Priest, scholar and champion of Medjugorje shrine
John Chisholm: January 25th, 1922 - October 25th, 2014
When
a person with a richly layered life dies, the phrase “ renaissance man” is often
deployed to unite the whole.
With
the passing of John Chisholm, a more apt summation of his 92 years might be that
he was a “man for all seasons”.
First
there was his priesthood – his was a traditional Catholic faith – but also his
interest in choral music, his philosophy and theology, and a body of significant
historical research.
His
hobbies included gardening, growing fruit and vegetables and making jam, watch
and clock repairing and overseeing building projects for members of his
family.
A
polyglot who proudly sported a gold fáinne, his other languages included a good
mastery of Croatian, in which he heard confessions. He died while on a visit to
the Marian shrine at Medjugorje, in Bosnia Herzogovina, where he had been
ministering to pilgrims from Ireland during the last decades of his life.
Decision to serve
For John Chisholm, it was all part of the decision to serve that dates from when he made his vows as a member of the Holy Ghost (Spiritan) order in 1941. Europe was in the throes of the second World War and Ireland, though not a combatant, was struggling to understand and to heal the wounds of its own recent turbulent past.
John
Chisholm was born in 1922 in Dublin to Mary (née Brennan) and Edward Chisholm.
After attending O’Connell CBS in Dublin, he entered the Spiritan order and was
awarded a BA in philosophy by UCD in 1944.
He
taught for a while at Blackrock College in Dublin, obtaining a diploma in
education. He was ordained in 1949, and taught theology and philosophy to
student missionaries at the Spiritan house in Kimmage, Dublin.
Leading
the choir there, he expanded its repertoire to include ancient Irish sacred
music, inviting leading composer Seóirse Bodley to arrange material. Televised
broadcasts included the annual Christmas midnight Mass.
Academic career
In January 1966 he began a 22-year teaching career in UCD in the department of ethics and politics and, subsequently, in the department of metaphysics and in the department of psychology. In 1976 he was appointed statutory lecturer in philosophy. He was awarded a doctorate in philosophy by the NUI in 1978.
Anxious
to learn more about the troubled “birth of the nation” Chisholm interviewed
survivors of the notorious Kilmichael ambush in November 1920, as research
leading to participant Liam Deasy’s memoir Towards Ireland Free (1973), which Chisholm edited.
Historian Peter
Hart later relied in part on the
“Chisholm interviews” to support his assertion that IRA leader Tom
Barry had ordered the killing of
helpless prisoners. This is hotly contested, but Chisholm’s timely research
remains an essential source for a difficult period.
More
recently, when lesser men were winding down, he switched track from academic
work to pastoral ministry.
His
energetic promotion of the Marian devotion at Medjugorje, where six local people
are said to be in communication with the Mother of God, who bade them to pray
and do penance, brought him into conflict with bishop of Mostar Pavao Zanic. The
local prelate had little time for apparitions, whether they occurred in the
Pyrenees or Portugal in the 19th century or 20th centuries or Bosnia in the 20th
and 21st.
Some
of Chisholm’s published work is still cited in academic publications. He gave
public lectures in Oxford – including at the International Conference for
Patristic Studies – Ireland, Fribourg in Switzerland and Rome.
Irish martyrs
He was vice-chairman of the Irish-Arab Society in the 1970s, and took an active interest in the cause of the Irish martyrs, persecuted for their faith in the 16th and 17th centuries.
His
formal retirement took place in 1988, but this was really a fiction – he carried
on trying to find new ways of doing what he believed in until the day he
died. John
E Chisholm is survived by a sister,
Helen, and his brothers, Patrick and Cyril. The Irish Times
1 comment:
Fr. John Chisholm, the Holy Ghost priest from Ireland, long-time Medjugorje pilgrim died on Thursday, October 23, 2014 in his 93rd year of life as a consequence of a heart attack. Fr. John was ordained as a priest in 1946, and he spent six years in Medjugorje from 2000 to 2006, serving to God, Gospa and English –speaking pilgrims. While he was once with his mother, he heard about the events in Medjugorje and felt desire to come to this place. Soon after her death, he received invitation to come to Medjugorje with a group of pilgrims. In that week, he completely fell in love with Gospa, in love that he faithfully served to until the last breath of his earthly life.
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