Ron Trojack was an honest man.

I have never known anyone with less tolerance for

pretense,

collective self-deception

or for positions, often enough self-serving, maintained by arguments easily refuted by a careful, open-minded examination of them.

I mattered little to Ron who the proponents of such views were, what power or authority they held, or what the consequences to him might be for speaking out against them.

Ron had the courage to speak his mind. I’m not saying that Ron was always right, but from my perspective, he was not often wrong.

Meeting Ron

Ron and I met 45 years ago just down this hallway in what has been converted into the principal’s office. At the time we arrived it had been a two-room living quarters. Ron got the living room as his office, I got the bed room as mine. With the bedroom door open and the positioning of our desks, we could essentially share an office. Unless we were seeing a student, the door was always open.

Open Filing System

It was here that Ron introduced me to what I came to call the “open filing system.” Ron showed me that if you use all the space on your desk, if fact, your whole office, to spread out your papers, and whatever, that by turning slowly you could eventually spot whatever you were looking for. Ron was so committed to this system that he used it at home as well. Ron’s only problem, so far as I could see, was that he never worked or lived in a space quite large enough.

Summers, tennis

Ron and I were both starting our doctoral dissertations when we arrived at Kings, which meant that we spent summers together in our offices as well. Often in afternoon to clear our heads and get some fresh air we would head over to the tennis courts behind the seminary. Ron loved to watch competitive tennis, but in his own play he was totally non-competitive. No scoring, no games, not even any serving, just an hour or two of volleying, trying to hit challenging shots for the other to return. Maybe Ron played more competitively with others, but with me it was just the enjoyment of a challenging exercise with a friend.

Ron’s Sense of Humor

Ron also had a wonderful sense of humor and an explosive laugh that many of you may not have experienced. Some of my happiest memories of Ron are of dinners with John and Mary Snyder where we would be rolling with laughter as John and Ron recalled their student experiences at Notre Dame.

Decade Apart

Although we were a decade apart in age, we immediately found ourselves to be in the same place in many other ways. Not that that decade was totally insignificant. Ron had experienced intensely something that we had both grown up with but that I encountered as an adult only as it began to be challenged, namely, the late medieval Church.

Late Medieval Church in the 1950’s

The Church of the Late Middle Ages was alive and well in the mid-1950’s when Ron entered the seminary, especially in seminaries. It was not just the Church of the 1950’s had changed little since the counter-reformation, Council of Trent Church of the 17^th century, the Church had long persuaded itself that its structure when back not just to the 17^th century but to St. Peter himself, with little more than cosmetic changes. The Church was unchanging and unchangeable, the hierarchy the sole reliable source of eternal unchanging truths. In the classical world view, the more unchanging something was, the more God-like it was, the closer to perfection.

Absolute Authority

The Church that Ron so intensely encountered was from an age of Absolute Monarchs, with none more Absolute than the Pope. All authority was beyond questioning and delegated from the top down: From God to Pope to Bishops to Rectors and Pastors to Assistant Pastors. Notably missing from this list—the laity. Absolute deference was required to all those above you in this hierarchy.

A decade later, my rector in the seminary confided to me that previous Rectors felt they were required to impose irrational requirements on the seminarians so that, after ordination, young priests would have learned to live with the irrational dictates of their Pastors.

This may be the only instance in which Ron was a slow-learner, dare I say, ineducable.

Vatican II

By the time Ron was ordained, the Second Vatican Council was starting to articulate a theoretical basis for change. The Council acknowledged, in a limited way, the legitimacy of a century-old approach of certain Protestant Biblical scholars. They had shown that the Bible was not and could not be the very words of God dictated to human scribes.

(No one seems to have asked why God would even have needed human scribes, when a couple stone tables and a bit of lightening were quite adequate for giving us the 10 Commandments.)

But be that as it may, a close examination of the texts in their original languages showed that the Bible had a very human history, reflecting different times, locations, perspectives, situations and linguistic styles. This was ground-breaking.

For those of you who have not delved into Biblical scholarship, let me give you a quick example of the kind of analysis that occurred:

If you were a German speaker and read excerpts from Shakespeare and the Globe and Mail but only in a translation of both into modern German, you might not notice the differences. But read even casually in their original English, there is no way you would believe they were written at the same time or by the same person.

