 Fr.
Kevin Albert Wall, OP
Father Kevin Albert Wall died on November 14, 1988. He
was born of Albert and Bridget Wall in Holdfast in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada,
but was early brought to San Francisco where he attended St. Dominic’s grade school
and St. Ignatius High.
As a postulant for the
Order he was two years at St. Mary’s College, Moraga, prior to entering the novitiate
in Kentfield. He began his priestly studies at
St. Albert’s and completed them at the Dominican
House of Studies in Ottawa, Canada.
After his
ordination he was sent to the Angelicum, Rome, where in 1949 he received his lectorate and
licentiate in theology. From 1949 till 1959 he
taught philosophy and theology first at St. Albert’s and then at Mt. St. Mary’s,
Los Angeles. During these years he also served
as Master of Lay Brothers and Director of the Third Order.
In
1959 he was sent to Fribourg, Switzerland, where in 1961 he received his Doctorate in
Philosophy. He returned to St. Albert’s
the same year and from then till his death he taught at the House of Studies and for a
time served as its Pro-Vice Regent. It was
during this period that together with his brother, Antoninus Wall, he pioneered the
foundation of the Berkeley Priory, the establishment of our
Dominican School of Philosophy
and Theology on the fringe of the University of California campus, and its entrance into
the Graduate Theological Union, the first of the west coast Catholic seminaries to become
part of this now internationally respected ecumenical institution.
Kevin was a scholar of great depth and breadth. His interests embraced not just philosophy and
theology, his specialties, but music, art, literature, and science as well. But, in the way of a true and dedicated Dominican,
his chief grace lay in the communication of what he knew and loved. He was an inspired and inspiring teacher.
Many of his students look back on him as one who
awakened them to the beauty and power of mind, the seriousness yet lightheartedness of the
Dominican dedication to Truth. In class or out
of it he could easily engage one in the most complex and abstruse of questions or topics
and as easily turn the whole affair into rollicking laughter. One might say that it was precisely because of the
depth and breadth of this vision that his humor was so pervasive and contagious. “He is not unhappy who can see far
enough.” Emerson’s understatement
here would have pleased Kevin, and he’d say amen to it. He died as he would have wanted to: quietly and
without fuss in his room at the Berkeley Priory and Dominican School, to which he had
dedicated the best of his life and love.
--Father Fabian
Parmisano, O.P. |
