The political scientist Francis Canavan died on Thursday, February 26, at the age of ninety-one—yet another of the great good ones lost to us in recent months.

Among his works for First Things were: “The Popes and the Economy” in 1991, “Letting Go How We Die” in 1994, and “The Eminent Tribunal” in 1998.

His books still in print include:

Pins in the Liberal Balloon

A Moral Enterprise: Essays in Honor of Francis Canavan

The Political Economy of Edmund Burke: The Role of Property in His Thought

The Pluralist Game

Fr. Canavan was a gentle man, a deep thinker, and a force for life. We still need people with all those attributes in our lives, and where we will find his like?