Omaha Pays Tribute to Fr. John Markoe
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1965-3-23
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Newsletter Article
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Box 05 , Box 05 Folder 20
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The following editorial which ap¬ peared in The True Voice, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Omaha, Nebraska, pays a beautiful and timely tribute to our loved Father John brother of Sisters Anne Marie and Mary Joseph. We share their loss but rejoice in his happiness. For “if ever there was a man of God in Omaha, it was Father John P. Markoe. The echoes of rifle shots fired by the Air Force honor guard have faded. The final strains of the bugler’s Taps have drifted into eternity. Three proud brothers — one a fellow Jesuit — and two sisters — both contemplative nuns — in their convent half a thousand miles distant are left with a legacy of precious memories. They have memories the flag that draped their brother's coffin and the comforting prayers of those who knew him as a friend. Omaha’s most courageous cleric is dead. The man who walked where Christ Himself would walk if He came today will walk no more on North 24th Street No more shall we behold his friendly countenance. No more shall we shake his manly hand. No more shall we see the distinctive head of hair whitened by anguish as well as by years. In recent days his walk had become slower, his handsome demeanor more weary and his activities fewer. But certain things never faltered even as his heart grew weaker: his courage never lessened, his sense of values never tarnished, his Christlike involvement never diminished. Hailed by Archbishop Bergan as “25 years ahead of us all” in the civil rights struggle, Father John Markoe taught Catholic Omahans the evil of racial in¬ justice, the frustration it forces on so many thousands in our midst, the emptiness of our lives when they are lived without love for our brothers. He, above all other area clerics, showed us the shallowness of a Christian com¬ mitment which places restrictions on its charity. He showed us the dirtiness of hate and the hypocrisy of love reserved only for Caucasians. Father John Markoe was often called the “father of the sit-in,” having led the nation’s first such protest shortly after World War II. But he did more than sit. In fact, those who knew him best knew him mainly as a walker... He walked among the poor, the addicts, the sinners. He knew them and they knew him. They knew him as a man of virtue, a man of God, a man of action. He taught Whites the terrible evil of racism and the absurdity of official¬ dom so certain and pompous as to how
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