A fascinating priest-intellectual. He was a featured commentator on a PBS documentary years ago about John Paul II. John Paul II: The Millennial Pope and that's when I first heard of him.
Then I read his book, God at the Ritz: Attraction to Infinity. Exceptional series of short essays. Great mind, with a dry sense of humor.
Lorenzo Albacete, Theologian and Confidant of Popes, Dies at 73
He was a consultant to several PBS “Frontline” documentaries on the church; wrote articles about religion, some for The New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker; and, in 2003, published a collection of essays, “God at the Ritz,” which made the case for Christian faith in a science-based culture. (A reviewer for the neoconservative magazine The Weekly Standard, praising the book, said of its author, “Maybe you haven’t heard of him, since he spends most of his considerable talent reaching out to liberals.”)
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In his funeral homily at St. Mary’s Church on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where Monsignor Albacete had often celebrated Mass, Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston and a longtime friend, told a story about Monsignor Albacete and his friendship with the future John Paul II. A prolific letter-writer, Archbishop Wojtyla followed up their initial encounter in Washington with letters describing and recommending books he was reading. The young priest was not much of a correspondent, though, and greeted the letters with an “oh boy, this guy again” shrug.
Returning to Washington in 1979 as pope, Cardinal O’Malley said, John Paul II greeted Father Albacete in a receiving line, fixing him with a look roughly equivalent to a grab of the lapels and saying, “Lorenzo, maybe now you will answer my letters?”
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