Father Chris Ponnet lived a priesthood of rare grace, courage, and moral conviction. For more than four decades, he devoted his life to those most in need of accompaniment: the suffering, the forgotten, the grieving, and those whom society had cast beyond its circle of care. Ordained in 1983, he became a beloved pastor, chaplain, teacher, and public witness whose ministry radiated compassion without sentimentality and conviction without judgment.

For the last three decades of his life, Father Chris served as pastor of the St. Camillus Center for Spiritual Care in Los Angeles. He also led the Department of Spiritual Care at Los Angeles County + USC Medical Center, where he guided an interfaith team of chaplains ministering at one of California’s largest public hospitals. There, in corridors marked by illness, trauma, fear, and loss, he offered what he offered everywhere: steady presence, deep humanity, and the kind of spiritual care that restores dignity even in life’s hardest hours.

But Father Chris’s witness extended far beyond the hospital and the parish. He stood with those on the margins and brought the Church’s conscience into urgent public spaces. He was deeply engaged in ministries serving people living with HIV/AIDS, active in interfaith justice work, and a trusted bridge-builder across communities. Again and again, he chose presence over distance, solidarity over comfort, and mercy over abstraction.

That same fidelity shaped his commitment to ending the death penalty. As a board member of Death Penalty Focus, and as a Catholic abolitionist leader in Southern California, Father Chris gave powerful witness to the belief that every human life possesses inherent worth, and that justice is never served by killing. He brought to the abolitionist cause not only his voice, but his credibility, his faith, and his unwavering moral seriousness.

Father Chris died on October 7, 2025, at age 68. Tonight, we honor him with gratitude and reverence: for his priesthood, for his friendship, for his fearless compassion, and for a life that enlarged the meaning of mercy. His legacy endures in every life he comforted, every conscience he stirred, and every act of justice he helped set in motion.