Rev. Fr. Paul Bussard d. 1983

BUSSARD

Posted By: Sharyl Ferrall
Date: 5/2/2006 at 06:12:50

ST. PAUL, Minn. - The Rev. Paul Bussard, one of the founders of Catholic Digest magazine, is dead at age 78.

Fr. Bussard, who helped two other Roman Catholic priests establish the St. Paul-based magazine in 1936, was publisher of Catholic Digest until his retirement in 1965. He died Tuesday at the Wilder Foundation nursing home, where he had lived since suffering a stroke two months ago.

Catholic Digest was once published in 11 countries but stopped publishing abroad in the 1970s to save money. The monthly magazine has a circulation of 660,000.

Fr. Bussard also wrote several religious books, including "If I Be Lifted Up," "The Vernacular Missal in Religious Education" and "Staircase to a Star."

Born in Essex, Iowa, Fr. Bussard graduated from St. Thomas College in St. Paul in 1922 and was ordained in 1928. He was a former assistant pastor at Nativity Church in St. Paul.

He was publisher of the Leaflet Missal, the associate editor of Oratre Frates and a former president of the Catholic Press Association of the United States.

He is survived by three brothers and a sister. Funeral services are planned for March 1 at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in St. Paul.

-Boston Globe, February 25, 1983