Dr. James Patrick, RIP

Please pray for the repose of the soul of Dr. James Patrick, a champion of the Catholic intellectual tradition and friend of Thomas Aquinas College, who passed away Sunday night after receiving the last rites.

As the founder of the erstwhile College of St. Thomas More in Fort Worth, Texas (CSTM), Dr. Patrick was a teacher, mentor, and onetime colleague of two members of the TAC teaching faculty, Dr. Stephen Shivone in New England and Dr. Travis Cooper in California. “He was a great man and a great teacher,” says Dr. Shivone. “I, and many others, owe him more than I can say.”

A former Episcopal priest and a convert to the Catholic Church, Dr. James earned his doctorate in theology from Trinity College in Toronto. He taught and served in various capacities at the University of Tennessee and the University of Dallas before founding CSTM in 1981, taking Oxford as one of its models. A learned theologian and accomplished architect, he designed and oversaw the construction of the CSTM chapel. His published works include Architecture in Tennessee: 1768–1897, The Magdalen Metaphysicals: Idealism and Orthodoxy at Oxford, 1900–1945, and The Beginning of Collegiate Education West of the Appalachians.

“He was a man of great learning whose love for learning was a part of his great love for Christ and His church,” says Dr. Cooper. “He had an astonishing ability to show his students, by word and example, the wonderful adventure that is the life of learning and, in particular, the beauty and splendor of truth for and in life, for he never ceased to remind us that truth is a person — Jesus Christ.”

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord
and let perpetual light shine upon him.
May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace.
Amen.