From the Boston Globe:
[Update: Here is the obituary, with more information, from the Stanton Funeral Service site.]
Joseph R. Nolan, a justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court for 14 years, died Monday, according to the Stanton Funeral Service in Watertown. He was 87.
Appointed by Governor Ed King in 1981, Justice Nolan was considered one of the more conservative members of the bench during his tenure. The Belmont resident, who served as an appellate judge and an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County before his nomination, was an ardent opponent of abortion rights.
After leaving the bench in 1995 when he reached the mandatory retirement age of 70, Justice Nolan served as the president of the Catholic Lawyers’ Guild of Boston. He also actively campaigned in 2008 to have a question that would have banned gay marriage in the state placed on the ballot.
A funeral Mass will be said at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at St. Joseph Church in Belmont.
The boldface passages are my emphasis to highlight Judge Nolan’s defense of the moral law. The obituary was obviously edited by the leftists at the Globe, for no friend or family of the Judge would have said he was “an ardent opponent of abortion rights,” given that there are no such rights.
Judge Nolan was a student of Brother Francis at Holy Cross College. He remained a lifelong friend and supporter of the Center, and would occasionally visit Brother Francis when both were advanced in years.
He was so dedicated to Father Feeney that he named one of his sons Leonard Feeney Nolan.
Judge Nolan spoke at Saint Benedict Center’s conference in 1997. The title of his talk was “I Knew Father Feeney.”
Please pray for the repose of the soul of this admirable man.
