Gary MacEoin
1909-2003

'If a publication can have a grandfather, then Gary MacEoin was that to NCR.'

Gary MacEoin, 94, a reporter, author, editor and human rights activist who specialized in the politics and poverty of the Third World, especially Latin America, died of cardiac arrest July 9 at the Loudoun Hospital Center rehabilitation facility in Leesburg.

MacEoin's relationship with NCR dates from the paper's beginnings in the 1960s

To contribute to the refugee project, make out the check to RAICES, noting on behalf of Gary MacEoin, and send it to RAICES, 1305 N. Flores, San Antonio TX 78212. (RAICES stands for Refugee and Immigrant Center for Legal Services.)

To contribute to the documentary on Gary's life by filmmaker Mark Day, make out a check to Media Arts Center of San Diego, which has agreed to accept the project as its fiscal sponsor. Earmark the check to the Gary MacEoin Project and send it c/o Betsy Cohn, 7209 Willow Ave., Takoma Park MD 20912. Contributions to the project are tax deductible.

Posted August 8

I knew Gary because of his work on Latin America initially ... Jeanne Gallo
I was working with the Agência Ecumênica de Notícias in São Paulo ... Isabelle Smyth
El 3 de agosto es una fecha significativa en mi vida. ... Alejandro Dausá
My memories of Gary include food mostly ... Lily Rodulfo
Gary was the only true Renaissance-Man ... Marsha Huie
I want to put on record his love and loyalty to me - his cousin. ... Maura Huddle

Posted July 28

Gary MacEoin, Who Wrote and Lectured on Catholic Church, Dies at 94
New York Times Obituary:Gary MacEoin, a onetime candidate for the priesthood who turned to writing and lecturing about Latin American social conditions and the Roman Catholic Church, died on July 9 in a rehabilitation center in Leesburg, Va., where he had been recuperating from a fall. He was 94 and a resident of San Antonio.

A marvelous inner life and passion
When he received the news of Gary's death, NCR Rome Correspondent John L. Allen Jr. was in Gubbio, in Italy's gorgeous Umbrian hills, a place Gary had recommended to him.

A champion of the Third World
The Irish Times: Gary MacEoin, who has died aged 94, was a journalist, author and human rights activist with a particular interest in Latin America and Third World issues. (The Irish Times restricts some online content to subscribers only. You may have trouble visiting this site.)

Posted July 23

'He's still at it'
Dick Senier remembers buying one of Gary's books.

In Nicaragua and Honduras
Patricia Edmisten met and traveled with Gary in 1981.

In El Salvador
Doug Cassel met Garyin El Salvador, on the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero.

Posted July 22

NCR has opened a photo gallery page with images of Gary MacEoin. We will add photos as we receive them. Click on the image at left to go to the photo gallery.

Posted July 21

Dear Editor:
From Holy Cross Father Bob Pelton writes: "I have known Gary since the time of Vatican II ..."

From San Antonio
My name is Lisa Sorg and I'm the editor of the San Antonio Current. We ran a piece about Gary MacEoin this week and I want to send you the link for the tribute page at NCR. The link is www.sacurrent.com; within that story there are also links to stories Gary wrote for us about politics, war, etc.
Best regards, Lisa Sorg

Posted July 20

Journalist MacEoin leaves papers to Notre Dame
The papers of the journalist Gary MacEoin, who died Wednesday (July 9) in Leesburg, Va., after a brief illness at the age of 94, have been donated to the University of Notre Dame. MacEoin was author, editor and translator of 52 books, the most celebrated of which concerned Latin America.

Sanctuary activist MacEoin dies at 94
Arizona Daily Star: Journalist, social activist and former Tucsonan Gary MacEoin, whose writings on the Catholic Church once attracted national attention, has died at age 94. The Irish-born MacEoin, who played an active role in Tucson's Sanctuary Movement during the 1980s, died Wednesday of cardiac arrest while visiting his family in Leesburg, Va. He lived in Tucson from 1969 until the mid-1980s.

Posted July 19

A trip with Gary in Cuba
Jeanne Lemkau, Professor of Family Medicine and Community Health at Wright University of Medicine in Dayton, Ohio, met Gary while on a trip to Cuba, and she later wrote about the encounter.

Posted July 18

Gary MacEoin
Frank Maurovich remembers making MacEoin a columnist for the The Catholic Voice in the then new Oakland Diocese in 1963.

Gary MacEoin, a one-hour documentary
Day Productions, a San Diego, Calif., media production house, is producing an hour-long documentary about Gary MacEoin. Read more about the documentary and view a short preview.

Gary MacEoin Taught Me How to Write a Book
Mary Daly, feminist writer and thinker, reflects on meeting Gary MacEoin in Europe in 1965. She writes that she was "on her way to Rome to conduct my own personal investigation of The Second Vatican Council."

Posted July 15

Obituary by Jerry Filteau, Catholic News Service
Gary MacEoin, Catholic writer and advocate of poor, dies at 94. An often acerbic critic of U.S. policies in the Third World and of church leaders who failed to match his passion for social justice, MacEoin wrote more than 25 books, including two sets of memoirs. While Latin America was his specialty, he also wrote extensively on the Catholic Church and on a wide range of other subjects, including Northern Ireland.

Posted July 14

Reflections by Tom Roberts, NCR editor
Inside NCR. If awards were give for a lifetime of integrity and ceaseless search for the truth of things, Gary would win hands down.

Writer Gary MacEoin dies at 94 by Robert McClory for the NCR
A life of travel, exposing oppression where he found it. However much he understood about human suffering and the sometimes grinding march of history, he was consistently a source of hope.

Obituary by Colman McCarthy in the Washington Post
A reporter, author and activist. In more than 25 books based mostly on old-fashioned legwork that took him into impoverished and remote villages from Mexico to Chile, Mr. MacEoin explored and explained the economic links between people of wealth and people of poverty