Fr. Antoninus Hall, OP

When Fr. Antoninus Hall died at the untimely age of 53 just days before the convening of the XVII Provincial Chapter, our Province lost a gifted intellect, a devoted scholar and a delightful personality.

Born of Protestant stock in Placentia, California, on November 18, 1927, the youngest of five siblings, Fr. Hall was raised on an orange ranch near Fullerton.  He graduated from Fullerton High School and enrolled at St. Mary's College in Moraga where he was the roommate of the young student, John (later Fr. Hilary) Martin.  At St. Mary's, he was drawn to the faith and requested instruction, and was received into the Church by the college chaplain, Fr. Moss with John Martin as his godfather.  Joining the Army after his second year of college, he spent some time in Tokyo, where he decided to apply to the Order.

Upon his return to the States, he attended St. Martin's Abbey College in Lacey, Washington, as a postulant for the Province.  He entered the Order at Kentfield on August 10, 1951, and made his profession on August 28 of the following year.  As a philosophy student at St. Albert's, Br. Antoninus demonstrated a remarkable facility for speculative thought and a creative ability in artistic design.  A natural clown, he delighted his brothers with his antics and genuine good humor.  Volunteering to be an exchange student with the Province of Germany, Antoninus was sent, after solemn profession, to the studium at Walberberg, a house he would remember with great fondness for the remainder of his life.  To this day, he is recalled as a chief protagonist in what our German confreres have come to call the "American Legend" at Walberberg.  It was there that Antoninus came to develop an affinity with things Spanish, and he cultivated the friendship and esteem of the Spanish students who were doing their philosophy at the German studium.  Together with his classmate, Fr. Albert Gerald Buckley, and with 10 German brethren and 12 diocesan seminarians, Fr. Hall was ordained a priest amidst the splendors of Cologne Cathedral on July 25, 1957 (significantly the feast of Santiago, patron of Spain) by the late Cardinal Josef Frings.

Thereafter, Fr. Hall transferred to the Angelicum in Rome, where he completed his studies and earned a licentiate.  While in Rome, his health was not robust and he began to develop symptoms of the diabetes which would eventually prove fatal.

Upon his return to the Province in 1959, Fr. Hall joined the community of St. Peter Martyr Priory in Los Angeles and taught theology at Mount St. Mary's College. Three years later, he was assigned to St. Albert's and taught at his alma mater, St. Mary's College.  During this period he developed a keen interest in translating the works of the late Spanish theologian Fr. Marin-Sola.  Having obtained the proper contracts, he gave over a great deal of his time to this task.  One remembers him sipping at his mug of hot black tea as he pored over the manuscripts on his desk.

The clown in him, nevertheless, lived on.  The venerable corridors at St. Albert's would reverberate every afternoon as he roared with laughter over his favorite T.V. program, "McHale's Navy."  When the Berkeley Priory project was launched, Fr. Hall was numbered among the charter members.  But feeling that he could better carry out his translating work in Spain, he obtained permission to transfer to Oviedo, where he spent the years remaining to him in serious scholarship and in delighting young Spaniards with the intricacies of the English language.

Nothing, however, could stop the progress of his old illness.  The Lord called this man of great faith and merry humor to Himself, rather unexpectedly, at our convent in Salamanca on June 16, 1981.  His remains were returned to the Province, and after a Funeral Mass in St. Albert's chapel, he rests among our brothers in Benicia.

--Fr. Albert Buckley, O.P.

XII: 369