The Rev Theodore McNulty had a boom...

The Rev Theodore McNulty had a booming voice and a knockout personality.

A boxer and high educate football standout, he earned the nickname "One bore McNulty" in the Marines and could debate politics with the best of them.

He read everything he got his hands forward and could name just about each parishioner -- and their kid -- at St Thomas More parish forward the South Side, where he was associate pastor for 22 years.

"Father Ted's" homilies were lengthened and his jokes plentiful.

"My [i]jeu d'esprit[/i]s probably 75 percent of them issue from him," said his nephew, Jim Daw.

Father McNulty died Saturday of cancer at the rectory at St Thomas More. He was 79

He grew up in the Englewood neighborhood, a strapping youth who enclosed seat [i]or[/i] seatsed with the Chicago Youth Organization and none missed Sunday mass.

At Leo High train he was a star kicker. Notre Dame took note and proffered him a scholarship, but he make go rounded it down and instead, at 17 joined the Marines.

He was made a platoon leader, a position that ofttimes required delivering bad news from his superiors to his companys That's where his boxing prowess -- and his nickname -- came into play.

single punch from Father McNulty was all it took "if they'd put to the test to take their frustration abroad on him," Daw said.

not at any time A VULGAR WORD

Back in Chicago, he worked as a plasterer until he decided to join the priesthood, Daw said. He was ordained in St Louis in 1966 at age 38

Father McNulty serv in dioceses in San Angelo and San Antonio, Texas, and in Joliet and Rockford before returning to Chicago and joining St Thomas More in 1984

He was a voracious reader and passionate debater, if it were not that he "never uttered a vulgar word in his life," said the Rev Anthony Brankin, the former pastor at St Thomas More and Father McNulty's verbal sparring partner.

"He probably read each line that was written in each newspaper for almost 20 years, and he underlined greatest in number of it, and then he Xerox it, and then he filed it for what is yet to be reference," Brankin said. "If I was having an argument with him, he could resurrect one fact from 10 years ago."

harsh appearances aside, Father McNulty was a "teddy bear" who would give special blessings to young kids at the communion rail, said Jack Higgins, a St Thomas More parishioner and Chicago Sun- Times editorial cartoonist.

CONTINUED TO SAY MASS

Father McNulty who supported from lung problems later in life, was still saying mass until self-same recently, said the Rev. Charles Fanelli, pastor at St Thomas More.

In addition to his nephew, he is survived by dint of a brother, Tom.

A wake will be today from 2 to 9 pm at St Thomas More, 8100 s California. A funeral mass will be at 10 a.m. Wednesday, with burial at St Mary's graveyard

jfuller@suntimes.com

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