In Memory of TomI knew Tom O'Rourke thru a number of organizations: Catholic Peace Fellowship, our Good Friday Stations of the Cross, Teilhard de Chardin meetings in New York, and St. Malachy Parish. I admired Tom for his open mind and wealth of knowledge - he read everything! Because of the friendship, I was delighted when Tom showed interest in our Common Ground Group: common ground on pro-life and pro-choice issues. He attended a workshop we had and was interested enough to want to participate in our monthly meetings. The idea of Common Ground is not to convert people to your side but to dialogue and listen with respect to what another has to say. This was a perfect venue for Tom. For he described himself as pro-life, but he would be the first to say that he had questions and was there to learn, for he had not resolved some issues in his own mind. For most pro-choice people at our meetings, this dialogue was the first exposure they ever had with pro-life people. TV clips and newspapers were as close as they got to hearing what a pro-life person would be about. How welcome then to have someone like Tom in the group. He was committed to pro-life, even to his great work against capital punishment, but willing and eager to hear what others had to say. He read an incredible amount and often came with articles that we would use for dialogue at a later time. Everyone in our group, pro-life and pro-choice, will miss him very much. For me his death has created a huge void. I did not see him all that often but always felt a whole lot happier after I did spend time with him. Mary McDonough |