Remembering… Fr John Malachy Clune, O.P.

By Br Albert Elias Roberston, O.P. | Br Albert remembers Fr John Malachy Clune, O.P., a friar he cared for as a novice and who died shortly after Br Albert’s profession.

Being young in the Order, I’ve never been in a priory when someone has died, and so I don’t have the same reaction as some of the brothers do when names are read out from the necrology before our evening meal. Some of them I know by reputation, by stories told by the brothers, or by their work, Herbert McCable, Giles Hibbert, Vincent McNabb, Gerald Vann, and the like. Some of the older ones I know from visits to the archive, either from seeing their archive box on the shelf, or by reading more and more about the history of our province, and so I sometimes issue a slight eyebrow raise of recognition at names like Joseph Edwards, alias Tylecote.

The only brother I have ever really known personally and who has died since my being in the Order is Fr John Malachy Clune who died on 17 October 2016, just after I’d made my Simple Profession. Fr John was in the priory in Cambridge for almost all of my noviciate, leaving just before my Simple Profession to go to residential care.

Fr John was a man of mystery. There are always stories told about the older brethren, but those connected with Fr John always seemed slightly more enigmatic: meetings with the provincial arranged, but never actually taking place; letters sent, but no reply received. But we did know some things for sure: we knew that he had spent a long time working for the Apostleship of the Sea in the Caribbean and around Latin America, and we knew that he had worked to build cultural centres, schools, and even a hospital through extensive fundraising campaigns, but other than this we didn’t know very much else. Part of this was because of his dementia, with his memory gradually deteriorating over the course of the year, it became almost impossible to ask him anything about his past. One thing stood out; the picture of him meeting St John Paul II which stood proudly in the middle of his mantlepiece, the sign of a long, active, and fruitful priestly ministry.

Why did I want to write about him, rather than others? After all, I don’t have much to tell you about him, because we don’t know all that much about him. Part of it I suppose is about the personal connection: he is the first brother who I have cared for in the Order who has died. I cooked the lunch for the party we had for his sixtieth anniversary of vows, I brought him his lunch when he could no longer get to the refectory, I took him tea and sat with him in his room, and I washed his clothes. I pray for him every day, because it’s very difficult to do these things for someone and then forget them. So I suppose in some ways, that’s the real reason I chose to write about him: I still remember him and pray for him because the Order brought us together. No matter how curiously one lives the life of a Dominican friar, no matter how mysterious or enigmatic a friar is, in the end we are brothers and we care for each other to the end. I pray that at the last, when I see him again, I might finally get the full story of his life.

The homily Fr Bob Eccles preached at Fr John’s funeral is available here.

Other posts in the series

• Introduction
• Fr Geoffrey Preston, O.P., by Br Bede Mullens, O.P.
• Fr Laurentius Siemer, O.P., by Br Gabriel Theis, O.P.
• Fr Bruno Hussar, O.P., by Br Joseph Bailham, O.P.
• Fr Victor White, O.P., by Br Pablo Rodríguez Jordá, O.P.
• Fr Yves Congar, O.P., by Br Vincent Antony Löning, O.P.

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