Hank Rosso was a Master Teacher and a gentle soul except when the people and things he loved were threatened. 

The first time I met him I thought he was an unlikely messenger for the cause of professional fundraising. He had a slight, but noticeable, speech impediment and he was hard of hearing due to a war injury. He was advanced in age (describing himself as “an old walrus”) and The Fund Raising School that he founded and operated with his feisty wife, Dottie, was a low budget, low overhead “mom and pop” enterprise.

Boy was I wrong! The moment Hank opened his mouth to teach, out came wisdom, humor, practical insights and genuine humanity flowing like milk and honey. On closer inspection, The Fund Raising School showed itself to be a first-rate, deeply professional organization that was dedicated to teaching  the art (and a little science) of fundraising in a systematic and impactful way that was totally new to the world of philanthropic fundraising

I was a young development officer then (the 1980s) and I had been taught to be skeptical of people who saw themselves as “merely” fundraisers. Boy was I wrong! As taught by Hank Rosso, “fundraising is the gentle art of teaching the joy of giving.” It is nothing like twisting people’s arms or selling them something they don’t want to buy. And fundraisers are people who are privileged to present people with opportunities to make a difference in the world through their giving and, as a result, to experience profound joy.

Hank was a simple man. I got to know him personally through workshops we conducted in three neighboring Catholic dioceses. I would speak about the spirituality of stewardship and Hank would explain how stewardship principles can be put into practice through the art of professional, systematic fundraising.

“You can raise more money with an organized approach to fundraising than with a disorganized approach,” he said frequently. How simple. How often misunderstood.

As with all entrepreneurs, Hank had to face the questions of succession and sustainability. His dream was to ground The Fund Raising School in the academy so that it’s teaching would be enriched by research and reflection and, in turn, it could provide students with practical wisdom based on experience “in the field.” But Hank was fiercely protective of The Fund Raising School and it’s people. He refused to settle for anything less than excellence in his school and its teaching, and he refused to turn it over to anyone (or any institution) that did not share his vision.

Hank’s dream came true in 1987 when The Fund Raising School became an integral part of Indiana University’s Center On Philanthropy (now The Lilly Family School of Philanthropy). The genius of Henry A. Rosso, his charisma and insights, were institutionalized with this move. That’s not an easy thing to pull off, but it worked thanks to the leadership of IU’s Dr. Gene Tempel and many others who truly believed that the Rosso approach to teaching fundraising could be successfully transplanted to a great university and, in the process, be nurtured, cultivated and grown.

I am deeply grateful to Hank Rosso for all that he taught me about the gentle art of fundraising. May his name always be associated with teaching the joy of giving!

What if you could talk to people you love who have died?

This is the question I posed several years ago in my book, A Communion of Saints: Dreams of Happiness on the Road to Life. 

Admittedly, it’s a hard book to classify. It’s not autobiography although it contains many autobiographical elements. It’s not fiction in the ordinary sense of the term, but it’s not exactly factual. I call it a work of imagination that I hope is true to the Catholic vision of life after death.

In the book, I set up an imaginary situation in which I have been in a car accident and am lying in a hospital bed in a coma. I can see and hear the people around me (my wife, Sharon, our children, doctors and nurses) but I can’t communicate with them in any way.

As I lie there, I drift in and out of sleep. While sleeping, I dream and in my dreams I encounter people I love who have died. We engage in conversations about life, death and what happens afterward. Some of the talk is very serious (as you might expect from conversations with dead people). Some is humorous (intended to be comic relief to keep the narrative from becoming too grim). But mostly, it’s simply an encounter between two people who haven’t seen each other for a long time.

Why write about death, about people who are long gone?

The older I get (and the closer I am to my own death), the more I wonder what it’s like to surrender to this unwanted but inevitable fact of human existence. Like it or not, each one of us will die. It doesn’t matter who we are, what we have done or failed to do, what we own or the circumstances of our life and death. Every one of us must die. Alone. Once and for all.

And yet, we have hope. Something deep inside tells us we are not alone in death. There is, we believe, a communion of saints. “Life is changed, not ended,” we pray at funerals for those we love. But what is this change like?

