we had chosen.
When Len left the priesthood ten years later and got married, I was shocked. His action just didn’t fit the monsignor archtype I had for him. But I had forgotten about Len’s other, feisty side. He wasn’t one to be pushed around by anybody, even by the archbishop. After suffering through several lousy parish assignments, Len blew up and turned in his resignation to the chancery. When Con Burns, the Archbishop’s Secretary, asked him what assignment he could offer Len that would make him want to stay, Len responded, “Yours.”
When Len died, his son Patrick paid him a loving tribute: The man who made me who I am today. That’s a pretty good accomplishment for a young know-it-all seminarian who, in third high, could never have imagined becoming a loving husband and father. Len, like many of his peers, ran the gamut of change and came out the better for it.
Our seminary bonds were forged at a heat that no longer exists. That’s what makes the death of old friends like Len so hard. But it’s also what gives me hope that our unique conspiracy of love, humor, and intellect will persist beyond the grave. I can’t imagine otherwise.
Leonard
My old friend and classmate Len Duggan died a few days ago, so I’m swimming in that Irish Catholic netherworld again, musing about the meaning of it all. For me, all those Semnet discussions about the resurrection distill out to a single vague, agnostic hope that somehow consciousness persists, that somehow I won’t have to say a final goodbye to an old friend like Len. The seminary’s pressure cooker environment created an adolescent Iliad in which we all became archtypes to each other; the loss of a classmate leaves a big hole in that primitive soul space.
I entered St. Joe’s in third high, fall of 1957, and was immediately very aware of my status as a “non-orig.” There was whole world around me that my classmates knew and I didn’t. Len was one of the first to take me under his wing. He recruited me to help him in his new house-job as junior librarian. Two or three nights a week, we would go up to the library after dinner and shelve all the returned books. These were well-worn tomes, bearing not just the imprimaturor nihil obstatof a bishop, but also the personal approval of the Reverend Librarian, Bucky O’Conner.
Working with Len was like listening to the evening news. He knew all the seminary gossip and reveled in the intrigue of church politics. Coming from Marin, I had no idea of the dramatic soap opera that swirled around the San Francisco chancery office. Len had knowledge of, and opinions about, every pastor and assistant in the diocese. Gradually I came to realize that the source of his information was a widespread and well-cultivated network of nuns who shared his hunger for ecclesiastical trivia.
Len took great joy in initiating me into the esoteric secrets of the seminary - the rules, the sports system, the academic pecking order, the faculty nicknames and foibles. In the library we had to organize the books according to their Dewey decimal numbers and check to be sure each of their pockets had its corresponding library card. Len used the cards as teaching aids, reading off the names of everyone who had ever checked out that book and extrapolating psychological profiles based on their reading habits. Just about everyone had read David Copperfieldand Quo Vadis, but if a guy’s name turned up in The Seven Story Mountainit might indicate a dangerous tendency toward intellectual pride or communism. That’s how I first got to know most of you, through Len’s running commentaries in the library. (Later, of course, many of these first impressions had to be recalibrated on Pat Browne’s jock-to-egghead scale.)
I’d never met anyone so quintessentially clerical as Len. He was feisty and opinionated, like a prematurely-reincarnated monsignor from the Council of Trent. Later, during the culture wars of the early sixties, he would become a faithful disciple of Lyman Fenn, casting caustic aspersions at “the movers” and “the joy boys of the resurrection.” By then I would be an ecclesiastical anarchist, so our friendship often devolved into sarcastic banter. However, no matter how violently we disagreed about church politics, we always retained that earliest bond, based on an elemental trust and shared sense of humor. Here we are in the bellicose days of 1966, posing with batman and pretending to embrace each other’s philosophical positions.
I left in the fall of ’66 and a year later I went to Len’s ordination, feeling very out of place as I joined about eighty nuns in line for his first blessing. By then I was living in the Haight Ashbury and walking the picket line at San Francisco State, and as I stood there, I wondered if our friendship could withstand the different lifestyles we had chosen.
When Len left the priesthood ten years later and got married, I was shocked. His action just didn’t fit the monsignor archtype I had for him. But I had forgotten about Len’s other, feisty side. He wasn’t one to be pushed around by anybody, even by the archbishop. After suffering through several lousy parish assignments, Len blew up and turned in his resignation to the chancery. When Con Burns, the Archbishop’s Secretary, asked him what assignment he could offer Len that would make him want to stay, Len responded, “Yours.”
When Len died, his son Patrick paid him a loving tribute: The man who made me who I am today. That’s a pretty good accomplishment for a young know-it-all seminarian who, in third high, could never have imagined becoming a loving husband and father. Len, like many of his peers, ran the gamut of change and came out the better for it.
Our seminary bonds were forged at a heat that no longer exists. That’s what makes the death of old friends like Len so hard. But it’s also what gives me hope that our unique conspiracy of love, humor, and intellect will persist beyond the grave. I can’t imagine otherwise.