Tom Kane passes

Posted 9/30/09

Tom Kane, a long-time reporter at The River Reporter and an author, has passed away according to sources familiar with the situation. Kane’s body was found in the Upper Delaware River on the …

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Tom Kane passes

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Tom Kane, a long-time reporter at The River Reporter and an author, has passed away according to sources familiar with the situation. Kane’s body was found in the Upper Delaware River on the afternoon of August 9, about 50 feet south of the Narrowsburg Bridge.

The body was discovered by two volunteers of the National Park Service. New York State Police have confirmed that a body was discovered, but are not yet releasing the identity. Two different people, however, have confirmed that it was Kane. He was found fully clothed, and had identification on him.

Kane won several awards for journalism while working at the newspaper, and his professional life also included several professorships, public relations work with the NYC Board of Education, teaching English in Jeffersonville, and singing with the Delaware Valley Opera Company.

He was also a priest in the Catholic Church, and became ordained in 1959. He ultimately became disillusioned with the church, as a post on his website explains: “He loved his work, but even as he gained experience as a counselor, he began to struggle with the harsh moral doctrine of church leaders. The stance of arrogance and condemnation from religious authorities who spent their days in the ivory towers of the Vatican came to feel more and more at odds with the reality of everyday life that were the source of stress for so many of Kane’s clients.”

Kane, who lived in Honesdale, PA, authored a book titled "Bad Church, Good Church: A Memoir of a Former Catholic Priest," and though he left the priesthood after 10 years, he maintained a life-long interest in the church and spirituality.

A recent post on his website, tomkane.net, says: “The officials of the Catholic Church are being forced by its homosexual and transgender members to come to grips with its long tradition of stern and inflexible doctrines on sexuality and its place in human life.

“Pope Francis made some startling statements recently on the need for bishops to abandon talking continually about abortion, homosexuality and contraception and making it the central core of the Catholic message.”

Kane’s journey to the priesthood and then into journalism were driven by a keen interest in social justice. Another of his posts says: “You don’t have to be a pope to state outright that Capitalism in its present form is not good for the earth or for people. It isn’t working. It is the root cause for the greatest economic inequality that the modern world has seen. It is the root cause of the destruction of our precious environment, of our precious planet.”

Working for The River Reporter, Kane was the first reporter to cover a meeting regarding gas leases, and the beginning of the great divide locally between those who supported and those who opposed hydraulic fracturing, and he won two first-place awards from the New York Press Association for his journalism in that area. He also won a first-place award for his coverage of flooding in the Upper Delaware Valley.

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