Fr. de Valk was a model for priest journalists

The Catholic Register, 25 April 2020

How do the priesthood and journalism go together? The former is more fundamental to our identity than the latter, but both are variations on a deeper mission. Both are storytellers.

Fr. Alphonse de Valk, a stalwart of the pro-life movement, touched many lives in different spheres, especially in education, the particular charism of the Basilian Fathers. I will remember him as a fellow priest journalist.

There is a certain fraternity amongst us and we mourn the loss of one of our own. With the Internet creatively destroying the entire field of journalism, it is not clear that journalists like Fr. de Valk will be around in the future. The countless priests who now exercise at least part of their ministry over the Internet have less need for the established world of publishers, editors, reporters and columnists.

“It appears his first love was journalism,” wrote Lifesite News about Fr. de Valk’s multi-faceted priestly ministry after his death on April 16 at age 88. I learned only now that he founded a journal when he was at St. Thomas More College in Saskatoon, Chelsea Journal, named after St. Thomas More’s London home. The Saskatoon Basilians must have been a literary force back then, as Fr. Ian Boyd founded the Chesterton Review there in 1974.

The Chelsea Journal was a journal on current affairs and culture from a Catholic perspective. In 1993 Fr. de Valk would launch Catholic Insight with a similar mission. I began reading it regularly when I entered the seminary a few years later.

In 2003, I wrote a column for the National Post on Bill C-13, which regulated artificial reproduction.

“Bill C-13 is clearly better than the current legislative vacuum in which anything goes,” I wrote. “The moral difficulty is that it entrenches bad philosophy and countenances the destruction of human life.”

Fr. de Valk thought pro-life MPs must vote against C-13. I argued that there were acceptable reasons for voting either way.

He was not pleased and wrote that I was destroying pro-life unity. We clashed once or twice after that, but there was always a priestly gentlemanliness when we met in person.

Still I was surprised when in 2008 he looked favourably upon the idea — proposed by one of his writers — that I succeed him as the editor of Catholic Insight. Fr. de Valk was past 75 and looking to retire.

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