Wagner, Father Edward
1964, March 30
Date of Birth: 1902, July 29
Edward Wagner was born in San Francisco, California, on July 29, 1902. From 1908 to 1920 he attended parochial schools in his native city. In 1920 he entered the college department of St. Patrick’s Seminary in San Francisco and advanced to the major seminary department in 1923. He was ordained for the Archdiocese of San Francisco on June 18, 1927. For the first year of his priesthood he was an assistant at St. Bernard’s and at St. Joseph’s parishes in San Francisco. In 1928 he became a Sulpician candidate and was assigned to St. Joseph’s College in Mountain View, California. He came east the next year and spent 1929-1930 in the Solitude at Catonsville, Maryland. From 1930 to 1932 he studied at the Angelicum in Rome where he was awarded his S.T.D.
In 1932 he was again a teacher at St. Joseph’s College, and in 1934 he was assigned to teach Moral Theology at the Sulpician Seminary (now Theological College) at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. In 1936, Father Wagner succeeded Father Ouvrard in the chair of Dogmatic Theology at St. Patrick’s Seminary. At the same time, he became Superior of Philosophy at St. Patrick’s Seminary. In 1957 he succeeded Father Mulligan as Superior of St. Patrick’s. In 1963 it became evident that Father Wagner was dying of cancer, to which he succumbed on March 30, 1964.
Adapted from Father Wagner’s “Personal Data” sheet and from his eulogy supplied from his personal file by Father John Bowen.