Father George Bernard, C.S.C.
Campus Legend
& Theology Professor

Born in Springfield, Illinois, some years ago. Blessed Sacrament Parish, Cathedral High, Notre Dame, “and I was thinking idly about being a diocesan priest, but I got to know all the Holy Cross seminarians, and I joined up in 1942. Ordained in 1949, earned my doctorate, taught theology and was a hall rector at Notre Dame, and eventually they made me a vice president, and then president of Holy Cross seminary in Washington, D.C. In 1968 the seminary was moved back to Notre Dame and I got a few months off. I ended up living in a Benedictine abbey in Illinois, this was Saint Bede’s, where I taught theology, worked on cars, cut the grass, you name it. That was a great time. The abbot finally invited me to join up, but I said no thanks, I’m a Holy Cross man, time for me to go home. That’s how I got to the University of Portland.

“I was invited to come teach theology on The Bluff, for $10,000 a year, and I said sure, on one condition, that I not be sentenced to administration, I was weary of administration, and I got a letter absolutely guaranteeing that, and a year later they made me chairman and then academic vice president. I sure liked to teach, though — moral theology mostly, modern moral problems, theology of sin. I don’t miss grading and reading term papers, but I do very much miss having students.

“Why did I become a priest? That’s what God wants me to do. Been a priest almost sixty years now. I help out in parishes in the city and in Stevenson, Washington, up the river. Masses, funerals, weddings, baptisms. One thing I have learned in sixty years is how to deliver a sermon: have something to say, say it simply, and sit down. Shortest sermon I ever gave? I was in Washington, D.C., one time, middle of summer, it was incredibly hot and humid, and I got up and said You think this is hot, imagine how hot it will be if you don’t change your ways, and sat down. I hope I have given more inspiring and memorable sermons, but I don’t think I can top that for brevity...”