Tribute to Jerry Archibald
Doug Roche, Edmonton
Volume 39 Issue 1,2,&3 | Posted: April 5, 2024
“Love should be the fundamental foundation of our entire life.”
Those were the words of Jerry Archibald in the last column he wrote for ICN before his death at 81 on February 18. I met Jerry when he and his wife Joanne, for 56 years, moved into the apartment building in Edmonton where I live. We soon became not just neighbours but close friends, and I saw immediately a deep spirituality in this man, who had been the chief executive officer for the Grey Nuns. Jerry was at the forefront of the development of Covenant, the Catholic health care system in Alberta.
In his retirement, golf and travel, both of which he spent time on, were not enough for Jerry. He was a spiritual person, deeply concerned about the obstacles he saw in the Catholic Church’s efforts to absorb the full meaning of the Second Vatican Council. So he began expressing himself in the pages of this newspaper.
He saw clericalism as a chief obstacle to the fulfilment of Vatican II. Having studied with the Redemptorists in his youth, Jerry knew a lot about Church history, and he saw the acquisition of power by the clergy as inimical to what Jesus taught.
Jerry wanted the Church to be more pastorally oriented. He wrote, in his last column: “Most of us are so conditioned by the negative impacts of how Church doctrine was taught, it will take considerable meditation and prayer to move to the positive side of our faith to really and truly believe God loves each one of us unconditionally. We are loved to our core 24/7.”
Jerry was what I would call a restless Catholic. He loved the Church that Jesus instituted. He loved he Gospel values. He loved the Prayer of St. Francis (with which he concluded his final column): “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.” But he did not love many of the accouterments the Church has collected through the centuries that obscure the pristine message of Jesus. Vatican II has addressed that very problem.
R.I.P., Jerry.
Doug Roche, Edmonton