Today marks one year since my grandfather, theologian James Likoudis, passed into eternal life.
Living with him through my junior and senior years of high school shaped me in ways I’ll never forget. Over his nearly one hundred years, he was a steady light in my life.
He would drive me to school each day, and around the breakfast or dinner table I’d listen to him lecture about the liturgy, abuses in the Church, dissenting theologians, and why unity under the Church’s authority mattered so much. He made clear how when we refuse to be guided by the Church, we get ourselves into all sorts of trouble.
I also witnessed his constancy in prayer. Each day, without fail, he prayed the Rosary, and his devotion to the Eucharist and the saints continues to inspire me.
He took me to parishes outside the county because he valued beauty in worship so highly, and afterward we’d stop for donuts at Walgreens or go to breakfast with his friends.
Living with him and my grandmother taught me about responsibility, culture, and to see the faith lived out concretely. I’ll never forget my grandfather and grandmother teaching me when I was very young, how to make prayer hands. They disagreed about whether hands should be folded or kept straight and would quibble about this. I never saw them fight.
My grandfather’s public life was far-reaching, both in academia and the public square. He taught seminarians and college students, with many of his students remarking years later how engaging his classes were and how he taught them to think critically. He frequently debated in town halls on the issues of parental rights and abortion in the 70s and 80s, and even ran for Mayor.
He appeared on national programs from Geraldo to Mother Angelica Live, and his Journey Home episode with Marcus Grodi still inspires many to embrace the Catholic faith. He combined a deep knowledge of history and firmness on doctrine with genuine respect and dialogue with the Orthodox. The numbers aren’t clear, but it is surely in the hundreds, if not thousands, whom he helped bring into the Church. I myself have heard nearly a hundred testimonials.
He often traveled to Rome for conferences and meetings. There, he met John Paul II several times and even attended a private Mass with him. This is where he also met Dr. Robert Fastiggi, who would become a longtime close friend, and who eventually petitioned with another friend, Dr. Phil Blosser, for Sacred Heart Major Seminary to bestow upon my grandfather an honorary doctorate which he received after his 90th birthday in recognition of his lifetime achievements.
My grandfather also helped produce the Vatican document Educational Guidance in Human Love. His courage as a defender of the faith showed itself in articles against Charles Curran and Richard McBrien, and in a petition to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to see about having a problematic catechism removed from circulation. This petition was heard, and he received a handwritten letter from then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the CDF commending him on his work and offering encouragement.
He collaborated with Dietrich von Hildebrand on the book Sex Education: The Basic Issues and Related Essays, which received the notable endorsement of Mother Teresa of Calcutta in handwritten form reprinted on the first page of the book. He also contributed to various books by Franciscan University Professor and Society for Catholic Social Scientists founder, Dr. Stephen Krason, about the relationship Catholics should have with politics—not left, not right, but Catholic. One of these books dealing with the topic of sex education even had excerpts of it submitted to the Congressional Record by Representative Jack Kemp of New York.
He also served as president of Morality in Media of Western New York, a branch of the organization which would eventually became the the National Center for Sexual Exploitation. Later he would received alongside Mother Angelica of EWTN the Morality in Media award for his writing and public appearances campaigning against pornography and value-free sex education.
He helped Fr. John Hardon with the launch of the pro-life organization Eternal Life. When 25 Catholic religious signed a 1984 New York Times ad suggesting abortion could sometimes be morally permissible, Likoudis pressed the Vatican to act. By 1986, nearly all of the signatories had retracted their position; the two nuns who refused eventually left their order. Likoudis hailed the resolution as “a victory for all pro-life people in the United States,” underscoring his role in defending the Church’s clear teaching on the sanctity of life.
He would eventually write the foreword to Fr. Hardon’s published dissertation — A Comparative Study of Bellarmine’s Doctrine on the Relation of Sincere Non-Catholics to the Catholic Church.
His intellectual and spiritual mentorship continues to ripple through the Church today. He played a pivotal role at Catholics United for the Faith (CUF) during its most dynamic years, when it helped form many of today’s Catholic leaders, and helped the faithful navigate the fallout after Vatican II and Humanae Vitae. This catechesis culminated in his book, co-written with Kenneth D. Whitehead, The Pope, the Council, and the Mass, later republished in a second edition and still an effective resource in the Church to deal with liturgical confusion and issues of papal authority.
I’m proud that his work was endorsed not only by contemporary figures like Scott Hahn and Cardinal Raymond Burke, but also by two Servants of God: Fr. John Hardon and Hans Urs von Balthasar.
I am thankful for the tributes written by Tom Nash, Jeffrey Mirus, William Doino Jr., Dr. Phil Blosser, and others, who have helped tell his story more fully.
Even into his 90s, he was writing emails, giving interviews with Michael Lofton and the folks at Reason and Theology, reading, and writing book endorsements.
His final essay on the liturgical reform will appear in my forthcoming book Faith in Crisis: Critical Dialogues in Catholic Traditionalism, Church Authority, and Reform (En Route Books, 2025).
And yet, for all the accolades, he was always a family man first. With my grandmother, he raised six children, and his legacy grew to include 35 grandchildren, 47 great-grandchildren, and eventually great-great-grandchildren.
His life was a testament to the fruit of a family grounded in faith. After my grandmother’s death—after they had both lived into their 90s and shared 70 years of marriage—his final year, their first and only year apart, was marked by the singular desire to be with her again.
I still get phone calls from his old friends and coworkers sharing stories from his Buffalo, Williamsburg, and CUF days—about the public forums CUF would host, and about the dinners my grandmother prepared, welcoming figures such as Dietrich and Alice von Hildebrand.
I treasure those stories and the responsibility of carrying on his legacy.
To help preserve and share the work my grandfather poured his life into, I established the Likoudis Legacy Foundation. Its mission is simply to carry forward the theological and ecumenical witness that defined his life.
Above all, I ask you to remember him in prayer today. May his memory be eternal, and may we carry forward, with fidelity, the light he gave us.
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