† Roger Duncan, 5.18.2024

Dear friends,

About an hour ago, our small community of subscribers lost a member. 

There is much I could say about Dr. Duncan, and in time, I will. Roger’s giftedness was as prodigious as his final illness was agonizing, an exceedingly rare and aggressive cancer. No one on earth, I am confident, has the grasp of the analogia entis that was Roger’s; he was an expert consultor on the English translation of the writings of Erich Przywara who brought an understanding of this key concept into modern times. He, and his work, are irreplaceable. 

Dr. Roger Duncan, master metaphysician, true genius, co-founder of a lay Benedictine community in the Archdiocese of Hartford, sponsor of salon concerts of the highest quality, was a professor in the seminary in which I studied for years as a lay student. He hosted study groups on the articles published in Communio, on Teilhard de Chardin and on Hans Urs von Balthasar. Later, he and a Mozart scholar joined Paul and me in a small group devoted to the study of being, as he had in past years been a prime participant in our original Sacred Beauty Project, toward the exploration and development of philosophical aesthetics.

One memory that stands out is of attending noon daily Mass at the seminary, and the celebrant including in his homily Dr. Duncan’s example: “Look at him! All of his students follow him in to Mass.”

To Dr. Duncan I owe so much of my intellectual formation. Had marriage been at all my vocation, I would have asked Roger to walk me down the aisle; he was family to that degree, under some aspects a surrogate to the father I never had – with all of the attendant complexities. 

Roger loved literature, music, and theater, holding play readings from time to time, in addition to the salon concerts mentioned above. He had, he told me, from early childhood a particular spiritual connection to birds. May the grace of the Holy Spirit enfold him this Pentecost weekend as he enters eternal life.

I hope to carry on the legacy I have inherited.