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The Rev. George A. Lane was a Jesuit priest who led Loyola Press for 25 years and was largely responsible for saving the Church of the Holy Family’s building — Chicago’s second-oldest church — from demolition in the early 1990s.
“In many ways, George was like the second founder (of Holy Family) after (the Rev.) Arnold Damen. He never gave up, and he always believed the church needed to be restored,” said Chicago historian Ellen Skerrett, who worked alongside Lane as a research assistant and an editor on his 1981 book “Chicago Churches and Synagogues.” “The church had been in the neighborhood since 1857 and it was cherished by people of so many different backgrounds.”
Lane, 89, died of natural causes on Nov. 12 at the Colombiere Center, a health care facility for retired Jesuit priests in Clarkston, Michigan, said his brother Marty. Lane, who had moved from Chicago to Clarkston in 2015, had been battling dementia, his brother said.
Born in Evanston, Lane grew up in the North Side’s Edgewater neighborhood and graduated from Loyola Academy. He then attended Loyola University Chicago for two years before beginning studies in Ohio in 1954 to become a Jesuit priest.
After receiving a bachelor’s degree in literature from Xavier University in 1958 and a master’s degree in English from Loyola University Chicago in 1961, Lane was ordained in 1967.
Lane earned a master’s degree in theology from the Bellarmine School of Theology in North Aurora in 1968. The following year, he moved back to Chicago, where he began work as editorial director and associate director of the Jesuit-sponsored Loyola Press. In 1989, he was named the president and publisher of Loyola Press.
“He created a culture there that endures to this day. And he wasn’t intimidated by hiring excellent laypeople, so he hired excellent laypeople who knew more about publishing than he did,” said the Rev. Brian Paulson, a former roommate of Lane’s who is president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the U.S.
Lane increased the imprint’s staff from 30 to 100 employees, Skerrett said, and oversaw the publication of a very popular book by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, “The Gift of Peace,” which contained reflections from Bernardin about his impending death.
Lane wrote several books, including “Chicago Churches and Synagogues” and “Christian Spirituality: An Historical Sketch.”
In the late 1980s, the future of the Victorian Gothic-style Holy Family, one of the city’s few surviving buildings from before the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, appeared bleak.
Construction had begun on the Jesuit-owned church in 1857 and was completed in 1860, and for generations the parish served poor, working-class immigrants of all backgrounds, from the Irish and Italians to Germans, Hispanics and African Americans.
The church closed due to disrepair and a dwindling congregation in 1984. Several years later, Jesuit leaders decided to demolish the structure unless $1 million could be quickly raised to undertake the first phase of a planned $3 million renovation project, which would repair the church’s leaking roof and crumbling internal plaster.
In 1988, leaders of the Chicago Province Society of Jesus, the church’s owner, set a Dec. 31, 1990, deadline to raise $1 million in cash. If the goal wasn’t met, the church would face demolition. At that point, Lane, whose uncle, Jack, was an associate pastor at Holy Family, decided to get involved.
A founding member of the Holy Family Preservation Society and a resident of Holy Family’s parish house, Lane became one of the public faces of the preservation effort, which included launching a nationwide fundraising campaign during the holidays in 1990, aimed at raising the remaining $300,000 of the $1 million needed in just two weeks. The campaign drew both local and national media attention.
On New Year’s Day 1991, Lane stood in front of the church with a group of parishioners and announced that more than $2 million in cash and pledges had been raised to save the Near West Side landmark.
“We not only made our $1 million cash goal, we surpassed it,” Lane announced. “We have $1,011,000 in cash and another $990,000 in good pledges.”
A Tribune editorial in January 1991 called the fundraising effort the “Miracle of West Roosevelt Road.”
“Those practical-minded naysayers … hadn’t counted on Rev. George Lane and Oscar D’Angelo and Irene Miranda and Bill Lavicka and Ruby Welton and dozens of other brown, Black and white neighborhood folk who appealed to hundreds of former parishioners scattered throughout the area, who joined them in appealing to corporate and family foundations,” the Tribune wrote.
Lane told the Tribune in 1991 that “we believe we will have the centerpiece of the Near West Side, and as we rebuild the church, we believe we will also rebuild our parish.”
The following year, Lane told the Tribune that he had not stopped giving thanks for the church building’s resurrection.
“Those who were saying two years ago that this couldn’t be saved are now saying, ‘Thanks be to God,’” he told the Tribune. “This would’ve been torn down and replaced with a cinder-block church that would seat about 200 people, about the size of a McDonald’s.”
After the renovations, the church resumed regular services in 1994.
Architect Ward Miller, who is now Preservation Chicago’s executive director, joined with colleagues including architect John Vinci to prepare drawings and otherwise help with the renovation effort.
“Holy Family would not be standing today without the efforts of Father George Lane and the efforts of all the people who came together,” Miller said.
Afternoon Briefing
Paulson lauded Lane’s vision both in leading Loyola Press and in taking charge and challenging authority in his willingness to preserve Holy Family.
“Father’s Lane’s holy disobedience paid off, and the world is a better place,” Paulson said.
Lane retired from Loyola Press in 2014 and moved to Michigan the following year.
Lane also is survived by three other brothers, Michael, Joseph and Gregory; and a sister, Laura O’Brien.
A memorial Mass will take place at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday at the Church of the Holy Family, 1080 W. Roosevelt Road, Chicago.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
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