Saying 'good bye'

By Nicole LaPrade

Nearly 300 friends and family members gathered in the Mission Church Monday afternoon to remember professor Bill Spohn for his service to the Santa Clara community, the Catholic church, and his love of his wife and family.

Spohn died of complications from brain cancer on August 3. His funeral was on Aug. 8 at St. Ignatius Church at the University of San Francisco.

"In August, St. Ignatius Church was filled at his funeral, and today the Santa Clara Mission is filled with his students and colleagues, friends and family," Catherine Wolff, Spohn's younger sister, said.

Spohn came to Santa Clara in 1992. He was a professor in the Religious Studies department, where among other courses, he taught Theology of Marriage for many years. He was the former director of the Bannan Center and also the founder of the DISCOVER project.

"Bill simply delighted in this place. He loved being part of a Jesuit institution. Daily he counted the blessing of being able, as an ex-priest, to teach religion at a Catholic institution... the university's commitment to faith and justice marked everything he did, even the way he faced illness," Spohn's wife, Marty Stortz, said.

"He taught us that theology is for people and the community, that Christianity is, above all, about God's love of us and our love of God and neighbor, and that family and friends, conversation and good red wine were a wonderful mix," long time friend University President Paul Locatelli, S.J., said.

Spohn and Locatelli were ordained together in San Francisco in 1974 after having entering the Jesuit Novitiate and studying theology together for many years. Locatelli said that he and Spohn grew to be even closer friends in recent years.

Wolff spoke about how in Spohn's final days he was unable to respond to family members who were gathered to keep watch at his bed, until just moments before his death.

"We found 'The King of Love My Shepherd Is' ... and started to sing it together. We looked over to see him gazing lovingly at us, and we flew to him. He died in our arms. He was with us to the end," she said.

Spohn was a Jesuit priest for 32 years before leaving the order in 1994.

"In his last month, he told a hospital chaplain that brain cancer was nothing compared to the anguish he felt leaving the Society of Jesus after 32 years of ministry," Stortz said.

For the communion meditation, religious studies and classics professor Michael McCarthy, S.J., sang "Take, Lord, Receive," also known as the Suscipe, a prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola that is part of the Jesuit spiritual exercises.

Stortz said that she and Spohn would say this prayer at the chapel of St. Ignatius Church at the University of San Francisco before and after each doctor visit.

"The first part of that prayer offered a devastatingly accurate portrait of brain cancer, which with certain strokes chips away at one's liberty, memory, understanding, and entire will. But the second part of that prayer has been most certainly true. It grounded our hope. We discovered in abundance God's love and God's grace, and it came to us through you, your constancy, and your friendship," Stortz said thanking her friends and family gathered in the Mission Church.

McCarthy said the second half of the prayer, which speaks of handing over everything to God, is how Spohn and Stortz approached the disease.

"I believe and know that Bill is alive. Bill is risen with God and in the communion of saints, living in peace beyond suffering and death itself. May we be grateful for the gift of life to Bill and grateful for each other and for his family and Marty," Locatelli said.

Contact Nicole LaPrade at (408) 554-4546 or at nlaprade@scu.edu.