Deacon Philip Ehresmann died on Feb. 27 after a long illness. He was 81.

He was ordained to the Permanent Diaconate for the Diocese of Brooklyn on March 23, 1985 and served the parish of St. Brigid, Bushwick.

A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated at St. Brigid Church on March 3. Retired Bishop Thomas Daily was the main celebrant.

In his homily, Msgr. James Kelly called Deacon Ehresmann a “good and gentle man in whom the values of the Catholic tradition shaped his daily life.” He lived those values with humility, conviction and devotion.”

“His demeanor was ever orderly,” Msgr Kelly added. “He proceeded at his own pace which was not always with the alacrity which others would have favored. But Philip persevered and remained unruffled.”

Deacon Ehresmann’s diaconal ministry began after he retired and so for the past 23 years he was a full-time deacon. “He enjoyed fulfilling the functions of the diaconate and reveled in the ritual of Baptism which he celebrated here for more than 20 years,” Msgr. Kelly said. “His ministry to the sick and homebound occupied him almost full time.”

He was a member of the board of directors for the diocesan St. Vincent de Paul Society.

Deacon Ehresmann is survived by his sister, Irene Ehresmann.

Burial was in St. Charles Cemetery, Farmingdale, L.I.

A Mass of Christian Burial for Deacon James Hynes was celebrated on March 1 at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, Ridgewood. Hynes, 49, died on Feb. 26 at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center.

Auxiliary Bishop Frank Caggiano was the main celebrant at the funeral Mass on March 1.

Deacon Hynes was ordained to the Permanent Diaconate for the Diocese of Brooklyn on May 19, 2007, and served the parish of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in various ministries.

“We are disappointed that he didn’t get a chance to live out the promise of the gifts he received as a deacon,” said Msgr. Edward Ryan, pastor of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal. Before becoming a permanent deacon, Hynes had volunteered in the parish school and served as an usher. Last year he became editor of the Medallion, the parish magazine. “He was most helpful in terms of communications and computer skills and technology,” Msgr. Ryan said. In his first year in the diaconate, Deacon Hynes had performed baptisms and presided at one wedding. “He showed a lot of promise,” Msgr. Ryan added.

A native of Queens, Deacon Hynes was a retired NYPD sergeant. He is survived by his wife, Kathleen, and two children.

Burial was in St. Charles Cemetery, Farmingdale, L.I.

Daughter of Wisdom Sister Doria Chamberland, 79, died on Feb. 20 at Maria Regina Residence, Brentwood, L.I.

A native of St. Agatha, Maine, she entered the Daughters of Wisdom in 1946 and took the religious name of Sister Anna Marie de Jésus.

Among her ministries were working in the cafeteria at Our Lady of Wisdom Academy, Ozone Park, 1948-1962; secretary at the Daughters of Wisdom Provincial House, Islip, 1967-1968; teaching at St. Michael’s, Sunset Park, 1971-75; Patchogue Regional, 1976-80; St. Philip Neri, Northport, 1980-88; and St. John of God School, Central Islip, 1990-94.

She also served as a teacher’s aide at St. John the Evangelist School, Riverhead, 1994-95, and as a volunteer at St. Charles Day Care Center, Port Jefferson, 1995-2000.

She moved to Maria Regina Residence in December 2002, and resided there until the time of her death.

Sister Mary Timothy McKenna, CSJ, 99, a member of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Brentwood for 76 years, died Feb. 18, in Maria Regina Residence.

She entered the congregation in 1932 from St. Brendan’s parish, Midwood.

A magna cum laude graduate from St. John’s University in 1945 and a master’s degree in Education from Mount St. Joseph Teacher’s College in 1956 qualified her to become one of the outstanding educators in the congregation. She played a key role in the formation of young Sister-teachers in the early days of Brentwood.

Her own teaching ministry took place at the Academy of St. Joseph, Brentwood, 1934-45; Bishop McDonnell H.S., Brooklyn, 1945-46; the Juniorate of the Sisters of St. Joseph, Flushing, 1946-48; Bishop McDonnell Annex, Flushing, 1948-49; and St. Agnes Seminary H.S., Marine Park, 1949-51.

