Fr. Walter Dalton, C.S.P., was Pastor here at St. Austin Parish (Sept. 1962-1968) and Director at the University Catholic Center (1968 -1972). He died on Aug. 6, 1994. The following remembrance is by parishioner and former School Principal, Mary Berwick.
Remembering Father Walter J. Dalton, C.S.P.
I met Fr. Walter Dalton, C.S.P. soon after I began attending St. Austin in Sept. 1970. Fr. Ed Pietrucha, the pastor then, may have introduced us. Fr. Dalton had been born into a Catholic family in Philadelphia in 1916. Ordained as a Paulist priest at the age of twenty-nine in New York City, he served in New York, Portland, Oregon, and, for four years, in South Africa, returning in the mid-1950’s to a new parish in Richardson, TX. He served as Newman Chaplain at Southern Methodist University, Texas Christian University, and other area colleges.
At our first encounter in 1970, while he was director of the University Catholic Center, he told me some of his history. What sticks in my mind, though, is something he did not mention: that he had been the St. Austin pastor from 1962 to 1968. That period included the years of the historic meeting of the world’s Catholic bishops at the Second Vatican Council (Rome 1962-65). I only learned later that he was formerly the pastor, and think the omission revealed his characteristic humility.
Father Dalton spoke to me about ecumenism and Christian unity. He told of an organization he belonged to in Austin, the Austin Area Conference of Churches (AACC). He attended meetings and represented Bishop Vincent Harris on the organization’s steering committee. With Fr. Dalton’s encouragement, I began attending AACC monthly discussions, lectures, and concerts, held in different Austin churches. I made lasting friends among what in Ireland we would call “the Protestant community.” I also became a member of the Jewish-Christian Forum of the Texas Conference of Churches. Father Dalton served on panels at annual TCC conventions.
People close to him in that time admired him for having founded Volunteers for Educational and Social Services (VESS) in 1972. His collaborator was Archie Gress, a Catholic lay man who, with his wife, had worked with the poor in rural Honduras. VESS focused on giving young, full-time volunteer professionals the opportunity to be of service to others, live simply, and develop themselves professionally and spiritually. Father Dalton’s typical volunteer recruits were recent graduates of Catholic colleges. VESS paid their expenses and gave them small stipends. Father Dalton established a VESS office at St. Edward’s University. His former volunteers say he not only enjoyed “mentoring the rookies,” he also was expert at fund-raising, knew how to build relationships, and always emphasized the young volunteers’ mission rather than selling himself.
In the early 1970’s Fr. Dalton began holding Mass in Horseshoe Bay, northwest of Austin. A substantial Catholic congregation grew up. In 1982, a church building, including a worship space called the Holy Spirit Chapel, was completed on a donated site on Thanksgiving Mountain, overlooking Lake L.B.J. At the formal dedication, an Interfaith Service of Thanksgiving and Sharing, Fr. Dalton gave the call to worship. Now known as St. Paul the Apostle Parish (a Mission of the Paulist Fathers), the church has an ecumenical library and a family life center. Among its goals is “strengthening ecumenical and interreligious relationships.”
Fr Dalton is buried in a mausoleum in Horseshoe Bay, TX.
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