As 2022 starts to fade into memory, let’s highlight significant religious figures who died during the year, a useful way for reporters to contemplate where the field has been heading. For this we’ll tap the personalities chosen by religion-beat veteran Adelle M. Banks, who is currently projects editor and national reporter for Religion News Service.

But first, a point of personal privilege. December 10 was a huge moment for our oft-neglected religion beat as the Washington Association of Black Journalists gave Adelle its first Lifetime Achievement Award. Quite the honor when you consider D.C.’s journalistic talent pool! Before joining RNS 27 years ago, Adelle worked at (The Guy’s hometown) Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, Syracuse Herald-Journal (R.I.P.), Providence Journal and Orlando Sentinel.

Though Adelle has skillfully covered an amazing variety of religious groups, she has paid special attention to all-too-thinly-covered African-American faiths. She’s a worthy successor to The Guy’s late friend William A. Reed of the Nashville Tennessean, in whose honor the Religion News Association named its own Lifetime Achievement Award.

In her RNS report, Adelle paid tribute to deceased beat colleagues Richard Dujardin of the Providence daily and Cecile Holmes of the Houston Chronicle. Both were Religion News Association presidents, as was Reed. The headline on that feature: “Remembering faith leaders who died in 2022: preachers, writers and interpreters of faith.”

The hugely newsworthy death of the conservative Pope Benedict XVI, the first pope to resign in centuries, occurred on New Year’s Eve after the release of Adelle’s article. Here are the others on her list:

* Madeleine Albright, who only learned after becoming U.S. Secretary of State that her family background was Jewish, including members who died in Holocaust concentration camps.

* Anne van der Bijl, a.k.a. “Brother Andrew,” Dutch smuggler of Bibles into Communist-run European nations who founded Open Doors to help and monitor persecuted Christians worldwide.

* Stuart Briscoe, the Brit-born pastor who built Elmbrook Church in suburban Milwaukee into Wisconsin’s largest; also noted author, speaker, and radio preacher.

* Frederick Buechner, one of the generation’s most thoughtful novelists, a non-religious youth captivated by a Presbyterian sermon who attended seminary and eventually led Philips Exeter Academy’s religion department.