Tribute To Fr. Halbert Weidner, 1946–2018

Oratorian fr. halbert weidner died February 3, 2018 in Rock Hill, South Carolina. A Mass of Christian burial was held at the Rock Hill Oratory Church on February 15th, with burial in the Oratory Memorial Garden. Born in Edina, Missouri, and ordained in 1974, Fr. Weidner earned a D.Phil. in Theology at Oxford University in England. Through the years, he served as pastor, chaplain, and retreat master, director of religious education, head of campus ministry, leader of ecumenical and interfaith dialogue groups, in prison ministry, and as an instructor in theology—in parish, college and university settings. In the early 1990s, after serving as the Provost of the Rock Hill Oratory and on its Board of Directors, he took up residence in Hawaii as pastor of Holy Trinity Parish in Honolulu with the hope of establishing an Oratory there. He later served as Catholic chaplain at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and moved in 2015 to Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire in France.

Fr. Weidner was a past member of the Newman Association of America (in its founding incarnation as the Friends of Cardinal Newman) and delivered lectures at its Association conferences (1986, 1989, 1999). He published articles, reviews, and booklets related to Newman and the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, as well as two books: Newman's Via Media of the Anglican Church, with a major scholarly Introduction to the 3rd edition (Oxford University Press, 1990) and, more recently, Praying with John Cardinal Newman: Companions for the Journey (St. Mary's Press, 1997), a series of meditation guides on Christian spirituality with reflections on the life and writings of Cardinal Newman. In honor of the bicentennial of Newman's birth (February 17, 2001), Fr. Weidner published "Newman's Application of the Offices of the Church in the Search for a Reformed Catholicism" in the International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church vol. 1(1): 43–54. More about Fr. Weidner's life and work can be found at http://themiscellany.org/1999/04/01/oratorian-father-halbert-d-weidner-celebrates-his-jubilee/.