America's Largest Catholic Newspaper
Sister Mary T. Clark, R.S.C.J., one of the world’s foremost scholars on St. Augustine, died Sept. 1 at Teresian House in Albany. She was 100.
She taught at Manhattanville College for more than three decades, beginning her career there in 1951. After 33 years of teaching philosophy, 12 as department chairman, she retired and became professor emerita.
Her research and writing were primarily on St. Augustine, Neoplatonic philosophy and St. Thomas Aquinas. The college named an endowed chair in her honor, the Mary T. Clark, R.S.C.J., Chair of Christian Philosophy. She was the first to hold the chair.
She served as a visiting professor at St. John Neumann Seminary for more than 20 years. She also taught as a visiting professor at Fordham University, Villanova University, Fairfield University and Marquette University and the University of San Francisco.
She was a member and past president of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, which awarded her the Aquinas Medal for Eminence in Philosophy in 1988. She held honorary degrees from Manhattanville and Villanova University. She also received Manhattanville’s Distinguished Alumni Award, was named Outstanding Educator of America in 1971 and the Interracial Justice Award in 1967.
She taught middle school and high school at Kenwood Convent of the Sacred Heart in Albany, 1942-1945, and 1947-1949. She served in a similar capacity at her alma mater, Overbrook School of the Sacred Heart, Philadelphia, 1945-1947. She also taught at Convent of the Sacred Heart, Manhattan, 1952-1953, and at the Sacred Heart school in Rochester, 1949-1951.
Born in Philadelphia, she entered the Society of the Sacred Heart in 1939 and made final vows in Rome in 1947. She earned her bachelor’s degree in philosophy at Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart and her doctorate from Fordham University. She also did a post-doctoral fellowship at Yale University. She was a prolific author and editor, publishing numerous articles and nine books.
A Funeral Mass was offered Sept. 6 in the chapel at Teresian House. Burial was at the Society of the Sacred Heart cemetery at Kenwood.
