PEOPLE

Dean Hoge, a professor of sociology at The Catholic University of America and director of the university’s Life Cycle Institute, has received the Father Louis J. Luzbetak Award for Exemplary Church Service from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA). At the award ceremony Oct. 1, Hoge warned that the U.S. church needs to engage in careful research and planning to meet effectively the challenges of its transition, already well under way, from clerical and religious leadership to predominantly lay leadership. “A transition is ahead and we should not deny it,” Hoge said. “Nor should we fear it. The gospel is the same and the mission of the church is the same. Only the social situation is different. We must rethink institutional policies, and we must do it collaboratively, earnestly, with prayer and with as much discernment as possible.”

Msgr. Philip Murnion, who died of cancer Aug. 19, was honored posthumously by CARA with the Cardinal Cushing Medal for Advancement of Church Research for his extensive work in church leadership research, training and consultation, especially in the past 20 years as founder and director of the National Pastoral Life Center in New York and editor in chief of Church magazine.

Jim and Lucy Carney of Winnetka, Ill., founded 10 years ago a prison ministry called Victory 2000 and have sent more than 1.5 million spiritual books to individual prisoners at 844 correctional institutions nationwide. With the help of six other parishioners from Sts. Faith, Hope and Charity Parish, the Carneys typically send 100,000 books a year to prisons and have raised about $1 million to fund the ministry. Jim even quit smoking cigars to help pay for more books. “This is in our blood,” said Lucy. “We talk about it every day.”

Fred Rogers, the late television personality, has had an early childhood learning center named for him at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., Rogers’ hometown. The Fred M. Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media offer degree, certificate and continuing education programs to promote early learning, caring relationships between children and adults and responsible uses of media. It also will sponsor an annual program of experts-in-residence beginning in the summer of 2004 and will host conferences, speakers and other forums to promote awareness, consensus building and advocacy on behalf of children and families.

Maryknoll Fr. William Fryda, a physician, received the Mayo Clinic Alumni Association Humanitarian Award for his work in bringing quality health care to the poor of Nairobi, Kenya. Fryda, 53, earned his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston in 1975 and finished his residency and fellowship training in internal medicine and hematology at the Mayo Clinic in 1980. He then joined Maryknoll as a lay missioner and was assigned to Tanzania. He later studied for the priesthood and was ordained in 1988.

DEATHS

Herman Will Jr.
Methodist peace activist

Herman Will Jr., who worked on peace and justice issues in Methodist and ecumenical circles for more than three decades, died Sept. 27. Will, 88, was a former staff executive of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society and the author of War and Peace in the Methodist Tradition, a history of the church’s peace witness. He was a religious pacifist and conscientious objector during the Second World War.

Msgr. Stephen P. Happel
Theologian and academic

Msgr. Stephen P. Happel, dean of the School of Theology and Religious Studies of The Catholic University of America, died of a heart attack Oct. 4 at his home in Washington. He was 59 years old. Ordained a priest in Indianapolis in 1970, Happel was on the Catholic University faculty from 1973 to 1978 as a theology instructor and assistant professor and returned permanently in 1983. He was named dean in 2000 and completed a reorganization of the school this summer.

National Catholic Reporter, October 24, 2003