I’ve come to the conclusion that
Fr. George Lane is a great man and a fine priest. For
the last few years, each Thursday, he would make the trip from downtown Chicago
to the western suburbs to see Frank Raispis and, before she passed away, Joan
Terracina, God rest her soul. He would
visit with them, then say Mass. He stopped
his visits when, because of physical limitations, he was no longer able to
drive.
I never knew Fr. Lane very well. He was a Jesuit scholastic teaching English
and moderating several activities when I started teaching at Ignatius in the
early ‘60’s. I saw him only occasionally
following his ordination. He spent 40
years at Loyola Press, the last 20
as president. During most of that time,
he resided at the Holy Family Church
rectory
Prior to the mid-70’s, students may recall walking through the
“tunnel” that led from the school to Holy Family for Mass. In the late 60’s, I
can recall walking out onto the choir loft of the church with Carmen Pintozzi,
and realizing that, as we moved, so did the choir loft. We beat a hasty and cautious retreat. Not long after that, it became apparent that
there was serious deterioration occurring, and in 1984 the main sanctuary was
closed. Masses for the parishioners
were held in a chapel at the north end of the building.
In the last week of 1990, Fr. Lane
appeared on a news broadcast, saying that, if the goal of 1 million dollars in
contributions for its restoration was not reached by Dec. 31, Holy Family
Church would be torn down, and replaced by a smaller church. It would have been an inglorious end for a
structure that had survived the Chicago Fire.
Suffice it to say, Fr. Lane, along with the other members of the
Holy Family Preservation Society,
succeeded. It has become known as the
“Miracle on Roosevelt Road”.
In January of this year, Father participated in his last Mass at
Holy Family, during which, the pastor, Father Mike Gabriel, said someone had
told him “Father George was a person who achieved goals that others thought
were unreachable”. Following that last
mass, there was a reception which was attended by several of Fr. Lane’s
students from the class of ’63.
It is worth noting that, along with his many successes, Fr. Lane
has been the recipient of the Gutenberg
Award, presented by the Chicago
Bible Society. The first recipient
of that award was General Douglas MacArthur.
In a very nice article written by Dr. Joseph Paprocki, class of
’77, who works (or worked) at Loyola Press, whenever Father Lane was given some
good news about “the Press”, he
always responded, “Thank you Jesus!”.
Joe ends his article with, “Thank
you Jesus, for Fr. George Lane, SJ!!!”
