Obituary: Fr. James A. O’Donohoe, 88; Taught Theology
By
A funeral Mass for Rev. James A. O’Donohoe, who taught moral theology and ethics at Boston College, was celebrated Monday at St. Brigid Church in Lexington. Fr. O’Donohoe died on Oct. 27 at age 88.Fr. O’Donohoe was a full-time member of the Theology faculty from 1978 until 1991 and continued to teach at BC on a part-time basis until 1999; he also taught for 25 years at St. John’s Seminary in Brighton.
A native of Brookline, Fr. O’Donohoe graduated from Boston College in 1943. “When I was a student at Boston College I thought of joining the Jesuits,” Fr. O’Donohoe told The Pilot when he retired from teaching in 1999. “But I did want to be a parish priest; not a teacher. And so I joined the diocesan priesthood.”
After ordination in 1947, and receiving a doctorate in moral theology and canon law from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, he was sent back to the seminary to teach. “You can never tell where the Holy Spirit will lead you,” Fr. O’Donohoe said at the time of his retirement.
In addition to his classroom duties, Fr. O’Donohoe served in St. Joseph’s parish in Medway and Sacred Heart in Lexington, as well as on numerous medical ethics committees at Catholic and lay hospitals in the greater Boston area. He also was a member of the Archdiocesan Marriage Tribunal.
Burial was in St. Joseph’s Cemetery in West Roxbury.