Franciscan Father Joseph Nangle, who spent much of his priestly ministry advocating for peace and for justice for those left behind by society, died Dec. 14 at age 92.
“He was a priest who really lived out his vocation fully,” said Judy Coode, communications manager for Pax Christi USA, which conferred its Teacher of Peace award to Father Nangle in 2023. “He loved being a priest. He could get very serious, but he was just a joyful person.”
What won Father Nangle the award from Pax Christi was “his absolute commitment to living out the Beatitudes,” Coode said. “He fully, fully embraced the hunger and thirst for justice, to live nonviolently. He proclaimed that in every aspect of his being.”
She added, “He was very deliberate about living simply, living in community, resisting, violence, and he very warmly invited others to do the same. He was absolutely committed to those who were impoverished, those who were struggling, he was very committed to people who had migrated, he had a deep love for the immigrant community. And he did it all very joyfully.”
Coode met Father Nangle in 1990 when she was an intern at Sojourners magazine, published in Washington. So too did former Pax Christi USA executive director Johnny Zokovitch, but in a more indirect way.
“I was a Catholic volunteer in Florida back in 1991,” Zokovitch recalled. “My supervisor gave me a subscription to Sojourners magazine. The first thing I read, being a good Catholic boy, was a column written by Catholic priest.” It was Father Nangle’s column.
“His words in Sojourners were the places I would go to to feed me, to keep me in formation,” Zokovitch said. “I never in a million years thought I would become as close to Joe as I did over the years.”
Father Nangle served in mission in Bolivia and Peru in the 1960s and ’70s. While there, he participated in study circles with Father Gustavo Gutierrez, the Peruvian Dominican priest who was then formulating the concept of liberation theology and who died Oct. 22 at age 96. His experience with Father Gutierrez transformed his life.
In the 1980s, he co-founded Assisi House in Washington, a community for peace and justice advocates. In addition to Sojourners, Father Nangle also worked for the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, and for 12 years as co-director of Franciscan Mission Service. He also helped found the Franciscan Action Network.
Russ Testa, who directs the peace, justice and integrity of creation initiatives of the U.S.-wide Franciscan Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe, said he first encountered Father Nangle when he was hired by the Franciscans 23 years ago. “The way the job was listed, I did not think I had the qualifications, and he told me to apply for it,” Testa said.
“Joe just makes you feel like you’re the most important person in the world at that moment,” he added, calling that “the Franciscan piece for him. It’s a very clear focus on the other, when you see Jesus in the person before you.”
Testa alluded to how “those who work for justice and peace are sometimes seen on the margins of the church. But 10, 15 years ago, he was elected to leadership in the (Franciscan) province. It was a surprise to him, it was a surprise to others,” but “people wanted him to do that.”
For the past 34 years, Father Nangle served as the pastor of the Spanish-speaking community of Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish in Arlington, Virginia. His funeral Mass will be celebrated Dec. 21 at Our Lady Queen of Peace.
“He was one of a kind,” Zokovitch said of Father Nangle. “He was everything that as a Catholic, you would hope for in a priest. But more than that, he was everything you’d want for in a human being. He was tended in his love and care for those who were struggling in life, and strong and forceful in his denunciation in the ways power was used to hurt people.”
Zokovitch added, “He really was just a towering figure. A parade of pilgrims came to see him in his last days. I flew up from Florida to see him. ... It was incredible.”
Father Nangle had undergone surgery in late November, and was placed in hospice care afterward. At 92, Testa said, he was slowing, but he still had plans to do things in early 2025.
The priest continued to write weekly reflections on the Scriptures for Pax Christi. His last reflection was dated Nov. 16, before he went into surgery. In it, Father Nangle talked about the inevitability of death.
Father Nangle wrote, in part: “For many – most -- of us elders approaching death becomes a constant in our lives. Gradually, we think about it, pray about it and, hopefully, find a certain peace with it. Unfortunately, there are some who cannot achieve such an attitude of acceptance.
“It is so sad to review in powers of attorney the list of measures to be taken as their deaths approach: cardiac resuscitation, mechanical respiration, artificial nutrition, antibiotics. They all seem so futile in the face of the power of death, which, according to Karl Rahner, the famous Jesuit theologian of the 20th century, is the ultimate surrender to God,” he continued.
“Rahner has observed that surrendering to sleep each night is a kind of rehearsal for this ultimate surrender – an act of faith in a loving God who awaits us,” Father Nangle wrote.