In 1951, she began her formation work in Brentwood College. From 1965 to 1981, she became curriculum coordinator for both the Brooklyn and Rockville Centre dioceses. For Rockville Centre she participated in the Special Project for the Rockville Centre Schools, 1981-1987.

One of her notable contributions was the co-founding of the Brentwood Education Center. Her work in the Center extended beyond the gates of Brentwood into the surrounding inter-cultural communities.

Sister Mary Bernard Taeger, CSJ, 102, a member of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Brentwood for 82 years, died Feb. 15, in Maria Regina Residence, Brentwood.

She entered the congregation in 1926 from St. Martin of Tours parish, Bushwick.

She taught at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Sunset Park, 1927-29 and 1949-1952; St. Teresa of Avila, Sterling Pl., Prospect Heights, 1929-31; St. John’s Home, Brooklyn, 1931-34; Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Long Island City, 1935-49; Queen of All Saints, Fort Greene, 1952-54; St. Patrick, Long Island City, 1954-62; and St. Augustine, Park Slope, 1962-1971. From 1971 to 1980, she worked as a clerk in St. Teresa of Avila School.

William F. Buckley Jr., a Catholic with an extraordinary gift for the spoken and written word who was dubbed the godfather of modern American conservatism, died Feb. 27 at his home in Stamford, Conn. He was 82.
The commentator suffered from diabetes and emphysema, but the exact cause of death was not known. Buckley was found dead at the desk in his study where he reportedly had been writing.

“He died with his boots on, after a lifetime of riding pretty tall in the saddle,” his son, Christopher, was quoted as saying.

Funeral arrangements had not been announced as of Feb. 28.

Buckley may have been best known for his work with the National Review, a conservative political magazine he founded in 1955 and where he served as editor until 1990. He also wrote more than 50 books as diverse as spy novels and a book on sailing. He wrote an account of his Catholic beliefs in the 1997 book “Nearer, My God: An Autobiography of Faith.”

He also was a television host for more than 30 years for the PBS program “Firing Line.”

Buckley was born in New York in 1925, the sixth of 10 children. His father, who made his multimillion-dollar fortune in oil, had his children educated by personal tutors at the Buckley family estate in Sharon, Conn., and Catholic schools in England and France.
Buckley served in the Army from 1944 to 1946, and then attended Yale University, where he studied political science, economics and history. In 1951 he published his first book, “God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of Academic Freedom,” accusing the university’s faculty of a bias against religion, individualism and capitalism.

In 1961, Buckley was criticized by the editors of America magazine, a national Catholic weekly magazine run by the U.S. Jesuits, over comments he had supposedly made that were critical of Pope John XXIII’s encyclical “Mater et Magistra” (“Mother and Teacher”).

An article critical of the encyclical appeared in the National Review with the quip “Mater, si, magistra, no!” attributed to Buckley. The quip was a pun on an anti-American chant, “Cuba, si, yanqui, no,” in the news at the time.

The comment generated rounds of complaint letters and editorials on the topic along with an opinion piece in The New York Times in which Buckley complained about America magazine’s coverage.

A month after the controversy arose, Buckley wrote a letter to America’s editor in which he stated the comment was a “flippancy pure and simple” that had not come from him, but from a Catholic scholar and journalist who turned out to be Gary Wills, a contributor to the National Review in 1961.

Almost 30 years later, Buckley was again featured in America magazine. Prior to Pope John Paul II’s 1987 visit to the United States, Buckley was one of 10 prominent Catholics asked by the magazine to respond to the question: “If you had five minutes alone with the pope, what would you say?”

In Buckley’s hypothetical address to the pope, he noted that he wished to pass along “apparently trivial complaints,” such as the failure of the Second Vatican Council to increase the “universal appeal of the church.”

Buckley’s wife of 56 years, Patricia Buckley, died in April, 2007.

Besides son Christopher, an author and satirist who lives in Washington, Buckley is survived by two brothers, three sisters and two grandchildren.

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