Msgr. Tom Hartman, 69, one half of the ‘God Squad,’ dies

Feb. 17, 2016 By Bart Jones

Msgr. Thomas J. Hartman, half of the Long Island-based interfaith cable TV duo, "The God Squad," died at 69, on Feb. 16, 2016, of complications from Parkinson's disease. Photo Credit: Newsday / Thomas A. Ferrara

Highlights:

       69-year-old priest had suffered from Parkinson’s disease

       Teamed with Rabbi Marc Gellman on iconic TV show

Msgr. Thomas J. Hartman, a towering figure in the Diocese of Rockville Centre who gained national fame as half of a priest and rabbi duo bringing a message of interfaith understanding to millions, died late Tuesday night, his sister said.

Hartman, 69, died just after 11:30 p.m. at TownHouse Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Uniondale, Sheila Mohrman said. 

Gellman’s wisecracks during a quarter-century of “God Squad” appearances on TV, radio and in print, announced in 2003 he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, though he had first learned the news a few years earlier.

Mohrman said Hartman died from complications related to the disease.

“He was the most selfless, giving person whoever lived,” said Mohrman, of East Marion, early Wednesday. “He was a wonderful, wonderful brother and a selfless giving person . . . He was loved by everyone and he had a thousand, million friends. Everyone loved him. Everyone felt he was their best friend.”

In an interview, Gellman said his longtime television partner “represented the very best that the church can produce.”

Gellman said he considered Hartman his best friend.

“He was compassionate. He was caring,” Gellman said. “He was vibrant. He cared about everyone.”

Hartman, who grew up in East Williston, was “as happy ministering to the needs of very poor immigrants in Elmont” where he celebrated Sunday Mass in some of his later years “as he was hobnobbing with the rich and powerful,” Gellman said.

Bill Ayres, who headed up Telecare, the diocese’s cable TV station, before Hartman took over in 1979, said what made the bespectacled priest with the welcoming smile so special was his skill passing on his faith to others.

“He was able to get the message of the gospel out to hundreds of thousands of people because of his goodness and also his ability to communicate,” Ayres said.

Ayres, a former priest and a longtime friend of Hartman, called him “a very important figure” in the history of the diocese, which was founded in 1957.

While Hartman had obtained a certain level of celebrity, what most distinguished him was his work as a priest: visiting someone at 3 a.m., for example, if they needed his help, Ayres said.He extended himself to people that were sick, that were dying, that had problems,” he said.

Msgr. Thomas J. Hartman, left, and Rabbi Marc Gellman share a light moment after one of their television appearances as the "God Squad" on Nov. 14, 1996. Photo Credit: Newsday / Karen Wiles Stabile

Hartman and Gellman started their program in 1987 on Cablevision, and a decade later moved it to Telecare. The pair mixed serious talk of religion and faith with good-natured jokes, banter and even the occasional ribbing back and forth. It all served to bridge the gap between faiths by finding common ground.

Hartman and his Jewish colleague soared to stardom, as their program became syndicated and reached 15 million homes a week nationwide.

At the height of “The God Squad’s” popularity in the late 1990s, they made up to 150 speeches a year at churches, charities and other institutions all over the country, Gellman recalled.

Dubbed “the Siskel and Ebert of religion,” they appeared regularly on ABC-TV’s “Good Morning America” and even the “Imus in the Morning” radio show. When they asked the shock-jock to ease up on the locker-room humor, Imus obliged, at least while they were on the air with him. The host would call for a “window of purity” or declare his radio show a “filth-free zone” whenever Hartman and Gellman were guests.

The priest and rabbi cowrote books, won four Emmy Awards, and received a George Foster Peabody Award for an HBO animated special based on their children’s book “How Do You Spell God?”

Mohrman said her brother had the ability to “captivate a room full of people with such a soft voice.

“He was brilliant but he spoke in simple ways for everyone to completely understand and feel at home with,” she said. “Whether he was talking about world hunger or religion or sports, he had such a magnetism and was able to draw people in.”

Hartman saw his work in the media as a way to bring God to a broader audience — even those who didn’t go to church.

He hosted a local radio show called “Religion and Rock” in which he played rock music and tried to relate it to Christian messages. He also hosted a national radio show, distributed on the ABC Radio Network, dubbed “Journeys Through Rock.

Through it all — the notoriety, the celebrity — Hartman stayed humble, never seeing himself as anything else but a messenger to millions for his beloved church.

“I’m a parish priest with an ability in the media,” Hartman once said. “What motivates me in the whole thing is prayer.”

Shortly after he became head of Telecare in 1979, Hartman’s goal of reaching out to those forgotten or cast into society’s margins became clear in a Newsday interview.

“A lot of the ministry is being with people who are broken, on the fringe of life,” Hartman said. “That is the vision I try to bring to the station. I’m trying to give a voice to the voiceless.”

Hartman “revolutionized Catholic television with Telecare” and set the station on a path to becoming the “national Catholic channel in the United States,” said Michael Pascucci, a longtime Telecare board member and president of WLNY-TV Channel 55.

To read more go to:

http://www.newsday.com/long-island/msgr-tom-hartman-69-one-half-of-the-god-squad-dies-1.11480046