Rev. Thomas L. Campbell, C.S.C., 90, died Tuesday (Aug. 28, 2012) at St. Joseph Regional Medical Center, South Bend, Ind.
He was born on Nov. 21, 1921, in Salem, Mass., to Thomas and Delia (Labbe) Campbell. Fr. Campbell attended old St. Mary’s Parish School and graduated as valedictorian of his St. Mary’s Boys High School class in Lynn, Mass., in 1939. He entered Our Lady of Holy Cross Seminary for two years of intense study with 19 other young men in North Easton, Mass., the next fall. He was approved for the Novitiate at North Dartmouth, Mass., in August, 1941. Fr. Campbell professed First Vows on Aug. 16, 1942.
He earned his philosophy degree in June 1944 from the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Ind.; took Final Vows on June 9, 1946, and was ordained a priest on June 2, 1948, by Archbishop O’Boyle.
Fr. Campbell’s first assignment as a priest was with the Easton Mission Band in Massachusetts. He also served on weekends at a Catholic Parish on Cape Cod. He earned a Certificate in Christian Origins from the Insitut Catholique de Paris in 1949, where he also developed expertise in French. He earned both licentiate and doctoral degrees in sacred theology from the Catholic University of America, while simultaneously serving as an Instructor in Philosophy and Theology at fledgling Stonehill College between 1951 and 1956. From 1953 to 1956, Fr. Campbell also served as Assistant Superior of St. Pius X Seminary at North Easton.
Fr. Campbell moved to King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., in 1956, where he served as Instructor, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, full Professor and eventually Chairman of the Theology Department, a post in which he served from 1957 to 1966. In 1968, Fr. Campbell took a sabbatical fellowship at the University of Southern California, where he studied Asian religions. He lived at the old Cathedral rectory in the slums of Los Angeles.
In 1971, he served as a Visiting Scholar at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He also served as Instructor for Catechists for the Diocese of Scranton, Pa.
For 15 years, he assisted in a parish on Park Avenue and at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York and spent an additional four years at St. Ann’s Church in North Bronx, N.Y. After 31 years of teaching, Fr. Campbell began to serve full-time at parishes in the Diocese of Fall River, Mass. He lived for many years in the Holy Cross Community at Stonehill. Fr. Campbell moved to Holy Cross House at Notre Dame in 2011.
Fr. Campbell is survived by his nieces and nephews, Patricia (Campbell) and Richard Plante of Salem; Thomas and Carol Campbell of Danvers, Mass.; Ellen (Campbell) Ingram of Peachtree, Ga.; Kevin and Lisa Campbell of Danvers; 10 grandnephews and grandnieces; and eight great-grandnephews and great-grandnieces. Fr. Campbell was preceded in death by his parents; a brother, Robert J.; a sister, Ellen (Campbell) Lynah; and a nephew, Thomas Lynah.
There were a visitation and wake at Holy Cross House Wednesday (Aug. 29, 2012). There was a second visitation and wake service on Friday (Aug. 31, 2012) at St. Joseph Chapel on the campus of Stonehill College, Easton, Mass. The funeral Mass was Saturday (Sept. 1, 2012) at the Chapel of Mary at Stonehill College.
