Father Illig; Religious Publisher

Father Alvin A. Illig, Catholic publishing leader and founding director of the Paulist National Catholic Evangelization Assn., has died at the age of 64.

He died Friday of cancer of the colon, lung and liver, the Washington-based organization announced.

A Los Angeles native, Father Illig had worked in religious publishing for more than two decades, when he undertook the national drive to minister to inactive Catholics and families with no church affiliation.

For his work in training clergy for the evangelical undertaking, he was awarded the “Pro Ecclesia et Pontifica” medal of Pope John Paul II in 1983.

In February, he received an award from Franciscan Communications for his work in Catholic publishing and electronic communications.

Father Illig graduated from Los Angeles College, the junior seminary for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, before going to Washington to study philosophy and theology at St. Paul’s College, which is affiliated with the Catholic University of America.

He was ordained in 1953 in New York City by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. He worked with the Paulist Press in New York, while studying publishing, advertising and graphic arts at Columbia and New York universities.

His communications work included managing Information magazine and building the National Catholic Reading Distributors, which supplies Catholic reading matter to more than 2,500 Catholic churches and schools. In 1961, he was a key player in the merger of the Paulist Press with the Newman Press.

In 1965, Father Illig helped create Concilium, an international cooperative publishing venture involving eight major publishers from seven nations, which produced a 50-volume, 8,000-page work on Catholic theology.

He switched to evangelical work in 1973, spending two years developing outreach programs in Pascagoula, Miss.

After he organized the evangelical agency for the church, he spent about two-thirds of his time traveling the United States as spokesman for Pope Paul VI’s apostolic exhortation, “On Evangelization in the Modern World.”

A vigil service will be conducted at 8 p.m. Tuesday at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church, 10750 Ohio Ave., Westwood, with visitation from 7 to 9 p.m. A Funeral Mass of the Resurrection will be celebrated at the same church at 10 a.m. Wednesday, with burial in Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City. Services also are planned in Washington.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Rev. Alvin A. Illig Memorial Endowment for the Evangelization of the Unchurched American. Such donations may be mailed to the Rev. Kenneth Boyack, acting director of the Paulist National Catholic Evangelization Assn., 3031 4th Street NE, Washington, D.C. 20017-1102.