Jonathan Robinson of the Oratory, indeed founder and provost of the Toronto Oratory, pastor in the two parishes it was given to serve, rector of Saint Philip\u2019s Seminary, author of books, died yesterday morning at age ninety-one. Himself a convert (from Anglicanism), he had been for almost six decades a Catholic priest, and through the past four, an immigrant to Parkdale (from Quebec). This remarkable institution \u2014 our local Oratory, in conversation with holy cells around the world \u2014 was actually founded in 1975, at Montreal. The Father was himself known internationally, as thinker and writer. He had been prominent in Canadian Catholic life even before this; had been a respected professor of philosophy at McGill, and secretary to the late famous Cardinal L\u00e9ger, before the Church sent him packing on his own impossible mission. In that, Our Lord granted him many improbable victories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To his friends from near, he was a reliable guide, but too, a stalwart friend and gentle inspiration. I say this not in the manner of an obituarist, but from personal knowledge, being acutely aware of Father Robinson\u2019s own distaste for flowery eulogies. As a homilist, and teacher, he was strict, and he instilled this quality in the priests he raised around him \u2014 saying from his own pulpit once, rather defiantly: \u201cWe don\u2019t preach heresies here.\u201d In a world gone crazy and alas, within a Church often thrown off balance by it, he was solid rock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Father Robinson was incidentally the priest who received me into the Catholic Church; my spiritual director; and for the last seventeen years or so, the gentleman I met almost every week, until in March we were \u201clegally separated\u201d by the Batflu. (He was unimpressed by it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The picture of him approaching, down the corridor of a Saturday morning, is among the images I now carry to my own grave. For the moment, it leaves me at a loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May Our Lord receive His diligent servant to his rest, as I have faith He will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By David Warren, lecturer in religion and literature, St Philip\u2019s Seminary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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