Fr. Bill O’Donnell

January 2,1930 – December 8, 2003

On December 8th of this year I lost a long time and dear friend; our Church and community lost a larger than life character and controversial hero. Newspaper reports described him as “the saint of the labor movement” and “the conscience of Berkeley”. Bill would have quickly laughed off any such praise, but he spent most of his life challenging us and standing up for causes when most people looked the other way. His close friend Martin Sheen of “West Wing” fame once said of him, “Bill is one of the scariest people I know because he makes us tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, all the time. He takes the cup as it is offered, not altered.” His 225 arrests for civil disobedience around issues of human rights, peace, nuclear disarmament, union causes, farm workers rights and the School of the Americas are strong evidence of that. He saw the sacred in the downtrodden and never tired of fighting for their rights.

For all of his commitment to non-violence, deep down I think Bill always loved a good fight. He had both a talent and a zest for disturbing us. At priests’ convocations and study days, the one thing you could always count on was a challenge from the floor from Bill O’Donnell, “holy heckler” that he loved to be.

One of my fondest memories of Bill is spending much of a day last January, along with Fr. Brian Timoney and Gwen Watson, in the visiting room with him at Atwater Federal Penitentiary. At age 73 Bill spent six months in that high security federal prison in Merced for trespassing in protest of The School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia. The School stands accused of training secret police and military of Latin America in both tactics and torture. Bill had after a few weeks in prison, already formed Bible study sessions and discussion groups on non-violence; he also told me that he was hearing more confessions in prison than he ever had at the parish.

I was at his welcome home celebration in March where a standing room only Church sang, “O where have you been Billy Boy, Billy Boy, O where have you been charming Billy?” At his first mass after his release (he was forbidden to celebrate mass in prison or as the warden said “don’t do any of that religious stuff”), he urged parishioners not to shrug at injustice and say “what’s the use”. “The opposite of faith”, he said, “is not doubt, but fatalism”.

A week after his release he was arrested (but not jailed) for protesting the war in Iraq. Just a few weeks ago he was at Fort Benning, along with 10,000 others, to once again protest the School of the Americas.

Along the way Bill also found time to serve as pastor of St. Joseph the Worker from 1973 to 1995, to co-found the San Carlos Foundation which brings aid to villages of Central America, and to work closely and first hand at “Options Recovering Services” – with hardcore alcoholics and drug addicts who are often homeless and suffering from mental illness. At his own request Bill was buried in a plain wooden coffin in a paupers’ grave.

For me Bill was always inspiration, challenge and supportive friend. We also laughed a lot together. He is greatly missed.

Fr. Joyce