- AP Photo/Courtesy the University of Chicago
- An undated photo of Andrew Greeley
Father Andrew Greeley died last week at the age of 85, and Eugene Kennedy, a writer and former priest whose relationship with Greeley apparently wandered all over the map, said a moving farewell in Sunday’s Tribune.
“We called each other friends and counted on each other but our friendship had been tested by times in which we drifted apart but could still hear each other’s voices,” Kennedy wrote. “Irish brothers have a way of falling out and then finding each other again.” The finding was Greeley’s doing, Kennedy allowed. “When I had cancer surgery and was sitting quietly, sorting out the situation with my wife at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Andrew came through the door to bring me his blessing, to cheer us up, and, in less than the time it takes to tell about it, to restore our friendship. As he said to me later with a smile, ‘Reconciliation is supposed to work that way.'”
Kennedy’s story rang a bell. Hadn’t I, at some time long past, written something that described the bad blood between the two men? I searched the Reader‘s archives.