Fr. Thomas Shelley, one of my best Stepinac teachers

Died at the age of 85. I had two outstanding teachers my senior year - F.r Shelley for AP European History and Fr. Bernie McMcahon - who died several years ago - for English (TS Eliot! ... Herman Hesse!)

Fr Shelley (eventually became Msgr.) was written up a few days ago in a very nice article in the Jesuit America magazine.  I left a comment which I will post below the link to the article. He was a historian himself, of some note.

“It is bad form to criticize a living pope. But it’s no sin to praise a dead one.” Msgr. Thomas J. Shelley delivered this sage advice with a wink in his graduate seminar on the 19th and 20th century papacy at Fordham University in the spring of 2005. It was, not coincidentally, just a few weeks after the Catholic Church had buried one pope and elected another, and the learned historian took—as he always did—the long view. It served him well in life and in his career, including the many years he taught at Fordham.

Here's the comment I left -

I want to add that Fr. Shelley also taught at Stepinac in White Plains, NY. I took his AP European History course when I was a senior there (class of 1969), so he would have been in his early 30's. Fr. Shelley was an excellent teacher with a very dry sense of humor. He told us at the end of the course to let him know what results we got on the AP exam as he would not find out otherwise! I always regretted not getting back in touch with him with my results ... until about 40 years later when I left my results in a comment to an article he had written. Just a reminder Msgr Shelley as you strum your harp, I Aced it - 5 out of 5

Comments

[Nancy]

Fr. Shelley then went on to teach at Spellman, and has been remembered by so many as the extraordinary priest that he was.