(LifeSiteNews) — Last week’s funeral for Jim Hughes was a wonderful tribute to the great Canadian pro-life leader. There were about 800 pro-life activists, leaders, friends, and family at the funeral in the magnificent St. Paul’s Basilica, the oldest Catholic church in Toronto. The Mass and liturgical music were glorious.

Jim’s wife Ginny greatly appreciated and was moved by the large number of people who came to honor and bid farewell to her husband.

Many there encountered dear friends they had not seen for years and were delighted to see each other and share their experiences of the dynamic, dedicated Canadian and international pro-life leader.

Father Louis Di Rocco, formerly a longtime Campaign Life Coalition activist and an effective pro-life lobbyist at United Nations conferences in New York and in several nations, gave a solidly spiritual but sometimes humorous homily, as Jim was known to always appreciate.

Attendees came from far and wide, some from across Canada and some from the United States. Long-time LifeSiteNews board members Terry Kopp, from Minnesota, and Tony Milburn, from Texas, both flew in for the funeral because, as they told me, they had to be there to honor Jim. He was their very dear friend and a leader whom they highly respected and appreciated and with whom they spent many wonderful hours and days during years of LifeSite meetings and events.

I also encountered a former Member of Parliament and leader of the Parliamentary Pro-life Caucus, Tom Wappel, during the funeral Mass. He emphasized that he felt compelled to travel to the funeral because “Jim changed my life.” Many expressed the same sentiment.

Afterwards, during the reception in the church hall, Jim’s eldest son, Jim Jr., gave a short but precious and moving account of his father’s life and the trials and tribulations he experienced, especially his various illnesses during the past few years. Jimmy told me afterwards that he thought it was important that everyone be made aware of these less-known details.

I told Jimmy that I saw both that he was struggling during his talk and was able to deal with the emotions and get through reading his eloquent telling of those difficult last days of his father’s life. I also confessed that if I were in his place, I could not have done it. He responded that he had read it over about 50 times beforehand, so that he could get through it. I have no doubt his father would have been very proud of his son. Jim Sr.’s eldest daughter Denise also gave a brief talk.

I asked Jim Jr. if he would mind sending me the text so that others who loved his father could also read on LifeSiteNews those very important words about him. He said he would be happy to do so.

Here, following, is the text of his remarks.

— Steve Jalsevac

From birth to death, this is a seven minute story of my father

By Jim Hughes, Jr.

It didn’t start out very good. In fact, it started out very badly.

Jim was born in 1943, in the middle of World War II to Charlie and Mary. Two years later, his sister Patricia was born. But then, tragically, his father Charlie died when Jim was just three years old. Just like that, Mary became a working mom in a single-parent home with two babies in the 1940s. Not off to a great start.

At the age of four, Jim caught the deadly polio virus and was lucky to get through it with just one leg significantly diminished. At the age of nine or ten, Jim was in a car accident and was thrown from the vehicle. This was before seatbelts; he woke up under the car, staring at the tires. This kid couldn’t get any luck. In fact, he was lucky to be alive.

Jim attended school at Corpus Christi, a year ahead of my mom, funny enough, and then he went off to Neil McNeil for high school, while Mom went to Notre Dame. Jim often told the story of an English assignment where he was asked to write an essay titled “Life with Father,” and while initially stuck about what to write, he eventually wrote about the many priests at school and how they had helped him grow, mature, and learn to succeed. At graduation, Jim was the valedictorian.

Soon after, he somehow managed to get engaged to the beautiful Virginia Norbert. They were married at Corpus Christi Church, and Jim and Ginny were anxious to start a family. Their first-born child, Stephen, died shortly after childbirth in 1967, and their third-born child, Jacqueline, did the same in 1970. Both children were carried to term only to live a combined two hours of life on the outside. Although I was quite young, I do remember the darkness of that time. Sadness filled the house for many years.

That darkness was lifted on December 5th, 1973, when my sister Denise was born. Jim and Ginny were thrilled to have their boy/girl family, and the sunshine years began. We constantly visited extended family, rented cottages, and bought a condo down in Florida. Dad worked hard but loved getting away from it all even more. He was bigger than life to me; he loved cheering for the underdog, stepping in for those in need, and spending time with family. Eventually, he felt compelled to try for the bigger family he always wanted, and in the 1980s, while in their early 40s, they decided to have two more babies, Michael and Jennifer. Dad was never happier than in those years.

At work, his role at Campaign Life Coalition was defining for him. Dad was always team-oriented, an organizer, a visionary with a knack for getting things done. Having watched loved ones taken from him way too early in his life, the concept of abortion was abhorrent to him. His legacy as a defender of the most vulnerable and innocent people in society will forever be intact with me. I am truly honored to be his son.

That there are members of society who will reflexively dislike my father, that he was arrested and persecuted for his beliefs, has been hard on our family, and the scars and the fallout still linger today. Suffice to say, my father never gave up the struggle to protect the unborn, eventually throwing everything he had into the cause to the detriment of his own health. He still took vacations, but he learned to work right through them.

