Interview with Walter J. Bado, April 15, 1996

Interview Summary

Father Walter J. Bado, SJ, was born in Chicago, Illinois on December 6, 1928. This year (1996) marks his fiftieth year as a member of the Jesuit order. He says discusses the religious history of the area at great length. He recalls that both of his parents were raised in the same mountain village in central Slovakia, immigrated to America, and met again as adults and married in 1928. His father was a meat cutter and a member of the Slovak Socialist Party. His mother was a homemaker, worked outside the home as well, and was the mother of two children, himself and his sister, Irene. He says that, for his family, being a Catholic was as much a way of life as a religion and emphasizes to the interviewer that this background illustrates how his upbringing probably influenced his choice of vocation and affected his family, particularly his sister.

Bado attended the Slovak Sacred Heart parish in Chicago through high school and won a scholarship to attend St. Ignatius, a Jesuit College Prep school, also in Chicago. Bado decided to enter the Jesuit seminary in Milford, Ohio in 1946. He talks at great length about the history as well as the educational and spiritual life of the Jesuit order and describes the daily routine of the seminary. Bado says he received his A.B. after completing four years at Milford and his M.A. in Philosophy after three years (1950-1953) from West Baden College in Ohio (part of Loyola University of Chicago). He taught at St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland, Ohio for three years while working on his doctoral thesis. He was sent to Frankfurt, Germany from 1956-1960, for advanced theological studies and was ordained to the priesthood in the third year. Bado speaks Slovak, English, French, and German; he reads Spanish, Italian, Greek, and Latin. In 1960, he was sent to Belgium for a final year of intensive study in spirituality and completed an additional course of special study at the University of Bonn from 1961-1965.

During this time, the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council (1962-1965) was in session, and the Jesuit order started shifting away from a monastic style to more open style of living, so the West Baden facility was moved to North Aurora, Ohio. Bado taught Philosophy at this facility from 1965-1967 and says he continued post-graduate studies in Germany and France from 1967-1971. Bado was assigned to teach Philosophy at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio from 1971-1981. He was assigned to the Catholic Newman Center, in Lexington, Kentucky in 1981.

Interview LC Subject

Bado, Walter J., 1928- Bado, Walter J., 1928- --Interviews Catholicism University of Kentucky University of Kentucky--History

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