Joe Corley never had much use for fancy titles.
He would always cringe when I referred to him as "Monsignor."
He much preferred "Father Joe," of just Joe.
Make no mistake.
This was not just another Joe.
We lost Monsignor Joe Corley, the longtime pastor of Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Darby Borough, over the weekend.
Amazingly, I did not even know he was sick.
Father Joe apparently thought he was having issues with his gall bladder. It turned out to be much worse, a reoccurrence of the cancer he had beaten back once before.
He was gone way too soon.
It's hard to explain just how important Monsignor Joe Corley was to Darby Borough.
It's a tough town. It take a tough man to tame it.
Meet Joe Corley.
I can't think of anyone who fits the bill better.
A confession here, if you can handle the obvious pun.
I have seriously wavered in my faith in recent years. The truth is, I now doubt the mission of much of the church.
I still think I have a lot of faith; I'm just not sure I need the church as a conduit for that faith.
Father Joe understood.
We had many conversations about faith, its role in our lives - and in our communities.
Darby Borough is a diverse community - light years from the town where my mother grew up in the early part of this century.
Father Joe always delighted in the fact that my mom grew up there, and he would smile knowingly when I told him about her boasting of how she and her young friends would flout the danger each summer by swimming in the dangerous water of Darby Creek behind their home on Chestnut Street.
Father Joe never looked away when it came to the diversity of his town. Instead he embraced it.
He once asked me to come to the school to speak to a group of young men - from all parts of the world - who were taking part in a leadership program at Blessed Virgin Mary School. It's one of my favorite moments, seeing him smiling broadly in the back of the room as I spoke.
It is hardly an understatement to say these are tough times for the Philadelphia Archdiocese. Nowhere is that more evident than here in the eastern part of Delaware County. Parishes and schools have closed. Consolidations have become routine.
Father Joe and I used to commiserate on the fate of our duel life's work. He would soothe my soul on the problems of the newspaper business; I would do whatever I could to be sure the good things being done at BVM got into the paper.
He fought valiantly to keep the doors of his church and school open, serving what is now a largely immigrant community.
We also had many discussion about the priesthood. For us, he was a trusted resource, someone we could always talk to when "bad" news arrived.
Father Joe always spokes from his heart.
He also often wrote from it. He penned numerous pieces for our op-ed page.
You can read his most recent effort, emblematic of the kind of person Joe Corley was. In it he detailed how he once reached out to legendary Saint Joe's basketball coach Phil Martelli to speak to a group. Not only did Martelli do so, he brought basketball and T-shirts for the kids.
Corley was appreciative, just as he always appreciated the efforts of the newspaper to help his town and parish.
More than that, he would always drop me an email to let me know he appreciated one of my columns.
In a world dreadfully short on faith and needing rocks upon which to build our communities, Darby Borough and Delaware County has just lost a mountain.
He was a monsignor, a parish priest, and a good, decent man.
He was also my friend.
He will be terribly missed.
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