Gabriel Conor Daly: 18th November 1927 – 30th August 2023.

The playfulness of Gabriel:

Gabriel Daly died this afternoon – 30^th August. The memories are like an avalanche. They overwhelm the mind. Stories and moments rush back to crowd the head and the heart. Smiles too are plentiful. Gabriel was flamboyant. His enthusiasm was effervescent. He loved being controversial and argumentative. He was very easy to excite when anyone tossed an idea into the fray. Any mention of Thomism or Scholasticism would immediately provoke Gabriel into a frenzy of exasperation. A whisper on anything to do with the CDF unleashed a volcano of anger and sadness. He thrived on the cut and thrust of theological discussion. He was also good fun. He was like a child sometimes in the playfulness of argument. God mattered. Words were important. Faith was a battle with ideas. He was hungry for the food of discussion.

The poetry of Gabriel:

Gabriel’s life story is told in his book  ‘THE CHURCH  – Always in Need of Reform.’ 2015. Gabriel was a master craftsman. Every word was chiselled out. He was an artist of language. Every sentence was stripped bare to its essentials. Simplicity was achieved with supreme effort. He was always worth reading for the music of his words; for the clarity of his expression and for the succinctness of his thoughts.

The journey of Gabriel:

Gabriel reflected back on his history as student and as priest in that book. He said that ‘Rome taught me what to think. Oxford taught me how to think.’ He went to Austin Friars, Carlisle, as a teacher after Oxford. He hadn’t enjoyed study in Rome. He came alive in Oxford. He wanted to create something similar in Carlisle. It was an exciting place where the young staff were very eager to engage with the expansiveness and possibilities of education and to stretch the sinews of faith. He eventually was appointed as Master of Professed in Ballyboden in 1966. In many ways, he was an inspired choice and in some ways he was very unlikely candidate. He arrived among us. He talked theology in a new way. He exposed us to literature; to music; to history; to a very different way of thinking. He taught us how to think. We couldn’t make much sense of this ‘foreigner’ arriving among us. He seemed an imposition but gradually he made sense. He was very other worldly. He dragged us into the world of ideas and away from the rigidity of QED formulaic philosophy and theology. We had EH Carr; CS Lewis; Henry Chadwick; Moltmann; Bultmann; Tillich; de Chardin; the death of God theology; and so much more. The Vatican Council was happening among us. We were slow to recognise it or to see how this might have anything to do with us!

The inspiration of Gabriel:

It took us many years to realise that Gabriel had made pioneers of us in faith. He hurled at us the idea – that ‘theology is faith seeking understanding.’ He was very Augustinian in his approach. Augustine made sense of faith in the banter and mess of everyday living. It was ordinary and extraordinary. Gabriel called us to be Augustinian. Not too many of us had the stamina to stay with the challenge. Gabriel spoke of his ‘theological loneliness.’ The world of a theologian is an isolated place. He found that very few wanted to engage in the community of a God-search. He felt that. He wasn’t fully upset but never could quite understand it. How was it possible for people who are ministers and priests (officially)  to be disinterested in pushing out the boundaries of language to let God loose; to find some kind of words to express the inexpressible?

The saving of Gabriel:

Gabriel enjoyed working at the Milltown Institute and then at Trinity. He was involved in the School of Ecumenics with Michael Hurley. Michael had a difficult time with John Charles and there came a time when Diarmuid Martin apologised for what had happened previously. Gabriel lectured and wrote. He gathered quite a fan club around him. He admired Benedict as a theologian but despaired of his regime with John Paul. Gabriel felt that Vat 2 and John XX111 were lost. Gabriel got weary over time and then something happened. He saw what was done to Seán Fagan and he felt the need to re-enter the battle field. He couldn’t believe that Francis was elected and did say, “I love Francis. He saved me.” But really part of his saving was the fate of Seán Fagan. He stirred back into life. Many of us were amused by Gabriel. He almost felt it was a slight on his character that he was never called to Rome to account for his heresies. (Gabriel once wrote a book called ‘Transcendence and Immanence’– on the Catholic Modernists (George Tyrell and co). Pius X had condemned them in saying that ‘modernists were a synthesis of all heresies.’ Gabriel was on the path to redeem them!

The 90^th Birthday of Gabriel:

Gabriel was invited by Brendan Walsh (Editor of The Tablet) to write an article on his 90^th birthday. I had encouraged Gabriel over a long period while he was writing his book on ‘The Church – Always in Need of Reform.‘ I was afraid that he was allowing himself to be consumed by the CDF. The same applied to his article for The Tablet. He began to be obsessed by the Curia. I was very critical of many drafts and felt almost embarrassed. Who on earth was I to assess Gabriel’s writing? However, he humbly wanted me to do so. The article was published. It was good and it was very positive and that really was the man.

The other interests of Gabriel:

I recall those faraway days in student life and little vignettes come to mind. One little moment describes us and him. We had wine to drink one evening. That was a first. One student (and much later a professor of medieval philosophy!) poured wine into a cup. Our Gabriel was shocked at the sheer crudity of such behaviour. ‘It wasn’t the done thing. ’ That student and the rest of us didn’t know any better. Wine was wine. And a cup was a glass as far we were concerned! Gabriel loved playing Bach for us students who had very little knowledge of such music. He was a great admirer of Elgar especially ‘The Dream of Gerontius’, which is based on Newman’s poem on his own conversion, comparing it to a dying, and finding heaven. Elgar has said: ‘This is the best of me.’ Gabriel was keen too on Anton Bruckner.

The nature trail of Gabriel:

In recent years he got his big electric wheelchair. He drove around the grounds at Ballyboden. Each day he watched the progress of the plants. He let nature speak to him. He would then enthuse. It was prayer. He retained an almost childlike excitement on such discoveries of mysteries.

Our gratitude for Gabriel:

Gabriel Liked Emily Dickinson. One of her pieces was: ‘I’m a nobody. Who are you?’ Gabriel was never a nobody. He was somebody who was very precious to us all. Many of us have gone back to tell him how much he meant to us. He was utter refreshment for us. He dragged us into a world which was expansive, extraordinary, exciting and even exhausting. Gabriel was an inspiration to us. Thank you Gabriel. We are in your debt. We were very blessed by you.

Shalom

Seamus Ahearne osa                30^th August 2023.