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William O'Brien Pardow was an American clergyman and educator.
Background
William O'Brien Pardow was born on June 13, 1847 in New York City, New York, United States. He was the son of Robert and Augusta Garnett (O'Brien) Pardow. His paternal grandfather, George Pardow, was of an old Lancashire family and came to New York in 1772. His maternal grandfather was William O'Brien, an heir of the Earl of Inchiquin, who as a United Irishman was forced into exile, and coming to New York in 1800 established a successful banking business with his brother John. As good Irish rebels, the O'Briens refused the New York agency of the Bank of England, thus sacrificing financial reward for an impractical ideal. On both sides, there was a deep Catholic tradition which persecution had enlivened.
Education
William O'Brien Pardow was educated in St. Peter's school and in the College of St. Francis Xavier, New York, from which he was graduated in 1864 with the expectation of entering the banking house.
Career
Refused as a volunteer on account of his youth, William O'Brien Pardow sorrowfully faced separation from his brother, Robert, who joined a New York regiment and who, incidentally, on the death of his wife joined the Society of Jesus, which he served loyally until his death in 1884 from a contagious disease contracted while attending a hospital on Blackwell's Island. William was inspired with a longing for a religious life and finally made up his mind to become a Jesuit. Two sisters, later known as Mother Augusta and Mother Pauline, soon took vows as nuns of the Society of the Sacred Heart, in which they became mothers superior in Manhattanville and Philadelphia. A novice at Sault-au-Recollet, near Montreal, in 1865, William was influenced permanently by his militant master, James Perron, S. J. , an aristocrat and ex-officer of the French army.
On September 1, 1866, he entered the juniorate in Quebec, from which he was advanced to Fordham, New York, for philosophy, and to Woodstock, Maryland, for theology (1869 - 1871). In the latter year he was assigned as a teacher of Latin and Greek at the College of St. Francis Xavier, New York, prior to a four years' course in theology at Laval, France, where, in the meantime, he was ordained a priest (September 9, 1877). As a result of the law excluding Jesuits from France, his tertianship at Paray-le-Monial was interrupted when the retreat-villa was seized at the point of the bayonet. Recalled to the United States, he became in 1880 professor at the college of St. Francis Xavier, socius to the provincial (1884), instructor of tertians at Frederick, Maryland (1888), and rector of St. Francis Xavier's (1891). In 1893 he was awarded the provincialship of the New York-Maryland province, in which position he served until 1897.
Under his administration the spiritual care of Catholics in Jamaica was transferred from England to the United States. Becoming again a humble member of the Society, he was a teacher at Gonzaga College, Washington (1897 - 1901), pastor of St. Ignatius Church, New York (1901 - 1903), master of tertians at St. Andrew-on-the-Hudson (1903 - 1906). In the latter year he was a delegate to a general congregation in Rome for the election of the general of the order and associated with the Church of Ges in Philadelphia. In 1907 he became pastor of the Church of St. Ignatius, New York. His request for missionary service in China (1900) and his offer to go to Tokyo when the Jesuits opened their Japanese University did not meet with the approval of superiors. He was ill, but struggling on to complete a mission, he fell a victim to pneumonia on January 23, 1909 and was buried in the characteristic pine box, a final lesson in humility to the crowds, who viewed his remains and attended his requiem mass.
Achievements
William Pardow was widely known as a clergyman. Constant appeals came to him to preach in numerous cities, to give retreats for religious and diocesan priests, to deliver missions to non-Catholics, and to explain the church's attitude on marriage, education, divorce, and authority.
