Reverend Patrick C. Walsh, C.S.C.
I was born on March 13, 1930 in Portland, Maine. We lived in a section known as Libby Town, which was one of the Irish sections of Portland. We took pride in the fact that our parish church was St. Patrick. My parents came from Ireland in their late teens and the day after my father arrived he started working on the Maine Central Railroad where he would work for over fifty years. My mother did domestic work prior to her marriage. I was ninth of ten children, three of whom died within a year or two of their birth. I spent my early days in the public schools of our area. When my older brother decided that he would attend Cheverus Jesuit High School, my younger brother and I were transferred to St. Patrick's grade school without consultation!
I was to attend Cheverus for two years and after my sophomore year, to the chagrin of my parents, I decided to become a Brother of Holy Postulate at Valatie, New York. I would be there for nine months and then in August, I would travel to Rolling Prairie, Indiana to enter St. Joseph’s Novitiate. We were a class of fifty-two men. After Novitiate I went to the University of Notre Dame to begin my collegiate studies. These years of formation and studies were times of excitement and challenge. It was a time when I was to meet so many Holy Cross religious and would begin to appreciate the very special charisma which made living as a Holy Cross religious so rewarding and rich.
My first teaching assignment was Notre Dame High School in West Haven, Connecticut. It was a high school that had been founded ten years before and had an enrollment of five hundred young men. I spent one year there and then sixteen years later returned as Principal. The school then had an enrollment of eleven hundred students. After my first year I would travel to Albany, New York where I was assigned to Vincentian Institute, which is a co-educational high school of over thirteen hundred students that was staffed by the Sisters of Mercy and the Holy Cross Brothers.
During my ten years there, I would discover that I had a natural aptitude for administration and would begin to divide my time between teaching and administration. Both roles gave me much satisfaction and happiness. My next assignment would be to Bishop Hendricken High School in Warwick, Rhode Island. I would spend six years there as Assistant Principal, Director of Studies, along some teaching assignments. I would then return to Notre Dame High School in West Haven as Principal, a position I would hold for nine years. At the end of my term, I was assigned to Notre Dame International School in Rome, Italy, and I would be there for three years. Italy was a beautiful country and I had the opportunity of doing a lot of traveling and sight seeing. To live in Rome was a very special experience. I was there for the death of Pope Paul VI, the death of Pope John I, and the election of Pope John Paul II. The excitement and joy of those days cannot be fully described.
At the end of my tenure in Rome, I would travel to Toronto, Ontario to begin my theology studies for Priesthood. The change was difficult and painful. But I found the Holy Cross Religious of the English Canadian Province very helpful and supportive. In short time, I felt at home and found the theology studies challenging and interesting. I was ordained to the Priesthood in 1981 by Bishop James McDonald, C.S.C., and began my journey as member of the English Canadian Province. In a short time, I was named Pastor of St. Anne's Parish in Toronto, and after that I would return to the United States to work in Holy Brothers' High School in Forestville, Maryland. After that I began my ten months of parish ministry in Bennington, Vermont. For the past ten years, I have been at Most Holy Trinity Parish in Saco, Maine. I returned to Maine fifty years after I left at the age of sixteen. At that time in my life being at Most Holy Trinity was a blessing for me.
I have been a Holy Cross Religious for fifty-seven years. They have been years of happiness, enrichment, and challenge. I am grateful for the many wonderful Holy Cross Religious with whom I have ministered. To those with whom I have had the privilege of ministering, I am grateful and humbled. God's grace has been abundant and loving.