In recent years he had became increasingly frail, and lived in the care of the Silverstream Home of Compassion.

Despite impaired hearing, he enjoyed visitors and conversation and happily recounted stories of his many and wide experiences.

Regarded as one of this country's eminent theologians and educators, Fr Duggan (affectionately known by his colleagues and former students as "Chalky") enjoyed a long career as a teacher, lecturer and author of books and articles and a prodigious number of letters to editors in publications around the English-speaking world.

In the 1930's there was a need in New Zealand for more qualified people to teach philosophy and theology, and because of his outstanding academic abilities he was sent to Rome in August 1933 to undertake a 4-year course in theology at the Angelicum University.

He gained a Doctorate in Sacred Theology (STD) from the Angelicum with a Magna Cum Laude ("with great praise").

His thesis was on "The Church in the Writings of St John Fisher."Duggan was a regular and generally controversial contributor to the letters to the editor in various publications.

Those who knew him personally however knew a very different man from his public persona.

Prominent writer and social commentor, Monty Holcroft, who was the Listener's editor from 1949 wrote of him: "For years I had been receiving strongly-reasoned letters defending conservative positions on politics and religion from G.H. Duggan, and I imagined a stern person, but when I met him I was surprised to find he was small cheerful clergyman with rather large eyes".

Fr Duggan was a keen sportsman, a counsellor and a man skilled in the domestic arts of cooking and preserving.

His Requiem will be celebrated at St Mary of the Angels, Wellington at 10.00am Thursday.

Source

• The Society of Mary in New Zealand
• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: Flickr

Members of the Society of Mary, friends and family joined Father George Duggan at the St Joseph's Home of Compassion in Upper Hutt, where he received a special blessing from Pope Benedict.

Father George Duggan, also known as Chalky, was a lecturer, a dedicated scholar of theology and a regular in the letters pages of The Listener.

George Duggan was born in Runanga near Greymouth. He was educated by the Mercy Sisters and Marist Brothers in Greymouth and Reefton, and his secondary education was at St Bede's College, Christchurch, where he was dux in both 1927 and 1928. He won a University National Scholarship in 1928, the first St Bede's student to do so.

His ordination as a priest of the Society of Mary took place in Rome on 7 March 1936, the feast of St Thomas Aquinas, an auspicious date, given his future dedication to the works of St Thomas Aquinas which informed much of his later teaching and writing.

His friend, Fr Brian Quin describes George Duggan as a modern example of John Bunyan's Mr Valiant-for-truth. "All his priestly life he has been noted for his forthright defence of Church teaching," he wrote recently. "In this, he has shown an exemplary sense of the Marist commitment to loyalty and to the teaching authority of the Church."

Fr Quin went on to note the difference between the public face of the man, who could be pretty sharp at times in written comment, and the private Fr Duggan who was known to his many friends, students and colleagues as a wonderfully sympathetic and kind spiritual director, and also a lively and interesting conversationalist.

A reading of his countless published letters shows that while he was critical of views and opinions which he regarded as not authentically Catholic, he was careful for the most part to confine his comments to issues rather than to personalities.

See photographs on Flickr

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• Lyndsay Freer- The Marist Messenger
• Image: Flickr