Obituaries

Sister Mary Christopher Burton, RSM, a member of the Sisters of Mercy for 72 years, died March 27. She was 92.

Sister M. Christopher

In the Brooklyn Diocese, she taught at St. Brigid’s School, Ridgewood, 1938-1943 and 1968-71; St. Jerome’s, East Flatbush, 1943-44 and 1959-61; St. Gerard’s, Hollis, 1950-54; and Queen of Angels, Sunnyside, 1961-65.

In 1975, she became the finance coordinator at Catherine McAuley H.S., East Flatbush, where she worked until 1983. From 1983 to 1986, she was the librarian at Queen of Angels Sunnyside. She then retired and moved to St. Mary’s Convent, Syosset.

As a teacher in the Rockville Centre Diocese, she taught at St. Patrick’s School, Bay Shore, 1944-48 and 1956-59; Our Lady of Mercy Academy, Syosset, 1948-50 and 1971-75; St. Mary’s, Roslyn 1954-56. In 1965, she became principal of St. Pius X, Plainview, remaining there until 1968.

In 1991, she moved to the Convent of Mercy, Brooklyn, where she resided at the time of her death.

A Mass of Christian burial was celebrated at the Convent of Mercy. Father John Brogan was the main celebrant.
Burial was at St. John’s Cemetery, Middle Village.

Rose Heath, 92, a long time member of Our Lady of Grace parish, Gravesend, died March 27.
She lived in the parish since 1929. She and her husband, Victor, were married in the parish church in 1958.

A member of the parish choir for 45 years, she also started the arts and crafts group and thrift shop and participated in many parish minstrel shows.

She helped initiate Communion-breakfasts in the parish bringing in featured speakers, started the living Rosary, and implemented a payroll system for teachers and employees of the school and parish. She was a parish trustee and treasurer of the dinner-dance journals, widowed support group, and Italian Board of Guardians. She also served on Community School Board No. 21.

“She was a small woman in stature, but she was big in the parish,” said Father Thomas Leach, pastor.

A widow since 1979, she is survived by her children Angelica and Frank, four grandchildren, and one great granddaughter.

Daughter of Wisdom Sister Margaret Oehrlein, 85, died on Easter Sunday, April 8, at Maria Regina Residence, Brentwood, L.I.

Sister Margaret

A graduate of Our Lady of Wisdom Academy, Ozone Park, she entered the Daughters of Wisdom from St. Matthias parish, Ridgewood, in 1940 and took the name Sister Marie Regina.

She made her final profession of Vows in 1947 and was in the 65th year of her religious profession at the time of her death.

She was a teacher and principal at St. Mary Gate of Heaven School, Ozone Park, 1942-58. She also served at Good Samaritan Hospital, West Islip, as department administrator, 1958-63, and administrator, 1964-67.

She worked as assistant administrator at Holy Family Home, Brooklyn, 1968-69; as a CCD teacher at Westhampton Beach, 1969-71; as administrative secretary at the Daughters of Wisdom Provincial House, Islip,1982-85; as director of development for the Daughters of Wisdom, Miller Place, 1991-92; as a supervisor for Pax Christi, Hope House Ministries, Miller Place, 1992-93, and in the same capacity in St. James and Farmingville, L.I.,1992-2000.

She also served in Malawi, Africa; South Carolina, Virginia, and Connecticut.
A Mass of Christian burial was celebrated on April 11 at St. Louis de Montfort Church, Sound Beach, L.I. Burial was in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, Coram, L.I.

John Billings, the Catholic doctor who with his wife pioneered a revolutionary new church-backed method for couples to avoid or achieve conception died April 1 at a retirement home in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond. He was 89.

By the time of his death, teaching centers on the Billings Ovulation Method of natural family planning had been established in more than 100 countries and the government of China had officially adopted it for population control purposes. The method was supported by the Church as a morally acceptable way for Catholic couples to plan their families.

Billings was named a Knight Commander of St. Gregory the Great by Pope Paul VI in 1969, the year after his encyclical, “Humanae Vitae,” reaffirmed the Church’s opposition to methods of artificial contraception.

Pope John Paul II added a star to the papal knighthood in 2003, the year after John and Evelyn Billings were named international Catholic physicians of the year by the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations.

Bishop Michael J. Murphy, retired head of the Diocese of Erie, died April 3 at age 91 at the infirmary of the Sisters of Mercy Motherhouse in Erie.

Bishop Murphy was to be buried in his native Cleveland alongside his parents.

Bishop Murphy was appointed coadjutor of the Erie Diocese in 1978 – one of Pope John Paul II’s first appointments – and succeeded Bishop Alfred M. Watson upon the latter’s retirement in 1982. He served until 1990, when Bishop Donald W. Trautman was installed as Erie’s bishop.

He was appointed auxiliary bishop of Cleveland in 1976, serving there two years before the Erie appointment.
As coadjutor bishop, he wrote a pastoral letter on marriage and implemented a marriage preparation policy for couples planning to wed in the Erie Diocese.

He was chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry, which published “A Reflection Guide on Human Sexuality and the Ordained Priesthood,” a booklet for priests which he said “might help priests deal with some real tensions and difficult situations in a fraternal forum.”

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