A friend recently informed me that Father Frank Canavan died at the age of 91. The services start today. I met Father Canavan over thirty years ago and he baptized the first three of our children (the fourth was baptized in Ashland). He was a good and serious man (he taught at Fordham for over 20 years) and he had a tender and quiet way of reminding me to think deeper, but maybe not so loud. Canavan, Jaffa, and Cropsey attended the same high school, as this introduction to his thought by Kenneth Grasso notes. Requiescat in pace.
Peter, thanks for bringing this to my attention. He was a great pleasure of my stint at Fordham. Requiescat in pace.
Fr. Canavan led the way in the battle to clarify what freedom of speech and press is FOR in the wake of 20 years of U.S. Supreme Court decisions that equated slander, libel, incitement to riot and pornography with the expression of ideas and principles. His work on this subject, commenced 30 years ago, was a light to the world for which we are everlastingly in his debt.