At home, my father was a happy grandpa, a happy cook, a happy neighbor, he loved the outdoors, he loved to read books, tell stories, have the occasional cigar and a daily drink or two.

He could have lost a few pounds, could have kept an eye on his diabetes, could have exercised a bit, could have put the work down a little more, but I’m guessing he thought he had more time. His mother Mary lived past 100 and set a rather unrealistic goal. Unrealistic because she ate like a bird, didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, she was on the move all day long and went to Mass every day of the week but Sunday. Not many people in this room are measuring up to that one.

Back to Jim, he was cruising right along until he hit his 80s. He seemed unstoppable. He was still working long hours, driving here and there, making an impact everywhere he went, and then his eyes started giving him trouble. If I could go back now, I could warn him that he was under attack and needed to make some drastic changes but, ironically, we couldn’t see what lay ahead.

His diabetes was attacking his vision, and before we understood the extent, he suffered a fall and hit his head in December of 2024. He was rushed to St. Michael’s Hospital, and we had the first of many scares. He came home after a short stay, and we felt we dodged a bullet.

Then, while we worked on improving his vision by going for weekly laser treatments, he suffered a near fatal stroke in March of 2025. His left side and some of his core functions were temporarily paralyzed, and he was in the ICU for 10 days.

The doctors at St. Michael’s Hospital miraculously kept him alive and stabilized him. After recovering at Michael Garron Hospital, he went to St. John’s Rehab Hospital, where he had to relearn to walk. After a quick stop back at Michael Garron, they let him come back home. Dad was thrilled.

After a short time, he was suffering from an infection and was sent back by ambulance to St. Michael’s. They released him to Toronto Grace Rehab Hospital to once again help him regain mobility. While there, he suffered a gall bladder infection and was rushed to Toronto General Hospital. He was deemed too risky for an operation, so they drained his gall bladder.

Dad still had a number of severe blockages in the heart and neck that would require stents to reopen the passageways. Thank you to Dr. Chisholm at St. Michael’s Hospital for greenlighting that surgery and once again giving us hope. With the stents in, he was sent back to Toronto Grace Rehab to regain his strength. Once he recovered, his gall bladder still needed to be removed, and we thank the doctors at Toronto General Hospital for their successful operation removing that in November.

And for the fourth time in 12 months, Jim went back to rehab, desperate to recover his function and to get back to his life with all of us and all of you. Despite all these setbacks, all the scary moments when we thought we might be losing him, Jim did all the hard work and made it back home again in late November.

Home was where Dad wanted to be. He loved his life on Hambly Ave. in the Beach neighborhood. He had a lifetime of wonderful neighbors like the Browns across the street, the Conklins, and Tom and Jess next door. But in his condition, we couldn’t have done it without the help of some wonderful caregivers.

We started with Tim, who helped Dad carry out simple tasks and kept him talking and praying, but before long, we had a team of five caregivers working around the clock to get him out of bed, feed him, walk him, do his exercises, sing with him, cut short his naps, and listen to endless Johnny Mathis songs.

I would like to thank them for their wonderful care. Andy, Roina, Kenjie, Janet, and Joy, for seven months, your love and support and home-cooked meals truly kept my dad alive longer than we should have ever expected. All the extra time you gave us with our dad will never be forgotten. And I know he loved you all very much.

As happy as he was to be home for that stretch, Jim was deeply saddened not to be able to continue his role of supporting others and being active at his work, in the lives of his grandchildren, in his kitchen, in his neighborhood, in his parish, and with his wife.

He desperately wanted to continue living; he was not content to pack it in, and we were desperate to keep him with us.

Seven months passed, living at home, and although he was slowly declining, we always hoped that he would bounce back to his former self. It felt like a tug of war where the rope was slipping out of our hands ever so slowly no matter what we did. We felt like we were losing, but we just kept holding on and hoping for a reversal of fortune.

Two weeks ago, we took Dad to the eye clinic at Kensington Health to see what could be done with his vision. He was struggling to walk a little more than usual. Back home, we watched and prayed and nursed, but he continued to decline.

We called 911, and an ambulance once again took him back to the hospital. Doctors discovered that Dad had pneumonia. He was unable to eat or swallow, and his body was simply rejecting everything they tried to give him. One week later, on May 18th, surrounded by family, Dad passed away.

He never gave up, and we never gave up. But his body had given up on him.

After all the struggles of his early years, not many would have given my father much chance of a successful life. But here we are. I am the product of a wonderful family, standing before a room full of loving family and friends. People were brought together in sadness at the passing of this man. But we represent so much more than that. We are but a fraction of the lives he touched. He lived a life filled with love, family, service, community, and friendship.

In my pain, I know that going forward I will always miss him, and I know that many of you will, too. And for that I am confident that his was a life well lived. Thank you all for being here to say goodbye to this great man, Jim Hughes, my father.

For more tributes to Jim Hughes and/or information about his work for the pro-life movement, please click the following links:

Jim Hughes obituary

Jim Hughes, the great man who most affected my life

40 years ago we started The Interim

Pro-life icon Jim Hughes passes

‘‘Honouring Jim’’