A last word, for now anyway.

Angelo left a comment on this post below referring to the post on his own blog in Italian about Thomas Kelly. I tidied up the Google language tools "translation" and re-publish it here by way of a last word on Thomas's untimely death. It's not that I won't talk about it again but I won't blog about it for a while. It's still a bit too weird and objectionable to make sense of. (To all those who have prayed for Thomas and for his grieving family go raibh míle maith agaibh - a hundred thousand thanks, and please keep up the good work.)

Thomas A. F. Kelly

I have participated in these days, for the first time, in two celebrations in the Tridentine rite after the sudden disappearance of Tom Kelly. Kelly was professor of philosophy and head of the department of philosophy at Maynooth, and died in the night between Wednesday and Thursday at the age of 51 years.

I had met Tom Kelly in 2005, when he was invited to speak of Saint Anselm of Aosta for the association Atlantis. I went to meet him at Maynooth, and we spent a couple of hours together and I visited the National University of Ireland [Maynooth] and the Pontifical University. (The department of philosophy in Maynooth belongs to both institutions.)

I remember him as a kind person, a brilliant mind, full of interest.

He studied first at UCD and in Freiburg [Schweiz] and returned to UCD as assistant to Teresa Iglesias, my supervisor. He moved to Maynooth, where for twenty years he has trained generations of students, many of whom were seminarians. (Here some remember him.)

As Eamonn Gaines said on his blog ... Tom Kelly was President of the Irish Philosophical Society and founded three academic journals. He was a big fan of St. Thomas Aquinas and at this time I read about the conference programme that he was arranging for the month of April, dedicated to analytical Thomism. The sudden disappearance of Tom Kelly is a great loss for philosophy in Ireland, particularly Christian philosophy.

Tom attended the Tridentine rite parish, which has recently established, and the funeral today has been particularly touching. During my visit to Maynooth, Tom showed me the little cemetery that is located inside the campus, a cemetery which is almost entirely occupied by university professors and students. Now his mortal body rests among them, pending the Resurrection.