A memorial Mass for Jesuit Father Garth Lie Hallett was celebrated July 6 at St. Francis Xavier “College” Church. Father Hallett a distinguished scholar and professor, died June 24 n St. Louis. He was 94 years old, a Jesuit for 75 years and a priest for 62 years.
Garth Hallett was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 15, 1927, to George H. Hallett, Jr., and Mary Lie Hallett. He grew up in Santa Barbara, California, where he was baptized while a student at Santa Barbara Catholic. He served in the U.S. Navy after high school from 1945-46. On Sept. 7, 1946, he entered the Jesuit novitiate at St. Charles College in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, where he pronounced first vows on Sept. 8, 1948. He was ordained a priest on Aug. 6, 1959, in Brussels, Belgium.
Father Hallett taught at Jesuit High School in New Orleans from 1953-56, and taught philosophy at Loyola University in New Orleans, 1961-62. In 1962 he was missioned back to studies at the Gregorian University in Rome, where he would earn his doctorate in philosophy in 1964. While in Rome, he pronounced his final vows in the Church of the Gesù on Feb. 2, 1964.
Father Hallett began a distinguished career as professor, scholar and author. From 1964-70, he taught at Spring Hill College and/or the Jesuit House of Studies on the Spring Hill campus. He was dean of the House of Studies faculty from 1965-68 and the chairman of the Spring Hill College Philosophy Department from 1968-70. From 1970-79, he was an associate professor of philosophy at the Gregorian University.
He was an associate professor at the University of Detroit, 1979-85, a visiting professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati, 1982-83, and then a professor at Saint Louis University from 1985-2009. At SLU he was also dean of the College of Philosophy and Letters for much of the time, assisting young Jesuits in their academic program.
He had a year’s sabbatical at Loyola University in Chicago and at Marquette University from 2010-11 and one year of teaching at St. John’s College in Belize from 2012-13, but for the remainder of those years he was a writer in residence at Jesuit Hall in St. Louis.
Father Hallett had a major influence on the Society of Jesus’ philosophy programs at Spring Hill College, the University of Detroit-Mercy and Saint Louis University.
In addition to his doctorate, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in history at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, and Licentiate in Sacred Theology at the College St. Albert de Louvain in Belgium.
Father Hallett donated his body to science.
