Former Catholic Register columnist Msgr. Thomas Raby died in the early hours of Sept. 6 in Kingston General Hospital. He would have turned 95 on Oct. 1. His funeral took place Sept. 11 at St. Joseph's Church in Kingston.

"It's a shock, very said," said Fr. Stan Alanen, a close friend who was Msgr. Raby's power of attorney. "He was like my father. He was the kindest gentlest man you'd ever meet."

Countless thousands of readers did indeed meet the kind, gentle Msgr. Raby through his newspaper column — The Little World of Fr. Raby — that ran in The Catholic Register for almost 50 years. His often humorous, sometimes poignant musings about the life of a Kingston priest were a staple and a must-read for a generation of Catholics across Canada.

He wrote his first Little World column in the early 1960s and his final column appeared in 2007. Msgr. Raby officially called it quits on his column in February that year after suffering strokes that affected his ability to speak and write.

His columns were so popular they spawned three volumes of his collected works published by The Register, as well as a collection of his Christmas poems.

“His inability to express himself (after his strokes) was the greatest hardship for him," Alanen said.

But even when he had difficulty communicating, Msgr. Raby could still make others smile.

"He told me God was getting even with him for all of the talking that he had done,” Alanen said. “He had a great sense of humour. He loved to laugh.

“I'm going to miss him being around. It didn't matter if he wasn't able to talk as well as he did in the past. He was just a wonderful man to be around. There was nothing contrived, he wasn't pretending at all.”

Former Register editor Joe Sinasac said that "without a doubt" Msgr. Raby's columns were "the most popular features in our paper for decades."

“I was saddened (by his death) like so many Canadian Catholics because he was such an icon in the Canadian Church,” said Sinasac. “I got to know him as a real gentleman in the literal meaning of that word."

Sinasac said Msgr. Raby's strength as a writer was his ability to tell stories in a straight-forward, compassionate way.

"He told stories about being Catholic in Canada and at a very basic level," Sinasac said. "He told stories about his parishioners, about his gardeners, about his housekeeper that everyone could relate to. They touched us in a way that were sometimes humorous, always compassionate and they often had a very strong moral point."

Kingston archbishop Brendan O'Brien said he got to know Msgr. Raby in his retirement, although he had long been familiar with The Little World of Fr. Raby column.

"I always thought they revealed someone who was certainly a good pastor, somebody who was close to the people and who had a sense of humour and also of human relations, O'Brien said.”

Alanen said Msgr Raby's columns were popular because "he told real stories and he always had a message."

"People loved him and a lot of them bought the paper just to read his column. And he'd write you up at a moment's notice so you always had to tell him to put his pen away when he'd take it out.”

When Alanen became a Catholic in 1972 he was baptized by Msgr. Raby and they remained close friends.

"He was my mentor," Alanen said. "Whenever I needed anything or I needed to talk about something I just went to him. Then I ended up looking after him.

“He told me once when we were talking about it how grateful he was for me to be there and help him out. I said don't you think God knew that when he brought us together in '72?”

Catholic Register readers delighted in Msgr. Raby’s folksy and humorous anecdotes about parish life from the perspective of a warm, friendly and deeply devout priest. They usually came with a moral attached and were always rife with the wisdom that comes from years of being a pastor in parishes, many of them rural, in the archdiocese of Kingston. To him, Catholic journalism was “an antidote to all the negativism” in mainstream media.

Some of his friends became well known through their frequent appearance in his columns. The late Toronto Auxiliary Bishop Robert Clune and Fr. Norb Gignac were constant golfing and travelling companions, sharing with Msgr. Raby two of his favourite relaxations, and Msgr. Raby often shared the stories of their time together.

Msgr. Raby’s column showcased his talent as a storyteller and his leadership as a pastor. He was a writer who knew his craft, having studied journalism at Marquette University in Milwaukee.

While Msgr. Raby was always firm in his Catholic orthodoxy, he emanated a gentleness and joyful sense of humour.

“I think (my column) showed people that priests are human. That we do have a sense of humour, he once said.”

Msgr. Raby officially retired from parish life in 1998 but remained very active in the Kingston archdiocese until health problems slowed him down. He continued to write for The Register until he suffered a stroke in 2007. He had spent the last year's of his life in retirement in Kingston.

Msgr. Raby was born in the small town of Gananoque, Ont., on Oct. 1, 1918. His father, Leo, a French Canadian, was a baker. His mother, the Irish Canadian Nelly Moran, was a devoted wife and mother of Mary, Thomas and Helen.

Msgr. Raby first heard God’s call to the priesthood as a seventh grader and pursued his call to the priesthood. He started his bachelor’s degree at Kingston’s Regiopolis College. The Second World War halted his philosophy studies but he continued them later in Halifax.

In 1941, Msgr. Raby studied at Toronto’s St. Augustine’s Seminary. In 1945, at 26, he was ordained at St. Mary's Cathedral in Kingston. He served in a number of parishes throughout the Kingston archdiocese, both rural and urban, until his retirement. He served as vicar general of the archdiocese of from 1983 until 2002.