America's Largest Catholic Newspaper
Father Harold F.X. O’Donnell, S.J., who served for 26 years as a chaplain at Coler and Goldwater hospitals (now Coler-Goldwater Memorial Hospital) on Roosevelt Island, died Aug. 20 at Murray-Weigel Hall, the Jesuit infirmary in the Bronx. He was 79.
While serving at the hospitals, he resided in Manhattan at Nativity parish from 1983 to 1989 and at the Xavier Jesuit Community from 1989 until 2009.
He then moved to Murray-Weigel Hall, the Jesuit infirmary in the Bronx, where he often visited fellow residents, especially those near death.
Previously he did parish work on Long Island, 1975-1983, and taught Latin at St. Peter’s Prep in Jersey City, 1957-1960 and 1965-1975.
Born in Brooklyn, he entered the Jesuits in Poughkeepsie in 1950 and professed vows in 1952. He studied at Bellarmine College in Plattsburgh, Loyola Seminary in Shrub Oak and Woodstock College in Maryland. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1964 at Fordham University Church.
A Funeral Mass was celebrated Aug. 23 in the chapel at Murray-Weigel Hall. Burial was at the Jesuit Cemetery in Auriesville.