If Bible, then Church -- Change

For Ron, his career-long passion for historically-conscious Biblical scholarship shaped not only his teaching and homilies, but his vision for the possibilities of the Church. If the Bible had a history, surely so too did the Church. If the Church had a history, it had changed. If it had changed, (as church historians increasingly verified) it could change again—and not just in superficial ways.

Example 1

For example, a condemnation of charging any interest on a loan as “intrinsically evil” according to both natural law and Scripture was quietly abandoned in the 16^th century. For a thousand years before that, it would have led to excommunication and denial of Christian burial.

Example 2

Since the earliest centuries, the Church issued Biblical- and natural law- based endorsements of the legitimacy of slavery under certain conditions. In the 19^th century, these were replaced by equally strong condemnations.

Theologians to identify needed changes

Ron loved the community that was the Church, but he also knew that real love is not saying “You’re just fine the way you are” when that’s not what you need to hear (although that’s often the easier and safest thing to say). Ron was part of a generation of theologians excited by the possibility of contributing to making the Church better suited to its mission, a renewal, an aggornimento. Not every possible change would be an improvement, but well-considered changes, tested anew against underlying biblical values could be. These would be changes which reflected the actual experience of the laity, not just what those in the hierarchy thought the laity’s experience should be.

Ron was among those who saw that part of the role of theologians to identify what changes would enhance the Church, and to advocate for them.

Example, Homosexuality

One example. Ron saw, decades before its wider social acceptance, that the Church needed to change its condemnation of homosexuality. Yes, the condemnation of homosexuality was based on long-standing Biblical and Natural Law arguments, but recall that so had the condemnation of charging any interest, and the endorsement of slavery. The question was: are they compelling arguments, given our current understanding of Scripture and our recognition of the assumptions built into the medieval articulations of Natural law. Ron, along with many other theologians, saw that these arguments were easily rejected by an open-minded person willing to make the effort to examine them. Lacking compelling Biblical or rational support, the condemnation of homosexuality could only be viewed as a well-dressed-up form of homophobia.

Ron, being a courageous, honest man, was not content to simply hold this as a private view. The injustice of this condemnation was made clear in Ron’s homilies and other public statements.

Resistance to Vatican II, and Francis

Resistance to the openness of Vatican II began only a few years after the Council closed. At a public lecture in Toronto attended by all of us in the Department, Joseph Ratzinger, later to become Pope Benedict, described reform-advocating theologians as “wolves attacking the sheep.” These were dark decades where we felt we were fighting a losing battle to keep the vision alive. It was such a joy for me to see the hope and excitement return to Ron’s eyes with the papacy of Pope Francis.

Civil Rights

Coming of age in the 60’s, Ron was also deeply committed to and influenced by the Civil Rights movement. Along with Vatican II, it nurtured in Ron a willingness to challenge powerful forces and conventional views of the way things ought to be.

Prejudice a Lie

Prejudice was simply a self-serving, collective lie told about groups of people, largely so that we would not have to compete with them. This was not terribly complicated for Ron. Even we modestly gifted might succeed if they could limit our competition to just other straight, white, Christian males born in this country.

Trump

Racism enraged Ron, particularly of late when it came from a certain individual who claimed: “I am the least racist person you will ever meet.” You know how some people watch exercise shows to get the juices flowing and their heart rate up, for Ron what worked best was the “Rachel Madow Show.” If it wasn’t for getting worked up about Trump, Ron would have gotten hardly any cardio exercise at all.

T-Shirts

Ron would remind you of his commitment to opposing racism, not simply by all he said and did—which were formattable, but also by what he wore. Ron never met a Martin Luther King t-shirt he didn’t like, and so far as I can tell, didn’t buy. When I was helping Ron organize his clothes for his move into the retirement residence, I told him that his Martin Luther King t-shirts outnumbered his Malcom X t-shirts 18 to 12. Even Ron admitted that that was probably a few more than he needed, but people could tell where Ron stood from 15 feet away.

Left Retirement Home

Ron didn’t last long in that retirement residence for a few reasons, but significant among them was the fact the cost of living there greatly reduced his ability to make substantial monthly contributions to a whole host of charitable causes.

When I asked Ron how he liked moving in with the Castro’s, Ron said it was “8000% better.” Ally, Hernan, for the support and love you showed Ron, particularly in these last difficult times, we are grateful beyond words.

