-
He Called Me Friend
August 15, 2011 | 397 comments
-
The Ebb and Flow of Global Liberty
June 2, 2007 | 0 comments
Feature
The Day My Brother Was Murdered
Memoirs of a shattered hope.
(Page 10 of 10)
Proffered is no measured length
of the potential soul.
Rather, influence of strength,
corner-stone, cemented whole.
The senses know the form
and smile and eyes
of love, but the lover’s norm
is to pierce through this disguise
to spirit which in all things
does love intensify
to ripened being. Each day that sings
our love is more July.
Sand below and stars above
give instancy of me.
Mine is no lazy love;
come taste my love and see.
4. TO DACCA
Dick had hardly returned to his first assignment, further study at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., when he was writing to request permission to go to the Missions. In 1958, he had asked Father DePrizio whether he could take the “fourth vow”; viz., to go anywhere in the world his superiors might wish to send him. In Holy Cross, this vow was in practice looked upon as a request to go to the Missions. Father DePrizio advised him to wait, unless he was sure he wanted to go. Dick was willing to go, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to go.
In France, he soon realized that he did want to go. It was too early to do anything about it. He waited again. But as soon as he was settled in Washington, he wrote to Father DePrizio. He had talked with Father Arnold Fell, the Director of the Holy Cross Mission program, and Father Robert McKee, the Superior of the Vicariate of Dacca; he was already speaking of special studies in Islamic culture and philosophy. He had a desire to begin forging intellectual links between Islam and Christianity. First, he had to get permission to take the mission vow.
“I hope you are not deceived by my long silence in this decision taken a long time ago,” he wrote to Father DePrizio. “’Twas thyself advised me to wait until I could be ‘certain enough to fight for [it].’”
That is how Rich put himself in the queue to be sent to Pakistan. Before arriving there, he was sent for courses to the Holy Cross Foreign Mission Seminary near Catholic University in Washington. In the summer of 1962, he took two courses in Arabic at Harvard. He also had a couple months of experience in the “Southern missions” in rural Georgia. On one occasion, he later recalled, little boys asked to see his tail. They had been taught that all priests were devils, and wore cassocks to hide their tails. The work of bringing Catholic faith to the rural South was very difficult, and yet for him exhilarating. He knew that, however hard, it would be far harder still in Pakistan.
After a brief vacation at home with the family in Johnstown, Rich was driven back to Washington to catch an airplane by my father and my brother Jim (third in line behind Rich and me). On the way home, Jim wrote in his book Bangladesh: Reflections on the Water, my dad stopped the car and began to cry profusely. When Jim asked what was wrong, no reply came for a while. When he could, my father said, “I am never going to see him again. He will not come home.”
He had had that premonition once before, when in 1943 his best friend Mickey Yuhas had been drafted into the army, and by mid-June had landed in France. My father felt a sense of doom. During the Battle of the Bulge in early December 1944, Mickey Yuhas was killed by a bullet in his forehead. That is the only other time I know of that my father burst into tears.
WHAT DID NOT BECOME clear to the family until well after the death of our parents was the way Dick died. On the ferryboat mentioned above, near the end of the crossing, two young boys grabbed him and shouting, “We caught another Hindu!” pushed him into the water. We did not call Richard “the lion-hearted” for nothing. He fought the boys back until they called two older lads from the shore. He showed them the crucifix Holy Cross Brothers wear around their necks, and explained in Urdu that he was a Christian. They pulled Richard to the shore and now four held him down, while a fifth stabbed him in the throat and then plunged the knife into his chest.
Although robbery was not their motive, the boys took his watch and his bicycle. His eyeglasses had been broken in several pieces by the struggle. The young men threw his body in the water, witnesses said, but when it lodged in the river bank, the vultures and dogs that were feeding on other bodies along the river tore his body apart. His remains were never found—except that a Bengali detective some months later, who found Richard’s skull, had the presence of mind to have the priests’ dentist study it. He proved without doubt that it was Dick’s.
Dick had wanted to be wholly consumed by love for God and neighbor. He was.
I hope it is not wrong to pray to him as a martyr. Thanks to my sister’s discovery of so many documents, it is clear to me that he was.
About the Author
Michael Novak is the George Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute. He wishes to express his indebtedness to his sister, Mary Ann Novak, for her tireless researches, which have uncovered many heretofore unknown facts.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (15) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Michael Novak
More Articles From Feature
http://spectator.org/archives/2008/12/24/the-day-my-brother-was-murdere
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
David Govett| 12.24.08 @ 11:38AM
Perhaps you are starting a tradition by telling a Christmas Eve murder story. Whatever next, I wonder.