We can only imagine it. We have no empirical evidence, no scientific proofs. We are free to imagine that when our life on earth ends, nothing happens and we return to dust and ashes. Or we can imagine  becoming part of a cosmic life force, or a cycle of birth and rebirth, or a heavenly home with angels and pearly gates. The truth is we don’t know.

But the people I write about in A Communion of Saints all believed that there is life—a better life—after death. They were convinced that love is stronger than death and that God cares for each of us and wants us to live with him in love. Now and forever.

I enjoyed writing this little book. It gave me a chance to remember how much I miss the family members, friends, mentors and extraordinary teachers I was privileged to know and love during my formative years. I can’t say that this experience helped me fully understand the mystery that death is. But it helped me to face it more honestly, and it allowed me to share more fully in the belief that “hope springs eternal in the human breast”!



A Communion of Saints: Dreams of Happiness on the Road to Life is available at danielconwayauthor.com.

Papal Surprises Continue Five Years Later

A little more than five years ago, Pope Benedict XVI surprised the entire world with his announcement that he was stepping down from the throne of St. Peter, the first pope to resign in more than 400 years. 

Weeks later, the world was surprised again when Jorge Maria Bergoglio, the cardinal archbishop of Buenos Aires, was elected as the first non-European since the 8th century, the first from the Americas, and the first Jesuit pope. Surprising again was his choice of a name that no pope before him had chosen, and his decision to live in the Vatican guest house, rather than the papal residence.

The surprises have continued throughout the five years that Pope Francis has been Bishop of Rome. In the spirit of his patronal saint, Francis of Assisi, this pope has demonstrated his love for the poor and marginalized. He has sought out people in prisons, refugees, victims of natural disasters and homeless people living in the shadow of the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. 

Pope Francis has surprised the world (including the Vatican’s inner circle) by his candid remarks on a wide variety of topics. He has challenged Christians to shake off indifference, move beyond their comfort zones, and go out to the peripheries to proclaim the Gospel and to “be Christ” for those who are most in need.

The 81 year-old pope shows surprising youth and vitality in his outreach to young people. He has traveled to traditional places such as the United States but also to unlikely places such as Bosnia and Herzegovina. He has met with world leaders from all over the globe and has not shied away from sensitive topics such as immigration reform and climate change.

The mainstream media often portray Pope Francis as a progressive papal reformer, but here, too, the pope is full of surprises. Traditional themes such as the importance of the Sacrament of Reconciliation are at the top of Pope Francis’s agenda, especially as he stresses the importance of divine mercy (a theme also stressed by Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI). The main difference is that Pope Francis uses gestures to underscore his teaching. As a result, he frequently goes to Confession in places where he can be seen kneeling in a confessional, giving personal witness to the grace of the sacrament.

Pope Francis is sometimes accused of being too soft on sinners, especially those who are at variance with traditional Church teaching on sexuality. Here again, the pope’s pastoral approach may seem surprising, but in actuality he stands firmly with the Church. As Bishop Robert Barron has written in Vibrant Paradoxes: The Both/And of Catholicism, “I balk at the suggestion that the new pope represents a revolution or that he is dramatically turning away from the example of his immediate predecessors. And I strenuously deny that he is nothing but a soft-hearted powder-puff indifferent to sin.”

As Bishop Barron goes on to say, “To speak of mercy is to be intensely aware of sin and its peculiar form of destructiveness. Or, to shift to one of the pope’s favorite metaphors, it is to be acutely conscious that one is wounded so severely that one requires not minor treatment but the emergency and radical attention provided in a hospital on the edge of a battlefield.” The pope who answered a journalist’s question, “Who is Pope Francis?” with the simple but profound statement: “A sinner,” is not soft on sin, but he strongly insists on God’s mercy!

The words of Pope Francis are the subject of a new book, A Pope Francis Lexicon, which is a collection of more than fifty essays by contributors from around the globe including Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, C.S.s.R. Each essay focuses on a particular word or phrase such as joy, clericalism, money, family, sourpuss, field hospital and tears. As the essays make clear, this pope’s influence is vast and profound not because of extensive writings (as was the case with his immediate predecessors) but because his words are often surprising and unsettling, cutting through the dense fog of the familiar cultural and ecclesial status quo and hitting very close to home—often too close for comfort!