Ron’s Christianity

Ron’s Christianity was rooted not only in the fact that he loved Jesus-- Ron really, really liked him.

What Ron Liked about Jesus

What Ron really liked about Jesus was that Jesus had seen through the BS of religious formalism, genuinely cared about people not easy to care about, and was willing to tell the truth to people who did not want to hear it.

For Ron there was little point in obsessing about Jesus’ divinity, if we lose sight of his very real humanity. As Ron often said, the most thing about Jesus was that he got it right—he figured out what a genuinely human life looked like, and then Ron would note the barely passing resemblance it had to the lives we lived.

And Ron always stressed the “we,” the fact that he himself was no closer to the goal than the rest of us. After setting out an insight from the Gospels into how we should live, Ron would quickly admit, “That’s certainly not how I live” but Ron was continually troubled by that and hoped that we would be too.

The Liturgy

The centrality of the liturgy in Ron’s life was its weekly reconnection with Jesus. He sought very hard to make that connection as real as possible. As Ron moved the consecrated bread and cup across the congregation making brief eye-contact with each of us individually, Ron sought to convey that Jesus was there for me, and you and you and you.

Ron is the only priest I know where it was commonplace see people taking notes during his homilies. I swear there were more notes taken during Ron’s homilies than in most of my classes – probably for good reason.

Ron’s Salary

Before we arrived at King’s, it had adopted the policy that religious faculty would be paid the same as the laity. This was an effective way of countering the temptation to hire religious faculty to save money. Ron’s permission to come to Kings from his Bishop in Illinois came with the understanding that there would be no support or pension from his home diocese, nor from the Diocese of London. Ron’s short term and long term financial situation was the same as mine or any other single faculty.

What Ron did with it

As our salaries grew over time, Ron had resources other clergy would not. What was inspiring about Ron was how he used it. After several years of renting an apartment, Ron had saved enough for a down payment on a small house. If Ron ever lived alone in the house, it was for very short periods. It seemed that whenever Ron encountered someone who needed a place to stay, his door was open—be it for days, weeks or months.

Zambia, Ngandwe, Marcelo, Dieudonne

While volunteering for a year on the seminary faculty in Zambia, Ron realized that he had the ability to adopt a young man whose prospects, had he remained in Zambia, were very bleak. Ngandwe was soon followed by Marcelo and Dieudonne. Ron, looking back on his life, recently told my wife Marg that becoming a father was the best thing he ever did. Still, Ron took on the challenge of single parenting pre-adolescent boys, one with a serious physical challenge, adjusting to new totally culture with limited command of the language, in lily-white London Ontario. Knowing all that this entailed, Ron did it again and yet again because he saw someone who needed help he was able to offer, and for whom he deeply cared.

While Ron repeatedly insisted that he was no closer to emulating Jesus than the rest of us, I would beg to differ.

Ron’s Teaching

Ron had a passion for teaching, and was deeply saddened when this was no longer available to him. His Scripture courses transformed the religious world view of many, though he endured more than a few attacks from students expecting a fundamentalist presentation of the Scriptures. His courses on Religion and Media dealt not with the depiction of religion in media, but with how films and other media understood and grappled with the problem of evil in our lives. His courses on Atheism and Faith offered no simplistic refutations of atheism. He took atheism seriously, having gone through a period of atheism in his youth.

Good-by

Three and a half weeks ago I had to leave for three weeks in Vancouver. The day before I left I went to see Ron and we had an hour alone together. Ron was rested and lucid. When I told Ron how long I would be gone, Ron and I both knew this was our final “good-by.” There was an honesty about it, befitting Ron, that was both painful and a gift. Looking back, Ron’s only regret was not spending more time on his music. He smiled when I pointed out that as a Theologian he would soon have the answers to some of the big questions we had pondered. We embraced and shed a few tears. I told Ron, speaking I think not just for myself, that I loved him and was a better person because he had been a significant part of my life. I also told him that he would not be totally gone from us. He would be here not just in our memories, but also in our all-too-fleeting impulses toward courageous honesty and generosity.

Thank you, Ron, for being you.

Comments made at the Memorial Reception for Fr. Ron Trojcak, April 14, 2018 at King’s University College, London, Ontario by Gil Brodie