Sister Mary Walter Macher, R.S.M., 85, a member of the Sisters of Mercy for 68 years, died Jan. 30 in Holy Trinity Convent, Hicksville.

Born as Mae Macher, she entered the congregation from St. Agatha parish, Sunset Park, in 1940.

She taught at Holy Innocents, Flatbush, 1942-43; St. Jerome, East Flatbush, 1943-44; St. Patrick, Bay Ridge, 1944-45; St. Gerard Majella, Hollis, 1945-50; and Sacred Heart, Fort Greene, 1950-51. She was principal at St. Pius X, Rosedale, 1959-65.

She earned her bachelor’s degree in education at Manhattan College and her master of science in art from C.W. Post University.

As an artist, she shared her time and talent at Bishop McDonnell H.S., Brooklyn, 1951-59; and Our Lady of Mercy Academy, Syosset, 1965-66.

She was part of the founding faculty at Holy Trinity H.S., Hicksville, 1966-99. When she retired in 1999, she remained in Holy Trinity Convent.

A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated in Holy Family Church, Hicksville. Burial was in St. John’s Cemetery, Middle Village.

Jesuit Father Walter Burghardt, long regarded as one of U.S. Catholicism’s top theologians and preachers, died Feb. 16 at the Jesuits’ infirmary on the campus of St Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. He was 93.

Using as a base his 45-year tenure as managing editor, then editor in chief, of the journal Theological Studies, Father Burghardt wrote and preached on a wide variety of Church issues.

After retiring from Theological Studies, Father Burghardt began a new initiative, Preaching the Just Word, a project to improve Catholic preaching across the nation.

In a 1994 address at Georgetown University in Washington, Father Burghardt said he planned to spend “just about every hour that remains to me” on the project leading Ignatian-style retreats around the nation to revivify Catholic preaching of “the faith that does justice.”

“Our homilies must be set aflame,” he said, and that can come only with “a conversion that turns the preacher inside out.”

“For a theologian of his standing to decide that the last great mission of his life was to get preachers to take the social mission of the church more seriously was something special,” said John Carr, the U.S. bishops’ secretary for social development and world peace.

“In his last years his eyesight was fading, and he had trouble walking, but he would still trek to those retreat houses” to give five-day workshop retreats, Carr added.

“When he spoke, he sounded like the voice of God,” he added.

Born in New York City, he was ordained in 1941. He belonged to the Jesuits’ Maryland Province. He taught at Woodstock College for more than 20 years. The Maryland college, which closed in 1975, was succeeded in large part by the Woodstock Theological Center – which houses the old college’s library – at Jesuit-run Georgetown University.

In addition to his work with Theological Studies, Father Burghardt also was co-editor of “The Woodstock Papers,” which are occasional essays, and the ancient Christian writers series by Paulist Press; he also was a Catholic consultant to the American Heritage Dictionaries and a member of the board of editors of “Guide to the Fathers of the Church.”

In 1992 he co-founded a quarterly journal called The Living Pulpit, which included news on biblical research and theological interpretation as well as material from science, literature, philosophy and politics.

Father Burghardt was a past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, the Mariological Society of America and the North American Academy of Ecumenists.

He also had been a consultor to the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, was a member of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, served on a U.S. Lutheran-Catholic dialogue group, and was a longtime member of the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s Commission for Christian Unity.

In his 1994 talk at Georgetown, Father Burghardt cited as one of his most difficult moments “my public disagreement in 1968 with Pope Paul VI’s encyclical on birth control, “Humanae Vitae” (“On Human Life”).

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