O’Neill, Father John Joseph, S.S.

1996, January 26

Date of Birth – 1909, September 9

March 19, 1996

In the Sulpician Archives at Catonsville is a nine-page document entitled “The College Religion Course,” intended for the proposed union of the college departments of St. Joseph’s College at Mountain View and St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park. Dated June 1966, it gives in outline form the rationale for the program, the areas to be covered in each of the eight semesters, a bibliography, and even the relationship of the course of religion to other areas of study. It is signed by Rev. John J. O’Neill, S.S., then at the halfway point of his priestly career, an earthly life that came to an end on January 26, 1996. The document is one of many that he left behind to express the continual concern and even zeal for things spiritual and things educational that marked almost all of his eighty-six years on this earth.

John Joseph O’Neill was born in Oakland, California, on September 9, 1909, a date he always noted as 9/9/09. His parents were Thomas F. O’Neill and Bridget O’Neill (her maiden name as well as her married one). Though he was able to get his elementary education at Sacred Heart School in Oakland, his mother died when he was only eleven. His father could not cope with the loss, and John spent several years in foster homes, separated from the rest of his family. The only one he was close to was his sister Mary. After her marriage, her home in Redding, California, became the one home he knew in later life. He also had a younger brother whom he got to know only when James entered the seminary to study for the priesthood. Though his brother was ordained in 1941 and served with distinction as a priest of San Francisco, as a military chaplain, and later in the Diocese of Oakland, John suffered a great loss when his brother left priestly ministry and was married.

When in 1924 St. Joseph’s College was separated from its previous location at St. Patrick’s Seminary and opened at Mountain View, John O’Neill enrolled in the first freshman class there. He spent six years in the minor seminary under the tutelage of the new President, Father John J. Jepson, S.S., and the other pioneer members of the faculty: Fathers Francis Kunkel, Benjamin Marcetteau, Alexander Peltier, Victor Bast, Edward Aycock, and, of course, Eugene Saupin, who arrived in California when John was entering the third high class. The young seminarian would later write of those days when he did an article for the Borromean of St. Charles College on the occasion of the silver jubilee of St. Joseph’s in l 949. After graduation in June 1930 John went on to St. Patrick’s, Menlo Park. Though we do not know many details of his major seminary career, he entered just after the death of the long-time first rector, Father Henri A. Ayrinhac, S.S., and so he spent his six years at St. Patrick’s under the direction of Father John J. Lardner, S.S., who would later serve as U.S. Provincial. Among John’s fellow students was one James A. Laubacher, who was ordained priest just as John was finishing philosophy. Whatever happened between 1930 and l936, the idea of a Sulpician vocation developed along with his priestly preparation. John was ordained by Archbishop John J. Mitty on June 6, 1936, at the old St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco.

In his first assignment the new priest returned to St. Joseph’s for the year 1936-37 to teach Greek and (under the tutelage of one of his confreres) physics. After that one year he was sent to Baltimore to make his Solitude under one of his old teachers, Father Marcetteau, and the Socius, Father William Dwyer.

With the completion of his year of novitiate, the new Sulpician went back to St. Joseph’s for another four years, this time teaching science, Greek, English, and elocution and serving also as Infirmarian. During this time, he began to spend some of his summers taking courses at nearby colleges and universities, especially to fill in gaps in his knowledge of the classes he was assigned to. This prompted on the part of his superiors the question of graduate studies because he had only a bachelor’s degree from the seminary.

It wasn’t until the fall of 1942 that the Provincial Council freed Father O’Neill to come to The Catholic University of America to work for his master’s degree. Father Fenlon had asked him earlier what subject he wanted to study, whether science or English or history. In the end he chose Modern European history, and he came to Washington to live at Theological College, not in the crowded main building but in the Casa on Fourth Street. It may have been his first time on his own or the distance from where he had lived and worked, but for his first months at the University he fell into a kind of depression —perhaps a delayed reaction or trauma from his childhood losses and uprooting. Whatever it was, he seems to have recovered by the end of the semester, and he was able to pursue his courses in history as well as some allied studies to fit him for the variety of classes he had already taught or would be assigned to in the future. His master’s thesis examined the Roman Question, and he later reported that he found time in wartime Washington to go on Sundays to the White House to offer Mass there for the large number of Catholic servicemen among those assigned to guard the President. Though he never would go on for a doctorate, summer school courses to update himself in Scripture and theology would be a frequent part of his life into the late 1960s.

With an M.A. to put after his name, Father O’Neill was assigned in 1944 to St. Charles College in Catonsville. There for seven years he taught classes in Latin, history, science, and religion. Maybe it was the wide variety of subjects he taught or some other cause, but he soon got to be known for his absentmindedness. He would not infrequently go to a classroom, give back test papers or assignments, and then discover that he was in the wrong classroom. In spite of that, he became concerned about the running of the house, because he felt that the superior should work in a more collegial way. John would cite chapter and verse of the Sulpician Constitutions to bolster his viewpoint. By the same token he became very much involved in a work that was just beginning, that of putting together a syllabus in each subject that would promote more consistent results in the teaching of the various disciplines.

Before he and the different committees could make much headway, John O’Neill was transferred back to Mountain View in 1951. There for a stretch of seventeen years he taught Latin, Greek, history, religion, and social studies. Once again, his reputation for being absentminded grew and increased. He was known for coming to class, praying the Sub Tuum instead of the Veni Sancte Spiritus, and walking out as if the class had ended. Or, on at least one occasion, he borrowed a house car to go shopping, got what he wanted, and then met friends who offered to bring him back to the College. On his return he put the keys back where they belonged but unknowingly left the car at the shopping center for several days. Perhaps the most famous incident occurred when he picked up a set of car keys, went to the garage and opened the garage door, discovered that he was in the wrong car, switched to the other car next to it, and backed through the closed garage door on that side.

But there were so many things to compensate for these lapses. One of John’s special assignments was to be moderator of the house Mission Society. Here he filled a tremendous niche. On the testimony of Father Gerald Brown, S.S., a student in Father O’Neill’s time, he shared with the members of the community an enormous appreciation and love for the missions and for missionaries. His enthusiasm inspired a number to pursue a vocation to Maryknoll or one of the other missionary societies, not only among the Maryknoll minor seminarians who took their classes at St. Joseph’s but among the diocesan seminarians in the house as well. Until 1970 he never had the opportunity to visit the missions, but that summer he traveled around Guatemala with some priest companions. For long years he made sizable monetary contributions to the missions through the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. It should be noted that a June 1987 article in the Maryknoll Magazine paid tribute to the Sulpicians in general and to Father John O’Neill in particular—as another example of mission zeal dating back to the days of Father Joe Bruneau or even earlier.

Another of John’s responsibilities was to serve as faculty secretary. We have a number of examples of his painstaking care in reporting on deliberations and talks in faculty meetings; a case in point is the detailed recounting of Father McDonald’s summing up of achievements and problems during his Provincial Visitation of 1964-1965.