Matthew M.| 12.24.08 @ 12:18PM
David, it is said that the wood that cradled Christ in the manger was the wood of the cross upon which he was crucified. This story is a sobering balance to an overly sentimentalized Christmas.
Ken| 12.24.08 @ 6:41PM
A tale of family loss, set against the hope and glory that is Christmas. You can't expect people like Paddy or David G. to understand or even appreciate such a story. In their world, personal sacrifice is anathema to them. It is for people such as Paddy and David G. that we should pray. Merry Christmas.
David Govett| 12.24.08 @ 10:36PM
Ken: You evidently derive satisfaction from flaming complete strangers on the Web. If indeed you are as callow as your behavior evinces, experience probably will remedy your boorishness. If not, not. In either event, please consider behaving civilly toward your fellow humans, even though they are not you.
wanda keith | 12.24.08 @ 11:05PM
Mr. Novak,
Thank you so much for sharing your sad, yet beautiful story. It is clear your family has many happy memories of your brother. The world is poorer for having lost him.
Stephen Eakin| 12.25.08 @ 4:18AM
Mr Novak
I was educated by the Dominicans, the Christian Brothers and the Jesuits.
There were a few loonies in all those groups, but the majority were straight up and down, with problems, as described about your brother.
I am a better person to having been through the system. It didn't scar me. It made me a better person (for which I am truely thankful).
We are Anglo-Celtic stock full of Catholics, Anglicans, Hueguenots, Presbyterians, Welsh, Maronite Lebanese, left and right Oz's, and the only punch-up's (metaphorically) are are birthday
parties, weddings, christenings and funerals.
Why can't other groups accept the way that we do it?
Our story is the story of your family.
We have been so fortunate that we have not had to have undergone your family's bereavement.
We just have a refeeeeend punch up because of our Celtic female backround.
Our attitude is that you do your own thing. Your are on your own from the time you pop.
However, in our family there are squillions of
rellos to provide support.
Is this not the reason why God invented the extended family?
God works in misterious ways.
'Tis a pity that your brother was not here to listen to such a brilliant eulogy.
lillith| 12.26.08 @ 8:01PM
Father Richard gave his life doing what he knew he needed to do.
We are lesser in the lose, but he is in a better place.
My your family receive the peace the passing understanding.
L
Peregrinus| 12.26.08 @ 8:02PM
I write this from a place just a few miles from Stonehill, and, like Mike and Dick, as someone who, in "the old days," went very young to the seminary of an Order that drew into Community the most diverse group of individuals and made us a remarkable, if somewhat "weird" family of brothers who, across the years and miles and myriad changes are still in touch today (thanks to email and the Internet!).
The week of the Christmas Octave features in the liturgical calendar, the Saints who are dubbed the "comites Christi," the companions of Christ, a royal retinue for the newborn King, Saints who suffered: Stephen, John the Evangelist, the Holy Innocents, Thomas Becket.
What a worthy addition to that procession your brother Dick is, Mike! Thanks to you - and to your sister - for letting us share the story.
And, as TS Eliot wrote of one of those Christmas Saints in his Murder in the Cathedral: "It is this which forever renews the world, though it is forever denied. For wherever a martyr has shed his blood, there is holy ground, and the holiness shall not depart from it."
May his intercession help bring peace to the land and people he loved - and to ours!
Tim Allen| 1.9.09 @ 7:27PM
A sacred thing, this story. I am reluctant to even slightly touch it with comments, so I'll simply say thank you, Mr. Novak.
Irving M.Levine| 1.12.09 @ 10:19PM
Friend Michael. What a moving and fascinating tribute to a brother long gone but well remembered Once again, in our episodic history of knowing one another, I owe you gratitude for sharing from a rich Catholic life to this unreconstructed, but sober liberal who reads you with occasional disagreement but with abiding affection .
G| 1.28.09 @ 7:47PM
Watch FREE full length Movies, TV Shows, Music (over 6 million digital quality tracks), Unlimited Games, and FREE College Educations @ InternetSurfShack.com
Angela V. McDonnell| 2.26.09 @ 2:02PM
Dear Mr. Novak,
I am Johnstown Catholic High School classmate of Dick's.
I talked with your Dad once when he called to ask me to organize with him a reception for Dick after his ordination. I was sorry that I could not help, as I had recently had a third child.
Later, the news of Dick's slaying was too sad.
His was a unique personality; many of us knew him in such different ways. I enjoyed his droll sense of humor; I saw him as laidback, carefree. I was in many classes with him, he seemed always to be prepared.
Angela v. McDonnell
guo | 7.1.10 @ 5:06AM
www.wmvconverterformac.com