As we observe the fifth anniversary of Jorge Maria Bergoglio’s election as Bishop of Rome, it’sappropriate to look backward and thank God for a pope who challenges us as often as he comforts us. We don’t have to agree with everything Pope Francis says (only the infallible teaching of the magisterium), but we should pay attention to him. 

Looking ahead, we should let him surprise us with his words and actions. And we should thank God for the gift of his papacy during the past five years. Ad multos annos!

Daniel Conway

A magnificent new cathedral has just been dedicated in eastern Tennessee, Sacred Heart Cathedral in the Diocese of Knoxville.

I haven’t been inside it yet, but I can’t wait for the opportunity. The photographs I’ve seen are stunning. It looks like it belongs among the massive basilicas of Rome, an architectural anomaly in our contemporary culture—both religious and secular.

Why build a cathedral today? There are lots of big churches that are nowhere near full on Sunday mornings. Why spend the time, effort and money building a brand new church?

I guess the answer depends on your understanding of what a cathedral is and why it is important to the life and ministry of a diocese, a local church.

A cathedral is the bishop’s church, the place where his chair (“cathedra”) is located. It is, in a sense, the mother church for all the other churches in a diocese. Many diocesan functions such as ordinations or the annual Chrism Mass, where sacred oils are blessed during Holy Week, take place in the cathedral. Sometimes civic functions such as community gatherings, concerts or plays take place in cathedrals because they are often focal points for the expression of a community’s life and values.

Knoxville is a young diocese established less than 30 years ago in 1988. The faith is very important to the Catholic people in eastern Tennessee, and the new Sacred Heart Cathedral gives a powerful witness to the dramatic growth of of their faith community during the past three decades.

Where I live, in Louisville, Kentucky, we have an old cathedral established in 1852 when the Church in the United States was still in its infancy. It, too, is a magnificent church but in a much simpler style called “new American gothic.” Lovingly renewed and rededicated in 1994, the Archdiocese of Louisville’s Cathedral of the Assumption is truly a sacred space and a gathering point for archdiocesan, ecumenical and inter-religious and civic events.

There are many beautiful cathedrals in North America, including those in New York, Newark, Montreal, St. Louis, Oakland and Los Angeles to name only a few. All represent the faith and generosity of the Catholic people. All stand as signs (sacramentals) of God’s presence among us.

Congratulations to Bishop Richard Sitka and the clergy, religious and faithful people of the Diocese of Knoxville. May your cathedral stand as a bold witness to our Catholic faith and culture for many years to come. That in all things God may be glorified!

Here’s a great teacher that I never had in class—my mother, Helen C. Conway.

How do I know she was a great teacher? At the time of her death, I was amazed at the number of her students who attended her wake and funeral. Nearly every one of them praised her teaching ability and her care and concern for students.

A year later, when our parents’ home was sold, I was responsible for going through Mom’s papers, including her class notes. It was fascinating to read how she approached classics of English literature including novels, plays and poetry. I still have those notes—nearly 20 years later.

Of course, growing up I knew that Mom loved to read. I remember looking at the books on the shelves in our home library and seeing diverse titles like Francis Thompson’s The Hound of Heaven, Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, and, of course, William Shakespeare’s collected works.

When I began to write a regular newspaper column for Catholic newspapers, Mom was my greatest supporter. But she was also my most serious critic—never hesitating to correct my writing style or question my thinking on a given subject.

Of course my mother taught me a lot more than literature and writing. She taught all her children  faith and values and she was a powerful witness to God’s love and forgiveness.

She loved to quote the poet Alexander Pope:

Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never Is, but always To be blest.The soul, uneasy, and confin’d from Home,Rests and expatriates in a life to come. 

Hope springs eternal, Mom would say. She taught us many things, but how to be filled with hope was at the top of the list!

Speaking of great teachers, I want to celebrate two of my high school English teachers, Dorothy C. Ferster (above) and Mae P. Brown. 

