Philip Murnion, 65; Priest Founded Pastoral Life Center

Philip Murnion, a Catholic priest and sociologist who founded and directed the National Pastoral Life Center, died Tuesday in New York City of colon cancer. He was 65.

Murnion founded the center, which provides resources to pastors, ministers, church personnel and bishops, in 1983. He conducted two well-known studies about laypeople serving as parish ministers -- “New Parish Ministers” in 1992 and “Parishes and Parish Ministers” in 1999 -- wrote many articles and edited “Catholics and Nuclear War,” a book of essays published in 1983.

Murnion earned a PhD in sociology from Columbia University in 1971 and worked briefly as an adjunct professor at Boston College and Fordham University.