{"id":68,"date":"2009-10-06T21:48:07","date_gmt":"2009-10-06T21:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/fight-like-hell-to-do-any-good-the-legacy-of-aengus-finucane.html"},"modified":"2009-10-06T21:48:07","modified_gmt":"2009-10-06T21:48:07","slug":"fight-like-hell-to-do-any-good-the-legacy-of-aengus-finucane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/fight-like-hell-to-do-any-good-the-legacy-of-aengus-finucane.html","title":{"rendered":"“Fight like hell to do any good”: the legacy of Aengus Finucane"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world has lost a remarkable and spirited warrior in the fight for charity and justice — and attention must be paid<\/a>:  <\/p>\n

The Rev. Aengus Finucane, a Roman Catholic missionary and Irish aid
\npioneer who braved civil wars and learned he must “fight like hell to
\ndo any good,” died Tuesday, his charity announced. He was 77.
 <\/p>\n

“There
\ncan be few Irish people of his generation, or of any other generation,
\nwho have contributed as much to improving the lives of so much of
\nhumanity,” said Tom Arnold, chief executive of the Concern charity that
\nFinucane spent decades promoting. <\/p>\n

Irish Prime Minister Brian
\nCowen called the priest “a selfless and brave man who traveled to many
\nof the world’s most dangerous places to help the poor. … His
\ncourageous efforts saved a huge number of lives.” <\/p>\n

“His memory
\nwill live on in the lives of those he saved,” added Billy Timmins,
\nforeign affairs spokesman for the major opposition party, Fine Gael. <\/p>\n

Finucane
\nwas a priest in the Spiritan Fathers order in Nigeria during its
\n1967-1970 civil war with the breakaway state of Biafra. Determined to
\ncombat famine as the Nigerian military crushed the rebellion, he worked
\nwith Dublin-based workers to channel aid to Biafra through its
\noften-bombed airstrip and by cargo ship. <\/p>\n

Finucane later recalled
\nhow the Nigerian air force bombed the airstrip every day, but his
\nparishioners “lined up in the forest with truckloads of gravel to fill
\nthe holes in the runway.” <\/p>\n

That aid effort, initially known as
\nConcern Africa, shortened its name to Concern in 1970 as it gained
\nambitions to provide food, medical support and education in many of the
\nworld’s poorest countries. <\/p>\n

Finucane became Concern’s field
\ndirector in Bangladesh in 1972 following its war of independence from
\nPakistan. Tours of duty in Thailand, the killing fields of Cambodia and
\nIdi Amin’s murderous Uganda followed. <\/p>\n

He served as the charity’s
\nchief executive from 1981 to 1997, and since then as its honorary
\npresident responsible for spearheading fund-raising in the United
\nStates. <\/p>\n

His credo, oft-repeated when stumping for donors, was:
\n“We have a strong inclination to do evil — and you have to fight like
\nhell to do any good.” <\/p>\n

During Finucane’s time as chief executive,
\nConcern expanded aid work into 11 countries and dramatically increased
\nits fund-raising. Today the charity is one of Ireland’s biggest, with
\noperations in 18 countries in Africa and 10 in Asia, including
\nAfghanistan and North Korea. <\/p>\n

“He used his great gifts of
\npersonality and charismatic leadership to work for the things he
\nbelieved in. People loved to be with him and he loved to be with
\npeople. He inspired a whole generation of Concern overseas volunteers,”
\nArnold said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world has lost a remarkable and spirited warrior in the fight for charity and justice — and attention must be paid:  The Rev. Aengus Finucane, a Roman Catholic missionary and Irish aid pioneer who braved civil wars and learned he must “fight like hell to do any good,” died Tuesday, his charity announced. He…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ripped-from-the-headlines"],"yoast_head":"\n"Fight like hell to do any good": the legacy of Aengus Finucane - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/fight-like-hell-to-do-any-good-the-legacy-of-aengus-finucane.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Fight like hell to do any good": the legacy of Aengus Finucane - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The world has lost a remarkable and spirited warrior in the fight for charity and justice — and attention must be paid:  The Rev. 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Aengus Finucane, a Roman Catholic missionary and Irish aid pioneer who braved civil wars and learned he must “fight like hell to do any good,” died Tuesday, his charity announced. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}