Fr. Antonio Moreno, OP

"Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master" (Mt 25:21).  No words could better describe the life and eternal reward of Father Antonio Moreno Elosequi, faithful servant of God.  Born the fifth of nine children into a well-to-do family on March 1, 1918, Tony spent his first sixteen years going to school and playing soccer and field hockey in San Sebastian.  He received a very Catholic upbringing from his Basque mother whom he called a good Christian, and his Madrileno father, whom he called, simply, "a saint."  At 16, he entered the University of Madrid, where he studied architecture for two years and helped his field hockey team win the Madrid championship; at 18 he joined Franco's royalist forces during the Spanish Civil War, and eventually became captain of a hundred men.

After the war, Tony studied architecture for four years and, in 1944, joined the Province of Spain of the Dominican Order.  After his first vows in August of 1945, he was allowed to go back to the University of Madrid and finish his degree in architecture.  At Las Caldas, near Santander, he drew up the architectural plans for a new wing of the Dominican House of Formation in which he was then living.  With just a hint of justifiable pride he informed me that the wing still stands.  For the rest of the 1940's he studied philosophy at Santander and theology at Salamanca, where he was taught by the teacher for whom he had the greatest admiration, Fr. Santiago Ramirez, O.P.

In July of 1951, at the age of 33, he was ordained a priest.  He was then sent to Dubuque, Iowa, where he took two years to complete his studies in theology at the General Studium of the Central Province.

Tony prepared himself for a career in the philosophy of science by earning a Master of Science degree in physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1958. From the very beginning, Tony fell in love with the United States, with the land's beauty, and the people's way of life.  His appreciation grew the summer he drove west from Dubuque over the Rockies and Sierras to Oakland, where he lived at St. Albert's Priory while attending Cal.  Once during his westward exodus he was so smitten with the allure of a particularly high pass in the Rockies that, after gaining the summit he retraced his path back down, just so he could climb the road again in his trusty Volkswagen Bug for the sheer joy of it.  He transfiliated to the Western Province in the late 1970's.  Antonio was a scholar, the genuine, bona fide article: dedicated, disciplined, studious, industrious, tireless, stubborn and one of the most prolific writers of the Western Province.  He spent hours each day reading, taking notes, thinking, writing, revising, retyping.  For years he rewarded himself daily with an II P.M. bowl of ice cream and the nightly news.  His bibliography comprises one book, Jung, Gods and Modern Man, and some 55 articles in Spanish and English.  His favorite subjects are number theory, metaphysics, the philosophy of science, evolution, Jungian aspects of depth psychology, and the writings of the Carmelite mystics.  The piece he was most proud of, because he considered it his most original contribution to the philosophy of science, was an article entitled "The Calculus and Infinitesimals: A Philosophical Evaluation," in which he analyzes the nature of the calculus from the standpoint of Aristotle's theory of the continuum. Almost to the end of his illness he was still working on a book about evolution and only ceased his labors when he no longer had the energy it takes for the total dedication a book demands.  The great soul of the scholar was willing, but his flesh had become too weak.  His final offering to God, made in humility and peace, was his very life's work as a scholar and writer.  In public testimony to his long years of labor in the scholarly realm, the Dominican Order awarded him its highest honor for the teacher and scholar, the Master of Sacred Theology.

Tony's saving grace was his remarkable humility and modesty. He was not an arrogant man at all.  He would readily admit any errors, once he realized he was wrong.  Moreover, even with all his published writings, he told me he had made only a modest contribution to philosophy.  Once, alluding to Teresa of Avila's spiritual classic, The Interior Castle, he told some of us that he was still swimming around in the moat outside the castle.  He's inside now.

Tony was filled with devotion for the guardian angels: he always mentioned them in the Eucharistic prayer and drew their whimsical, haloed stick figures as adornments for his papers and letters.  And his guardian angel was worthy of his devotion, if for no more than preserving him from car accidents over the years.  Let us pray for our brother Tony, who will return the favor when he enters God's Beauty: "May the angels of God lead you into paradise."

- Fr. Gregory Rocca, O.P.

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