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Anyone looking for an antidote to this restless age of sound bites, tweets, post-modern relativism and a general sense of impermanence would have found it Sunday in Washington at a gathering of friends celebrating the 60th wedding anniversary of Bill and Lorraine D’Antonio.
Bill was a member of the NCR board for nearly 20 years during the 1980s and 1990s. He taught at the University of Notre Dame from 1957-71, was Fulbright Senior Fellow in Italy in 2004 and today is an adjunct professor of sociology at Catholic University in Washington.
He pioneered an ongoing study of American Catholics, the first of which was sponsored by NCR in anticipation of Pope John Paul II’s second visit to the United States in the fall of 1987. Additional studies followed every six years. In all, four surveys have been completed, all of which have been extensively reported in NCR and have also eventually been published as books.
Bill and Lorraine have six children (in six states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Kentucky, New York and Connecticut); 14 grandchildren; and eight great grandchildren.
The couple has a long history of being active in small Christian communities, also known as intentional Eucharistic communities, in the Washington area, and they’ve helped organize two gatherings of communities from across the country.
