On January 31 of this year, approximately 250 souls gathered at The Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields on Glenlake Avenue in Toronto, Ontario, to celebrate the 80th birthday of a very special Canadian, Mary Jo Leddy, Ph.D.
Mary Jo’s journey has encompassed many-splendoured pursuits, weaving her vibrant life-fabric as a pioneering journalist, compelling author, steadfast peace activist, engaged philosopher, intrepid refugee advocate, spiritual seer, and fun-loving woman of rare compassion.
I joined The Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General of Canada from 1999-2005, The Honourable Bob Rae, Former Canadian Ambassador to the UN from 2020-2025, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, and former refugee Hidat Mosa (among others) in paying tribute to Mary Jo that delightful afternoon. Below is my brief “bouquet.”
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I needed a job.
It was April 1981. I was finishing my third year at St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto, and I had to make money over the summer, so I called the Catholic New Times.
A gentleman answered the phone, and I asked if they had any summer openings. The man said no. Nada. Case closed. Full stop.
Deep sigh.
“But let me take your name and phone number, just in case,” he said.
I was deflated; I had really, really wanted to work at the Catholic New Times.
As co-editor of The Mike, the St. Mike’s student newspaper, I regarded the New Times as both beacon and template, reporting on such critical issues as the role of the church in liberation movements across Latin America, including Archbishop Oscar Romero’s valiant human rights stand in El Salvador, the faith-based anti-apartheid movement of Archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa, Sister Rosalie Bertell’s tireless anti-nuclear advocacy, the Canadian women religious-led Nestle’s boycott, Indigenous rights, women’s liberation, and global peace movements.
New Times was an independent, courageous Catholic voice during a tumultuous time, and I wanted to be a part of it.
I was thus delightedly surprised when, two weeks later, I got a call from none other than the founding editor, Sister Mary Jo Leddy.
She said she was taking a summer sabbatical to work on her thesis, and the New Times needed someone to work with the venerable Janet Somerville as co-editor.
It was Thursday. She said, ‘Can you come by around 2:00 PM on Monday for an interview?’
Excited and apprehensive, I put together a dossier of personal propaganda and slid it under the New Times office door on the third floor of Saint Paul Catholic School at 80 Sackville St. in Toronto.
When I met with Mary Jo that Monday, she said, “Stephen, this is not an interview. I’ve checked your references and gone over your materials. You’re hired.” (And this was pre-Internet; she did all that sleuthing without Google!)
So began a 45-year relationship with Mary Jo, who morphed from iconic role model into a steadfast and fun-loving friend.
In co-founding the New Times, Mary Jo underscored for all of us that liberation theology from Latin America and the global South needed to be rooted in Canadian soil; it needed to have expression in an independent, bold, faith-infused, Canadian media context.
She was among the first to sound the alarm about a declining American Empire. She was ever courageous, but never reckless, in her pursuit of justice and peace, prayerful and persistent in her preferential option for those sidelined by the shark-toothed, “greed is good,” neoliberal anschluss of North American culture.
Courage. Kindness. Friendship.
These were the quietly glowing gifts Mary Jo offered to a callow undergraduate 45 years ago, and the gifts she continues to offer to all of us here. Now. Today.
Mary Jo, you are beloved.
Happy Birthday.