I took Mrs. Brown’s English class my sophomore year, second semester. We read classics like Gulliver’s Travels and A Modest Proposal by Jonathon Swift and Looking Backward, a novel by Edward Bellamy. Her insights made these wonderful stories come alive, and she helped us think critically about the authors’ intentions versus the skills required to make their work successful across different eras and cultures. 

Mrs. Brown was “old school” in her relationships with students. You never doubted her authority or the fact that she was in command of the subject matter.  When a student misbehaved in class (we were sophomores after all), she was calm but firm. As a result, Mrs. Brown was someone students respected and looked up to.  I’m grateful for all that Mrs. Brown taught me—about English literature and about life. 

In Mrs. Ferster’s classes my senior year, we read Shakespeare and the Bronte sisters and many other masterpieces of English literature. It was pure joy. Her love for these great works was transparent and contagious. I still remember an animated discussion she led about “the pathetic fallacy” (an author’s use of nature to illustrate ideas or moods in a story). 

Mrs. Ferster taught me to be a writer. “You have the potential to be a great writer,” she once told me. “But you’re not there yet. From now on I’m going to give you two separates grades for each essay. One will be for style. The other will be for content.”

Mrs. Ferster was teaching me to be more than a facile writer. She wanted me to be substantive. She could tell that it was relatively easy for me to sit down and compose something on paper, but I didn’t always take the time to research my subject or to make sure that my content (as she called it) was as good as my writing style. 

I am deeply indebted to these strong, intelligent and caring women for their efforts to help me grow as a person and as someone who appreciates English language and literature. I doubt that I would have been even modestly successful as a writer if it were not for their guidance and encouragement. 

Looking back more than 50 years to the formation I received from these (and several other) great teachers fills me with a profound sense of gratitude. A thousand thanks to Mae Brown and Dorothy Ferster for the gifts they gave me as a young man!

A great teacher shares with her students more than knowledge. She shares wisdom, a perspective on life that unites experience and understanding. She challenges students to think critically (and clearly), to make judgements based not on current fashion but on time honored truths. And she encourages them not only to think for themselves but to break free from conventional thinking and practices to establish new possibilities, new ways of viewing the world. 

Margaret Ann Peel Jones was a great teacher. My first encounter with her was my junior year in high school. I enrolled in her Asian History class. The first day I thought I’d made a terrible mistake. She didn’t begin like other teachers—reviewing the syllabus and setting the ground rules. She engaged in a “stream of consciousness” raising all kinds of issues about America’s relationship with China and Japan dating back to the earliest days of our republic. She reminded us that we are a relatively new nation struggling to understand and come to terms with nations and cultures that are ancient, beyond our comprehension. 

That first day began a conversation that continued until the semester’s end and beyond. It included Saturday morning trips to the Cleveland Art Museum (for those who wished) to experience something of Asian art. And we even sampled authentic Asian cuisine to the limited extent it was available in northeast Ohio in 1966!

The following year, when I was a senior, I signed up for two more of Mrs. Jones’s classes—semesters 1 and 2 of Modern European History. Same conversation, new venue. The subject was the history of “modern” Europe,  but Mrs. Jones made sure we made the necessary connections with Ancient Greece and Rome. She strongly disagreed with the notion that the Middle Ages were “dark ages” taking every opportunity to point out how light continued to shine throughout  this fascinating period in western culture. 

In all her classes, we spent time exchanging ideas, watching films, listening to music and, of course, reading about people, events and the historic currents that led directly from ancient to modern to post modern history. With Mrs. Jones, the focus was on more than kings and queens, pope’s and churchmen. We tried to understand what “ordinary” people were experiencing and to ask ourselves in what ways our lives were better, worse or pretty much the same as the people who came before us in the various epochs we studied. 

I graduated, of course, and moved away from Cleveland and from Mrs. Jones and her classes, but we managed to stay in touch.  I visited her when I could. And we exchanged Christmas cards long after I was married and had children and Mrs. Jones was retired and in a nursing home. One year, the nursing home sent our Christmas card back as undeliverable.  No forwarding address. 

The best tribute I can pay to this great teacher is to say that I miss her and that the conversation continues more than 50 years later.