In my last blog about the Jesuit priest and photographer, Fr Francis Browne, I quoted his words on learning of the death of his fellow army chaplain, Fr Willie Doyle SJ: “To his saintly advice and still more to his saintly example, I owe everything that I felt and did. May he rest in peace – it seems superfluous to pray for him.” The only reason not to pray for people when they die is when we are convinced that they have done their Purgatory on earth; in order words, that they are already in heaven. That this is very rare (despite the unthinking sentiments expressed at almost all modern funerals) is obvious. So who was Fr Willie Doyle to have earned such a singular accolade?