Church Militant & Les Femmes Bid
Fond Farewell to Fr. John Hardon

On December 30^th, the Church Militant lost a beloved warrior, Father John Hardon, S.J. His impact on the Church in the United States over the past 60 years is immeasurable. Examine any good thing since Vatican II and you’re likely to find Fr. Hardon’s fingerprints on it: Catholic Distance University, Eternal Life, Inter Mirifica, Catholic Faith Magazine, and the Real Presence Eucharistic Education and Adoration Association to name a few. Father was also a champion of home schooling families often calling their home schools the monasteries of the 20^th century and the true hope of the Church.

Among Fr. Hardon’s most famous spiritual sons and daughters were Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Tom Monaghan, the Dominos Pizza mogul. In her latter years Mother Teresa consulted Fr. Hardon for spiritual direction and asked him to train her sisters as Marian catechists. Tom Monaghan turned his time and fortune to charitable works after Father warned it’s hard to get into heaven with all that money.

Les Femmes can’t claim a long friendship with Father Hardon. We first met in 1994 to ask his advice on establishing an organization to fight radical feminism. We’d held a mock funeral on the Capitol steps complete with coffin and pallbearers to lay to rest the remnants of feminist ideology, and intended to publish a quarterly newsletter. Father read our mission statement and encouraged the plan, originally secular. But a few months later Call to Action (CTA), a group of radical Catholics, began meeting in our diocesan parishes advancing their agenda of abortion, contraception, women priests, etc. aided and abetted by clergy. It was clear — the fight was in the Church.

The first issue of The Truth rolled off the copy machine at Kinko’s in January of 1996 with photos and a story about eight Les Femmes members arrested for trespassing at a Call to Action meeting held at Christ the Redeemer in Sterling. It went to every priest in the diocese, a handful of supporters, and Fr. Hardon. Later, on three separate occasions, Father encouraged the work of Les Femmes — twice during private conferences on retreat and once in a brief encounter at a home schooling conference. It was unfortunate, he said, but the crisis in the Church made newsletters like ours inevitable and necessary.

We’ll miss you, Father. You inspired us with your single-hearted dedication to the faith, your incredible energy, and your unflagging charity despite persecution. We know you won’t leave us orphaned. Ora pro nobis. [For a biography and other articles about Fr. Hardon see the Fr. Hardon link. Ed]

Prayer for the Glorification of
Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J.

We thank you, O Lord! for having blessed your Church with the untiring service of your priest, John Hardon. May he, from heaven, continue his mission and obtain for us the strength and the intelligence to proclaim and defend the truth with genuine fidelity to the Catholic Faith and the charity he drew from the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Grant us, we pray, the favors we ask through his intercession and raise him to the honors of the altar. Amen.

His Eminence, Edouard Cardinal Gagnon, P.P.S.

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